5 ms·

Bruce Schneier wants you to make software better

68 points by samizdis 6y ago

wrnr 6y ago
Is he gonna start writing software? Be the change you want to see in the world, is what a zen master would tell you.
- elcapitan 6y ago
  A zen master will hit you on the head with a stick for that instagram wisdom.
  - chasd00 6y ago
    and tell you you're right at the same time.
- ajanicij 6y ago
  That is a Gandhi quote, nothing to do with zen.
  - wrnr 6y ago
    I don't care about karma either
SamuelAdams 6y ago
The best programmers I've ever worked with are also good business analysts. They understand the technology and the business process. Furthermore, they are also able to communicate technical concepts to a variety of stakeholders. What Bruce is advocating for isn't new. To me it's just a logical step in any IT career. Anyone with 2-3 years experience will need to spend some time talking to end users or business stakeholders. Honing those skills will make you more employable and put you on track for a BA / Senior developer role.
- da_chicken 6y ago
  > Anyone with 2-3 years experience will need to spend some time talking to end users or business stakeholders. And yet, except for software that has literally been designed for use by and for developers, virtually every piece of software I've ever used feels like the person who wrote it has absolutely no idea how work is actually done. They'll take data or configuration elements that need to be seen at the same time to understand how something is coded or configured and put them on different screens. They'll create processes that are not flexible enough to support real-world situations. They'll allow nonsensical configurations or have absurd design choices -- not just "we don't operate like that" but "it's logically impossible to operate like that." Unless a developer is intimately familiar with the business process, which in my experience means they're required to eat their own dog food, then their software will suck. Unfortunately, there's a very narrow range of software that developers will be familiar with through personal, direct experience. It will be developer-specific software (IDEs, text editors, version control, compilers, service desk software, etc.) or broad, general purpose software (Excel, Word, Outlook, etc.). It starts to fall apart once you get outside those tiny spheres. Hospital Information Systems will not have a design that enforces sensible patient coding. Student Information Systems will not have a sensible system for scheduling students, taking attendance, etc. The developers don't understand what the realities and difficulties are of operating a hospital or operating a school. There are dozens or hundreds of different positions that all need to use the same system in different ways, but the system itself is only set up one way: whatever makes sense to the internal data model. It's like the the parable of the blind men and an elephant, except these blind men are trying to feel their way through building the Brooklyn Bridge. Then when the people trying to cross the bridge say it keeps falling down the developers say, "It's working according to the spec." Well, yes, because you're in the business of selling bridges, not understanding bridges.
  - magicalhippo 6y ago
    > virtually every piece of software I've ever used feels like the person who wrote it has absolutely no idea how work is actually done That's why I like taking support calls every now and then. Very often I end up having to connect to the user via TeamViewer, and almost every time I learn something. It might be something trivial like some input boxes being in an illogical order, it might be something bigger. It's amazing what users put up with without complaining to us, so getting the chance to view how they work is gold for me.
cadence- 6y ago
With how I see software being developed in most companies, I don’t think there is much time left to consider social aspects in any significant ways. Today’s development is too agile for that. Analyzing social aspects and impacts would require deep thinking and there is no room for that in agile development.
Jiocus 6y ago
For anyone who's not already familiar with Schneier, > Bruce Schneier taught his dog to do a secure handshake https://www.schneierfacts.com/ https://www.schneierfacts.com/
- 1cvmask 6y ago
  Having interacted with him in real life over the years I have to second that hilarious site. He never disappoints. Taher Elgamal is another giant of the security space who never disappoints as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taher_Elgamal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taher_Elgamal
- meepmorp 6y ago
  > Every time Bruce Schneier writes a fully general halt-checker, God kills a passenger pigeon. This is why passenger pigeons are extinct.
- sorokod 6y ago
  Also author of some symethric cyphers with funny names.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
chmod600 6y ago
We may need to re-think fundamental concepts of software design For instance, code reuse. Should we really reuse that piece of code in a radically different context? Or versioning. Is the next version really better for all users? Or software size. Right now, we seem not to care whether software is kilobytes or gigabytes, as long as it seems to have the same behavior. Is that reasonable?
- eaa 6y ago
  Well, maybe we shouldn`t [do it yet one more time], because they have been already rethought. It`s just that most programmers are not familiar with them. But some rediscover them. Have you ever heard of David Parnas? To make code reuse possible one has to design it the way that makes it possible. And anyway it can be reused only if requirements to this piece of code are same (or weaker). And obviously, code reuse can happen only after "code use" has happened successfully. And some (many?) programmers struggle with this too. :)

