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> The whole technical debt discussion often makes me wonder if there's a fundamental distrust (or even disrespect) of software engineers as domain experts. Yea
by overgard 7y ago
> The whole technical debt discussion often makes me wonder if there's a fundamental distrust (or even disrespect) of software engineers as domain experts.
Yeah.
I think, sadly, this is mostly on software developers though. Look at all the pop culture stereotypes of programmers: whether those stereotypes are true or not, that is what culture thinks of us. Would you take seriously what a big-bang theory character would say? The problem is, I don't see most software engineers valuing social skills to better relate to other professions. Instead, there's a lot of whining about being misunderstood. And we are misunderstood! But man we're not helping it at all.
- pm90 7y agoContrary to most stereotypes, most adult software engineers are fairly well functioning adults. They may not be the best at public speaking or other social skills, but they're not mostly like characters from the Big Bang Theory.
- overgard 7y agoI agree, but if the split is 90% well functioning, and 10% people with the manners of RMS/Torvalds, well, people are going to notice those 10%. Stereotypes obviously don't need to be real to shape things. My concern more is that our industry needs to stick up for itself and act like professionals, instead of intentionally marginalizing itself and then acting indignant about it. I don't even think that 10% really needs to change. We need the RMS' and Torvalds of the world. But we also need to, individually, act better than they do and advocate for ourselves as adults. I constantly see coders deriding any decision that places the business over their own individual interests, and then we get indignant that the decision makers don't listen to us. But if we don't care about their interests, and the collective best interest of the company, why should they care about our interests?