3 ms·

The saying “a sucker is born every minute” kindof applies here. Just because you and a majority of people care about ethics, doesn’t mean every programmer does.

The saying “a sucker is born every minute” kindof applies here. Just because you and a majority of people care about ethics, doesn’t mean every programmer does. And all it takes is one who doesn’t for the company to be able to implement it. The free market only works to an extent, and harm to consumers is a valid reason for the government to step in.

foxtrottbravo 5y ago
You reminded me of a saying I've heard a while ago which May be roughly translated to "the mother of suckers is always pregnant"
- quesera 5y ago
  I love these non-sequitur literally-mostly-correct-but-conceptually-totally-wrong translations of aphorisms and titles. One of my faves: in a Spanish-speaking country, an Ernest Hemingway book published (legal status unknown) in English, titled "Goodbye to the Weapons". Another: from a customer service rep in Southeast Asia: "If I am in your shoe..."
ryandrake 5y ago
Long ago in my career, I was asked to essentially cheat benchmarks. Our software was often benchmarked by third parties to compare the product's performance across competitors. Our product was not as good, so after squeezing in every legit performance improvement we could possibly find, I was eventually asked to write code that queries the application running, and if it was a known benchmark program, just drop expensive API calls in a way not very noticeable. This would produce incorrect, but fast, output but only for benchmarks. I told my manager respectfully that's where I draw the line. He said, that's totally OK, I kept my job and he just assigned someone else who didn't care about the ethics. Quit a few months later for this and other reasons. I'm a big believer in being part of the solution, not the problem, but there are always plenty of developers who don't care at all and are fine with "sure, boss, whatever you say, boss".

foxtrottbravo 5y ago

You reminded me of a saying I've heard a while ago which May be roughly translated to "the mother of suckers is always pregnant"

quesera 5y ago
I love these non-sequitur literally-mostly-correct-but-conceptually-totally-wrong translations of aphorisms and titles. One of my faves: in a Spanish-speaking country, an Ernest Hemingway book published (legal status unknown) in English, titled "Goodbye to the Weapons". Another: from a customer service rep in Southeast Asia: "If I am in your shoe..."

ryandrake 5y ago

Long ago in my career, I was asked to essentially cheat benchmarks. Our software was often benchmarked by third parties to compare the product's performance across competitors. Our product was not as good, so after squeezing in every legit performance improvement we could possibly find, I was eventually asked to write code that queries the application running, and if it was a known benchmark program, just drop expensive API calls in a way not very noticeable. This would produce incorrect, but fast, output but only for benchmarks. I told my manager respectfully that's where I draw the line. He said, that's totally OK, I kept my job and he just assigned someone else who didn't care about the ethics. Quit a few months later for this and other reasons. I'm a big believer in being part of the solution, not the problem, but there are always plenty of developers who don't care at all and are fine with "sure, boss, whatever you say, boss".