5 ms·

Always good to throw the line developers under the bus and let the executives get away with it. I mean, as a developer, I'm always going business to business

Always good to throw the line developers under the bus and let the executives get away with it. I mean, as a developer, I'm always going business to business to pitch my dark-pattern UI features to companies and by gosh I just wish someone would stop me!

ethanbond 7y ago
How about both are responsible?
- vsareto 7y ago
  Correct, but some are more responsible than others
CoolGuySteve 7y ago
Why shouldn’t you implicate the developer? If your manager asks you to implement something that can kill people you have a moral obligation to quit. Whoever implemented this is as much of a shitbag as the executive who asked for it.
- icoder 7y ago
  As I understand it, a developer could implement this without any knowledge of the secret deal: when opening a patients records a pop-up should appear. That's basically what the physicians would know after a using it for while too.
  - bryanrasmussen 7y ago
    Sure, not every developer who worked on the application needs to know what would cause the modal to appear and what possible messages it might have. But I think it likely that somewhere there was a developer who knew what that there was a query | logic function checking the patients pain relievers status etc. and a developer knowing that in the database the text came back with hey you should give this guy some oxy. And I bet those developers talked together in implementing things so they knew stuff, but over time other people knew stuff too because there were probably little bugs like - the extra oxy recommendation text overflows in the patient suggestions window. or stuff like that. maybe not everyone that worked on it was fully aware but there was some people that must have been like 99% aware, based on my experience in working in lots of different sized companies over the years.
    - stevula 7y ago
      Probably a developer somewhere in the process would have figured it out, but it’s possible they just built some abstraction for showing rx recommendations when certain conditions are met. The specific medications and conditions could be controlled through a CRM or admin interface without the knowledge of devs as to what actually goes in.
    - jessaustin 7y ago
      For complex business support software, are pop-up messages usually written by developers? What about the various translations of those messages? Don't these all just sit in .po files somewhere? This seems like more of an "analyst" task to me.
  - bryanrasmussen 7y ago
    hmm, but rereading you are right someone could implement this without knowing about the secret deal, but different people are different and I have definitely worked with people who would say "why this" and then "business wants it", "hmm, that only makes sense if X or Y", heck I might even do it sometimes just trying to think about why things are put together the way they are - but you're right, some people won't, so maybe the developers who implemented it all never stopped to think "but why?"
- vsareto 7y ago
  So the manager has no idea it would kill people, but the developer does? All developers are now well-versed in medical ethics and would never need a lawyer? Show me a well-known whistleblowing route that would give you protections for bringing this forward. Let’s pretend only the people pulling the trigger are the only ones who should go to jail in this case, and developers are the last and only defense that society wants for its software. You can do full stack, why not handle being a lawyer at the same time?
slumdev 7y ago
People in our line of work have a much greater ability to walk than others do. A software engineer with only a few years of experience can leave and have a $100k+ job lined up in a matter of days or weeks. $150k+ if you're in NYC and $200k+ if you're in SF or Seattle. Sticking around and implementing an evil feature is cooperation with evil.
- vsareto 7y ago
  Executives and managers make even more than line developers and have a much greater ability to walk.
  - slumdev 7y ago
    They are also culpable. It might take them longer to find similar employment elsewhere, though, so I'd suggest that their increased earning power is offset by the potential for longer periods of unemployment.
segmondy 7y ago
I don't wish that the developer to get run over by a bus, but I also don't buy that the line developer shouldn't be held accountable if they know that what they were doing is wrong. I don't care what your job is, we all must be good humans and have ethics and standards and say no if what we have been told to do is wrong even if it means losing our job. It would of course be terrible, but in the long run, the world would be better off.
throwaway55554 7y ago
The products I work on, I know which customers are asking for which features. I also hear from the managers and BAs why features are requested. It's not a stretch to assume the developers in question knew what they were adding and who for. And at the very least they could intuit why. What's really hard to imagine is developers implementing features without understanding what they're implementing. Not saying they alone should be thrown under the bus, but shame on them!
- vsareto 7y ago
  So the BAs and managers know too, and a typical assumption is that they know before they ever talk to a developer. They have every opportunity to reject it themselves on ethical grounds before they ever talk to a developer. And yet, they still bring this known-ethically-bad feature to the developer and ask them to implement it! If devs are talking and developing customer needs directly (a legitimate thing), then that is a situation where developers are the first ones who should be pushing back. But in companies where there are multiple layers before a feature reaches a developer? Devs should not be the ethical enforcement.
  - throwaway55554 7y ago
    > Devs should not be the ethical enforcement. Yes, they should. If nobody else does, they're the last in line and they should remain ethical. "Nobody else stopped the feature" is NOT AN EXCUSE.
    - vsareto 7y ago
      No, people above devs should be ethical enforcement, before devs Devs can be, if they have to be, but they shouldn't If it reaches the dev, there should be greater consequences for not catching it earlier.

