> A field which has so many tools to objectively quantify their work and the result so often are debates displaying poorly concealed biases and egos. This felt

> A field which has so many tools to objectively quantify their work and the result so often are debates displaying poorly concealed biases and egos. This felt wrong when I read it. I agree we have many, many tools to objectively quantify aspects of our work. Where I disagree: these tools only measure _some_ aspects. There are many aspects where we don't have good tools for measurement. Some of those aspects are for all practical purposes immeasurable. For example: measure maintainability. I think what happens then is the same thing that happens in politics. We take proxy metrics that _are_ measurable, and try to extrapolate over everything. The debates and egos come from arguing which proxy metrics should be weighted which way. Then I realized I'd propose an alternative hypothesis: programming as a craft is immature. I could never imagine civil engineers arguing over proxy metrics to the effects of natural forces on a bridge. Can programming _become_ mature? I don't know. I'm skeptical of any claims that it can be. They all seem rooted in a gut sense of a particular weighting of what we can measure.