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> Code is secondary. Business value is first. Eh, what a predictable and boring attitude :/ This advice makes sense in a company environment, but there's so m

> Code is secondary. Business value is first. Eh, what a predictable and boring attitude :/ This advice makes sense in a company environment, but there's so many other motivations to write code than just 'business value'. And from what I've seen, focusing on 'business value' alone is the only explanation why so much software written in company settings is so user-hostile nowadays. My counter-hot-take: focusing on business value makes you a worse programmer.

sorokod 4y ago
Worth stating nevertheless as the article is about a software engineer. Not a programmer, coder or hacker.
- flohofwoe 4y ago
  And that's exactly my other gripe! :D Those are all the same, the best programmers in the world (those in the demo scene) call themselves 'coders'. Calling yourself a 'software engineer' reeks of elitism, no matter how much time you spent at university.
  - goodpoint 4y ago
    Not at all. Software engineering is very much a thing and requires a different skillset than programming.
    - flohofwoe 4y ago
      I suspect this may be a 'cultural' issue: For instance in Germany with its strong engineering tradition, nobody in their right mind would call somebody who builds software an 'engineer' (there are some google hits for "Softwareingeneur" but I bet this has a fairly recent thing and has been leaking back from English). A person who builds software is simply called a 'programmer' or 'developer' here. And I really have my doubts that there's any meaningful difference between what's called a 'software engineer' in the US and a 'programmer/developer' in Germany. Building software requires creativity, planning, experience, rationalism and problem solving abilities, all in the same person. If you don't have that, then don't call yourself a 'programmer' ;) Out of interest what are the different skillset requirements between 'software engineering' and 'programming'? Because I really can't think of any.
      - hiq 4y ago
        > Out of interest what are the different skillset requirements between 'software engineering' and 'programming'? Because I really can't think of any. You can look up "software engineer vs programmer".
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
        flohofwoe 4y ago
        These all lead to articles which basically come down to separate 'architect vs implementer' roles, which is a long outdated view on how software development works.
        Existenceblinks 4y ago
        This is true. "software engineering" was very terrible trauma back in university. It's almost nothing about coding, it's waterfall and a bunch of diagrams. I still think "software engineer" could be overloaded to mean something related to performance .. and architect, and some other things that's not related to coding style or even algorithm.
      - sally_glance 4y ago
        I've worked with multiple german companies that declared their programmers as engineers, "Jr/Mid/Sr Software Engineer" or the more focused "Frontend/Backend/Fullstack Software Engineer". Maybe that's more of a thing in agencies? But then I think SAP calls them "Software Engineer" as well.
        flohofwoe 4y ago
        I suspect this is mainly because the whole hiring process has been internationalized, and 'Software Engineer' seems to have become the common international phrase for 'anybody who has the ability to author software'. 15 years ago it would have been "Softwareentwickler" or "Programmierer" (optionally with the requirement of a degree in computer science, which - funny enough - also isn't excplicitely called a 'science' in Germany, but simply 'informatics'), even though the job description would be exactly the same as today.
  - sorokod 4y ago
    I don't see any elitism. You may notice that some of the points explicitly deemphesiz coding and some don't mention coding at all. The way I see it, coding skills are necessary but not sufficient to claim the SE title.
- dinkumthinkum 4y ago
  I kind of think it is very banal and simplistic. A software engineer being primarily concerned with the bottom line, what does that really mean? At sone point you have different levels to a company and engineering is concerned with good engineering and above that are levels concerned with what products you create, features, etc. I’ve heard of CEOs that think that software engineers to think about every line of code in terms of how much value it brings to the company. That is not an efficient division of work will lead to short sighted and task saturated decision making.
Existenceblinks 4y ago
eh.. in my experience those who always spent time sharpen their knifes barely create anything useful, even code looks mediocre because they only want to play so what they write against are likely to be some non realworld puzzle. And "But I write a compiler" is also that.
- flohofwoe 4y ago
  There are a lot of useful things that don't have any business value, also in software. There is no business value in writing and maintaining a compiler for instance (not anymore at least), yet without compilers, no software with 'actual business value' could be created.
  - mmcnl 4y ago
    You're saying there is no business value, only to end with saying that there is business value? Very confusing. If you take something away and no one will ever notice it has no business value. If people do notice, it has business value. Very simple right?
    - flohofwoe 4y ago
      To me "business value" means it involves "doing business", which comes down to "making money". A compiler enables creating software that has 'business value' but the compiler has no 'business value' to the maintainers of that compiler (unless it's a commercial compiler which is a very rare breed nowadays).
  - Existenceblinks 4y ago
    I agree only if fun is included. I've seen a lot of wow a cool opensource I wanted to try this, I want to play with, I will find problems to justify using this.

