3 ms·

While it is simple and trite, how is it profound? All human activity is change by that definition.

by sid0 16y ago

Stormbringer 16y ago
Because in IT we somehow have tricked ourselves into thinking that change is undesirable.
- praptak 16y ago
  Really? I read quite a lot opinions (articles, blog posts, comments) from IT people and haven't really found anyone expressing such a blanket statement. Even the complaints about spec changes are seldom about changes per se, but rather about the impedance mismatch between the changes and an inflexible process.
- lnguyen 16y ago
  Only unexpected change is undesirable. The reason that all change is met with the same hostility is due to the processes set up to document the changes that are wanted.
isleyaardvark 16y ago
I don't know about that. Consider someone working in a sandwich shop. Once you learn how to make the different sandwiches, you just keep making the sandwiches every day. Or a job as a taster at a distillery. You make sure the whiskey doesn't vary in taste. While it may be an enjoyable activity, there's only occasionally something new. Whereas with coding virtually everything is something new. In coding if you run into the same thing over and over again, you use a reusable component or automate it. You build the equivalent of a sandwich-making machine or whiskey-tasting machine and move on to the next thing.
- bartonfink 16y ago
  "In coding if you run into the same thing over and over again, you use a reusable component or automate it." You and I both know this to be true, but there are wide swaths of development jobs that cater to the C players they've hired and don't allow this sort of automation. Frameworks, more powerful languages and tools, even techniques like recursion aren't allowed because "not everyone would understand them." There's plenty of reasons to not like Rails, or Ruby for that matter, but "because Joe Blub three cubes over might not get it" is one of the worst ones you could give. That sort of environment sucks, and everyone on here is right to say "if you're in that sort of place, then quit!". That said, it does exist in wide enough circulation that it's hard to sweep it under the rug when talking about the industry as a whole.

While it is simple and trite, how is it profound? All human activity is change by that definition.

by sid0 16y ago

While it is simple and trite, how is it profound? All human activity is change by that definition.

Stormbringer 16y ago

Because in IT we somehow have tricked ourselves into thinking that change is undesirable.

praptak 16y ago
Really? I read quite a lot opinions (articles, blog posts, comments) from IT people and haven't really found anyone expressing such a blanket statement. Even the complaints about spec changes are seldom about changes per se, but rather about the impedance mismatch between the changes and an inflexible process.
lnguyen 16y ago
Only unexpected change is undesirable. The reason that all change is met with the same hostility is due to the processes set up to document the changes that are wanted.

isleyaardvark 16y ago

I don't know about that. Consider someone working in a sandwich shop. Once you learn how to make the different sandwiches, you just keep making the sandwiches every day. Or a job as a taster at a distillery. You make sure the whiskey doesn't vary in taste. While it may be an enjoyable activity, there's only occasionally something new. Whereas with coding virtually everything is something new. In coding if you run into the same thing over and over again, you use a reusable component or automate it. You build the equivalent of a sandwich-making machine or whiskey-tasting machine and move on to the next thing.

bartonfink 16y ago
"In coding if you run into the same thing over and over again, you use a reusable component or automate it." You and I both know this to be true, but there are wide swaths of development jobs that cater to the C players they've hired and don't allow this sort of automation. Frameworks, more powerful languages and tools, even techniques like recursion aren't allowed because "not everyone would understand them." There's plenty of reasons to not like Rails, or Ruby for that matter, but "because Joe Blub three cubes over might not get it" is one of the worst ones you could give. That sort of environment sucks, and everyone on here is right to say "if you're in that sort of place, then quit!". That said, it does exist in wide enough circulation that it's hard to sweep it under the rug when talking about the industry as a whole.