3 ms·

Software is not charity. I will not work hard to deliver all those things out of the goodness of my heart. The ROI on those things isn’t great. If it’s easy to

by xwdv 5y ago

Software is not charity. I will not work hard to deliver all those things out of the goodness of my heart. The ROI on those things isn’t great. If it’s easy to do I’ll do it, but none of those are trivial things.

XorNot 5y ago
I'll go further: I would love nothing more then some well-defined common standards to work towards. Weighty documents I can drop on product manager's desk and tell them the ways in which our customers and the government will legally have their way with them if we don't meet those requirements.
- bob1029 5y ago
  This is why I like working in highly-regulated industry. Technically correct is almost always what flies at the end of the day, because there certainly exists some audit item tracking the thing. I absolutely loathe the audit process on one hand, but its a useful tool for getting everyone to play the same game on the other. It also means your solution is compliant in a lot of places if you can get it signed off in one.
mojuba 5y ago
Software is not charity but it's a responsibility. As probably the most innocent example, when you ship an app that drains a user's battery you betray your users. But then how about an app that sneakily collects data knowing that users won't even understand what you are doing or why? You can be a responsible business which unfortunately won't necessarily be appreciated. Or you can be a typical business that exploits information asymmetry to the last bit.
- merpnderp 5y ago
  If you don't like our current system that lets users decide what they can put up with or not then are you proposing some sort of centralized authority to enforce this? Like the government? The same governments of the world that produce the crappiest, most insecure, user hating software with some of the most ridiculous rules and regulations or else 10 layers of subcontractors making the price per line of code outrageous?
  - mojuba 5y ago
    You could start with e.g. requiring full legal disclosure of what my data is used for. Apple is trying to move in that direction, but we can't be at the mercy of a private corporation no matter how good the intentions are, when it comes to user data and privacy. But Apple's new requirements on the App Store are an example of what's possible to do. Performance and quality are a bit different, they are much harder to regulate but still possible to an extent.
  - DerArzt 5y ago
    Case in point the Governor of Missouri in the US claiming that a report was hacking[1] when they hit F12 and viewed a website's HTML which contained Social Security Numbers. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/15/us/missouri-st-louis-post-teachers-hack.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/15/us/missouri-st-louis-post...
liketochill 5y ago
It is unfortunate that parent latched on to capitalism. Point number 13 from the post resonated with me the most since the software I write can damage the environment or expensive machines that are difficult to replace if there are errors, and as a professional electrical engineer I do sign off that it is built correctly and am liable, and therefore I limit the scope so I can manage the workload, document test results that show it works correctly, and put a lot of effort in to handling faults so machinery shuts down safely when there is a problem with a sensor or actuator. Also I keep it as simple as it can be to get the job done so it is readable for other people to understand and troubleshoot. Imagine if you could sue software vendors for lost revenue due to bugs. The posts point about people taking responsibility for their software not happening until there are regulations and regulations being written in blood is a good one.
- mojuba 5y ago
  True, but I'd argue that regulation is not part of the free market capitalist paradigm. Regulations are created and enforced by the democratic institutions that are not part of the market paradigm.
- FpUser 5y ago
  >"Imagine if you could sue software vendors for lost revenue due to bugs" It does happen when software is made under specific contract. You do pay an exorbitant price for such software though. For generic software - this is the dumbest idea I've ever heard. Go sue your politicians instead. I am pretty sure you'd find enough cases of lost revenue / income coming as the results of their actions.
  - liketochill 5y ago
    Why should software be unlike other industries that are held accountable for their products? Imagine everything in your life had no warranty and click through eula type terms and changed uncontrollably to improve some metric for the manufacturer. I suppose it all comes down to when life and environment are on the line instead of just revenue, and for revenue as you say the people who can afford it pay for it and enforce it with their contracts. To me therein lies the difference between programming and software engineering.

by xwdv 5y ago

XorNot 5y ago

I'll go further: I would love nothing more then some well-defined common standards to work towards. Weighty documents I can drop on product manager's desk and tell them the ways in which our customers and the government will legally have their way with them if we don't meet those requirements.

bob1029 5y ago
This is why I like working in highly-regulated industry. Technically correct is almost always what flies at the end of the day, because there certainly exists some audit item tracking the thing. I absolutely loathe the audit process on one hand, but its a useful tool for getting everyone to play the same game on the other. It also means your solution is compliant in a lot of places if you can get it signed off in one.

mojuba 5y ago

Software is not charity but it's a responsibility. As probably the most innocent example, when you ship an app that drains a user's battery you betray your users. But then how about an app that sneakily collects data knowing that users won't even understand what you are doing or why? You can be a responsible business which unfortunately won't necessarily be appreciated. Or you can be a typical business that exploits information asymmetry to the last bit.

merpnderp 5y ago
If you don't like our current system that lets users decide what they can put up with or not then are you proposing some sort of centralized authority to enforce this? Like the government? The same governments of the world that produce the crappiest, most insecure, user hating software with some of the most ridiculous rules and regulations or else 10 layers of subcontractors making the price per line of code outrageous?
- mojuba 5y ago
  You could start with e.g. requiring full legal disclosure of what my data is used for. Apple is trying to move in that direction, but we can't be at the mercy of a private corporation no matter how good the intentions are, when it comes to user data and privacy. But Apple's new requirements on the App Store are an example of what's possible to do. Performance and quality are a bit different, they are much harder to regulate but still possible to an extent.
- DerArzt 5y ago
  Case in point the Governor of Missouri in the US claiming that a report was hacking[1] when they hit F12 and viewed a website's HTML which contained Social Security Numbers. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/15/us/missouri-st-louis-post-teachers-hack.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/15/us/missouri-st-louis-post...

liketochill 5y ago

It is unfortunate that parent latched on to capitalism. Point number 13 from the post resonated with me the most since the software I write can damage the environment or expensive machines that are difficult to replace if there are errors, and as a professional electrical engineer I do sign off that it is built correctly and am liable, and therefore I limit the scope so I can manage the workload, document test results that show it works correctly, and put a lot of effort in to handling faults so machinery shuts down safely when there is a problem with a sensor or actuator. Also I keep it as simple as it can be to get the job done so it is readable for other people to understand and troubleshoot. Imagine if you could sue software vendors for lost revenue due to bugs. The posts point about people taking responsibility for their software not happening until there are regulations and regulations being written in blood is a good one.

mojuba 5y ago
True, but I'd argue that regulation is not part of the free market capitalist paradigm. Regulations are created and enforced by the democratic institutions that are not part of the market paradigm.
FpUser 5y ago
>"Imagine if you could sue software vendors for lost revenue due to bugs" It does happen when software is made under specific contract. You do pay an exorbitant price for such software though. For generic software - this is the dumbest idea I've ever heard. Go sue your politicians instead. I am pretty sure you'd find enough cases of lost revenue / income coming as the results of their actions.
- liketochill 5y ago
  Why should software be unlike other industries that are held accountable for their products? Imagine everything in your life had no warranty and click through eula type terms and changed uncontrollably to improve some metric for the manufacturer. I suppose it all comes down to when life and environment are on the line instead of just revenue, and for revenue as you say the people who can afford it pay for it and enforce it with their contracts. To me therein lies the difference between programming and software engineering.