ethanbond 7y ago

How about both are responsible?

vsareto 7y ago
Correct, but some are more responsible than others

CoolGuySteve 7y ago

Why shouldn’t you implicate the developer? If your manager asks you to implement something that can kill people you have a moral obligation to quit. Whoever implemented this is as much of a shitbag as the executive who asked for it.

icoder 7y ago
As I understand it, a developer could implement this without any knowledge of the secret deal: when opening a patients records a pop-up should appear. That's basically what the physicians would know after a using it for while too.
- bryanrasmussen 7y ago
  Sure, not every developer who worked on the application needs to know what would cause the modal to appear and what possible messages it might have. But I think it likely that somewhere there was a developer who knew what that there was a query | logic function checking the patients pain relievers status etc. and a developer knowing that in the database the text came back with hey you should give this guy some oxy. And I bet those developers talked together in implementing things so they knew stuff, but over time other people knew stuff too because there were probably little bugs like - the extra oxy recommendation text overflows in the patient suggestions window. or stuff like that. maybe not everyone that worked on it was fully aware but there was some people that must have been like 99% aware, based on my experience in working in lots of different sized companies over the years.
  - stevula 7y ago
    Probably a developer somewhere in the process would have figured it out, but it’s possible they just built some abstraction for showing rx recommendations when certain conditions are met. The specific medications and conditions could be controlled through a CRM or admin interface without the knowledge of devs as to what actually goes in.
  - jessaustin 7y ago
    For complex business support software, are pop-up messages usually written by developers? What about the various translations of those messages? Don't these all just sit in .po files somewhere? This seems like more of an "analyst" task to me.
- bryanrasmussen 7y ago
  hmm, but rereading you are right someone could implement this without knowing about the secret deal, but different people are different and I have definitely worked with people who would say "why this" and then "business wants it", "hmm, that only makes sense if X or Y", heck I might even do it sometimes just trying to think about why things are put together the way they are - but you're right, some people won't, so maybe the developers who implemented it all never stopped to think "but why?"
vsareto 7y ago
So the manager has no idea it would kill people, but the developer does? All developers are now well-versed in medical ethics and would never need a lawyer? Show me a well-known whistleblowing route that would give you protections for bringing this forward. Let’s pretend only the people pulling the trigger are the only ones who should go to jail in this case, and developers are the last and only defense that society wants for its software. You can do full stack, why not handle being a lawyer at the same time?

slumdev 7y ago

People in our line of work have a much greater ability to walk than others do. A software engineer with only a few years of experience can leave and have a $100k+ job lined up in a matter of days or weeks. $150k+ if you're in NYC and $200k+ if you're in SF or Seattle. Sticking around and implementing an evil feature is cooperation with evil.

vsareto 7y ago
Executives and managers make even more than line developers and have a much greater ability to walk.
- slumdev 7y ago
  They are also culpable. It might take them longer to find similar employment elsewhere, though, so I'd suggest that their increased earning power is offset by the potential for longer periods of unemployment.

segmondy 7y ago

I don't wish that the developer to get run over by a bus, but I also don't buy that the line developer shouldn't be held accountable if they know that what they were doing is wrong. I don't care what your job is, we all must be good humans and have ethics and standards and say no if what we have been told to do is wrong even if it means losing our job. It would of course be terrible, but in the long run, the world would be better off.

throwaway55554 7y ago

The products I work on, I know which customers are asking for which features. I also hear from the managers and BAs why features are requested. It's not a stretch to assume the developers in question knew what they were adding and who for. And at the very least they could intuit why. What's really hard to imagine is developers implementing features without understanding what they're implementing. Not saying they alone should be thrown under the bus, but shame on them!

vsareto 7y ago
So the BAs and managers know too, and a typical assumption is that they know before they ever talk to a developer. They have every opportunity to reject it themselves on ethical grounds before they ever talk to a developer. And yet, they still bring this known-ethically-bad feature to the developer and ask them to implement it! If devs are talking and developing customer needs directly (a legitimate thing), then that is a situation where developers are the first ones who should be pushing back. But in companies where there are multiple layers before a feature reaches a developer? Devs should not be the ethical enforcement.
- throwaway55554 7y ago
  > Devs should not be the ethical enforcement. Yes, they should. If nobody else does, they're the last in line and they should remain ethical. "Nobody else stopped the feature" is NOT AN EXCUSE.
  - vsareto 7y ago
    No, people above devs should be ethical enforcement, before devs Devs can be, if they have to be, but they shouldn't If it reaches the dev, there should be greater consequences for not catching it earlier.