sorokod 4y ago

Worth stating nevertheless as the article is about a software engineer. Not a programmer, coder or hacker.

flohofwoe 4y ago
And that's exactly my other gripe! :D Those are all the same, the best programmers in the world (those in the demo scene) call themselves 'coders'. Calling yourself a 'software engineer' reeks of elitism, no matter how much time you spent at university.
- goodpoint 4y ago
  Not at all. Software engineering is very much a thing and requires a different skillset than programming.
  - flohofwoe 4y ago
    I suspect this may be a 'cultural' issue: For instance in Germany with its strong engineering tradition, nobody in their right mind would call somebody who builds software an 'engineer' (there are some google hits for "Softwareingeneur" but I bet this has a fairly recent thing and has been leaking back from English). A person who builds software is simply called a 'programmer' or 'developer' here. And I really have my doubts that there's any meaningful difference between what's called a 'software engineer' in the US and a 'programmer/developer' in Germany. Building software requires creativity, planning, experience, rationalism and problem solving abilities, all in the same person. If you don't have that, then don't call yourself a 'programmer' ;) Out of interest what are the different skillset requirements between 'software engineering' and 'programming'? Because I really can't think of any.
    - hiq 4y ago
      > Out of interest what are the different skillset requirements between 'software engineering' and 'programming'? Because I really can't think of any. You can look up "software engineer vs programmer".
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - flohofwoe 4y ago
        These all lead to articles which basically come down to separate 'architect vs implementer' roles, which is a long outdated view on how software development works.
        Existenceblinks 4y ago
        This is true. "software engineering" was very terrible trauma back in university. It's almost nothing about coding, it's waterfall and a bunch of diagrams. I still think "software engineer" could be overloaded to mean something related to performance .. and architect, and some other things that's not related to coding style or even algorithm.
    - sally_glance 4y ago
      I've worked with multiple german companies that declared their programmers as engineers, "Jr/Mid/Sr Software Engineer" or the more focused "Frontend/Backend/Fullstack Software Engineer". Maybe that's more of a thing in agencies? But then I think SAP calls them "Software Engineer" as well.
      - flohofwoe 4y ago
        I suspect this is mainly because the whole hiring process has been internationalized, and 'Software Engineer' seems to have become the common international phrase for 'anybody who has the ability to author software'. 15 years ago it would have been "Softwareentwickler" or "Programmierer" (optionally with the requirement of a degree in computer science, which - funny enough - also isn't excplicitely called a 'science' in Germany, but simply 'informatics'), even though the job description would be exactly the same as today.
- sorokod 4y ago
  I don't see any elitism. You may notice that some of the points explicitly deemphesiz coding and some don't mention coding at all. The way I see it, coding skills are necessary but not sufficient to claim the SE title.
dinkumthinkum 4y ago
I kind of think it is very banal and simplistic. A software engineer being primarily concerned with the bottom line, what does that really mean? At sone point you have different levels to a company and engineering is concerned with good engineering and above that are levels concerned with what products you create, features, etc. I’ve heard of CEOs that think that software engineers to think about every line of code in terms of how much value it brings to the company. That is not an efficient division of work will lead to short sighted and task saturated decision making.

Existenceblinks 4y ago

eh.. in my experience those who always spent time sharpen their knifes barely create anything useful, even code looks mediocre because they only want to play so what they write against are likely to be some non realworld puzzle. And "But I write a compiler" is also that.

flohofwoe 4y ago
There are a lot of useful things that don't have any business value, also in software. There is no business value in writing and maintaining a compiler for instance (not anymore at least), yet without compilers, no software with 'actual business value' could be created.
- mmcnl 4y ago
  You're saying there is no business value, only to end with saying that there is business value? Very confusing. If you take something away and no one will ever notice it has no business value. If people do notice, it has business value. Very simple right?
  - flohofwoe 4y ago
    To me "business value" means it involves "doing business", which comes down to "making money". A compiler enables creating software that has 'business value' but the compiler has no 'business value' to the maintainers of that compiler (unless it's a commercial compiler which is a very rare breed nowadays).
- Existenceblinks 4y ago
  I agree only if fun is included. I've seen a lot of wow a cool opensource I wanted to try this, I want to play with, I will find problems to justify using this.