68 points by samizdis 6y ago

wrnr 6y ago

Is he gonna start writing software? Be the change you want to see in the world, is what a zen master would tell you.

elcapitan 6y ago
A zen master will hit you on the head with a stick for that instagram wisdom.
- chasd00 6y ago
  and tell you you're right at the same time.
ajanicij 6y ago
That is a Gandhi quote, nothing to do with zen.
- wrnr 6y ago
  I don't care about karma either

SamuelAdams 6y ago

The best programmers I've ever worked with are also good business analysts. They understand the technology and the business process. Furthermore, they are also able to communicate technical concepts to a variety of stakeholders. What Bruce is advocating for isn't new. To me it's just a logical step in any IT career. Anyone with 2-3 years experience will need to spend some time talking to end users or business stakeholders. Honing those skills will make you more employable and put you on track for a BA / Senior developer role.

da_chicken 6y ago
> Anyone with 2-3 years experience will need to spend some time talking to end users or business stakeholders. And yet, except for software that has literally been designed for use by and for developers, virtually every piece of software I've ever used feels like the person who wrote it has absolutely no idea how work is actually done. They'll take data or configuration elements that need to be seen at the same time to understand how something is coded or configured and put them on different screens. They'll create processes that are not flexible enough to support real-world situations. They'll allow nonsensical configurations or have absurd design choices -- not just "we don't operate like that" but "it's logically impossible to operate like that." Unless a developer is intimately familiar with the business process, which in my experience means they're required to eat their own dog food, then their software will suck. Unfortunately, there's a very narrow range of software that developers will be familiar with through personal, direct experience. It will be developer-specific software (IDEs, text editors, version control, compilers, service desk software, etc.) or broad, general purpose software (Excel, Word, Outlook, etc.). It starts to fall apart once you get outside those tiny spheres. Hospital Information Systems will not have a design that enforces sensible patient coding. Student Information Systems will not have a sensible system for scheduling students, taking attendance, etc. The developers don't understand what the realities and difficulties are of operating a hospital or operating a school. There are dozens or hundreds of different positions that all need to use the same system in different ways, but the system itself is only set up one way: whatever makes sense to the internal data model. It's like the the parable of the blind men and an elephant, except these blind men are trying to feel their way through building the Brooklyn Bridge. Then when the people trying to cross the bridge say it keeps falling down the developers say, "It's working according to the spec." Well, yes, because you're in the business of selling bridges, not understanding bridges.
- magicalhippo 6y ago
  > virtually every piece of software I've ever used feels like the person who wrote it has absolutely no idea how work is actually done That's why I like taking support calls every now and then. Very often I end up having to connect to the user via TeamViewer, and almost every time I learn something. It might be something trivial like some input boxes being in an illogical order, it might be something bigger. It's amazing what users put up with without complaining to us, so getting the chance to view how they work is gold for me.

cadence- 6y ago

With how I see software being developed in most companies, I don’t think there is much time left to consider social aspects in any significant ways. Today’s development is too agile for that. Analyzing social aspects and impacts would require deep thinking and there is no room for that in agile development.

Jiocus 6y ago

For anyone who's not already familiar with Schneier, > Bruce Schneier taught his dog to do a secure handshake https://www.schneierfacts.com/ https://www.schneierfacts.com/

1cvmask 6y ago
Having interacted with him in real life over the years I have to second that hilarious site. He never disappoints. Taher Elgamal is another giant of the security space who never disappoints as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taher_Elgamal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taher_Elgamal
meepmorp 6y ago
> Every time Bruce Schneier writes a fully general halt-checker, God kills a passenger pigeon. This is why passenger pigeons are extinct.
sorokod 6y ago
Also author of some symethric cyphers with funny names.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

chmod600 6y ago

We may need to re-think fundamental concepts of software design For instance, code reuse. Should we really reuse that piece of code in a radically different context? Or versioning. Is the next version really better for all users? Or software size. Right now, we seem not to care whether software is kilobytes or gigabytes, as long as it seems to have the same behavior. Is that reasonable?

eaa 6y ago
Well, maybe we shouldn`t [do it yet one more time], because they have been already rethought. It`s just that most programmers are not familiar with them. But some rediscover them. Have you ever heard of David Parnas? To make code reuse possible one has to design it the way that makes it possible. And anyway it can be reused only if requirements to this piece of code are same (or weaker). And obviously, code reuse can happen only after "code use" has happened successfully. And some (many?) programmers struggle with this too. :)