3 ms·

This is called software philistinism. There are many blog posts like this one that deny (often deride) the value of software craftmanship, including the skills

This is called software philistinism. There are many blog posts like this one that deny (often deride) the value of software craftmanship, including the skillset of planning. They almost always have this same conclusiveness to them as well ("she was right"), with no tangible backing other than personal anecdata ("everyone sucked who I worked with, so everyone must suck"). If you zoom out, the reality is that people in the software industry are spoiled AF. A majority of practitioners get paid a ridiculous amount and get away with murder. It is true that current market dynamics give people in this industry pretty much zero incentive to get good at the craft. So people don't and then to rhetorically justify their philistinism, they write blog posts like this. It is also true that many businesses get away with writing absolutely shitty software and stay in business because of these dynamics. But that doesn't make it "ok" and doesn't say anything about the enormous amount lost to such apathy.

int_19h 3y ago
I don't think the blog post derides the value. Rather, it points out that, while fixing bugs is valuable to the dev (professional self-respect shipping quality products) and the user (obvious), the way software market works in practice is that it's not particularly valuable to the company - at least, not valuable enough to justify the expense. Speaking as someone with 20 years of software engineering experience, I think this is an accurate assessment of things. But at the same time you're absolutely correct that it doesn't make it okay, and it is actually detrimental to both users and developers for the aforementioned reasons. But, well, this is capitalism for you - whatever is the most profitable thing to do is what gets done regardless of how not okay it really is. I think the question we should be asking is: if users hate using crappy buggy software, and devs hate writing it, but it still gets written, aren't our basic economic incentives clearly out of tune?
- wellpast 3y ago
  Well said — and yes. It’s definitely market dynamics, but I think something could change those market dynamics. Maybe a craftsmen’s guild that unionizes skilled software practitioners.

int_19h 3y ago

I don't think the blog post derides the value. Rather, it points out that, while fixing bugs is valuable to the dev (professional self-respect shipping quality products) and the user (obvious), the way software market works in practice is that it's not particularly valuable to the company - at least, not valuable enough to justify the expense. Speaking as someone with 20 years of software engineering experience, I think this is an accurate assessment of things. But at the same time you're absolutely correct that it doesn't make it okay, and it is actually detrimental to both users and developers for the aforementioned reasons. But, well, this is capitalism for you - whatever is the most profitable thing to do is what gets done regardless of how not okay it really is. I think the question we should be asking is: if users hate using crappy buggy software, and devs hate writing it, but it still gets written, aren't our basic economic incentives clearly out of tune?

wellpast 3y ago
Well said — and yes. It’s definitely market dynamics, but I think something could change those market dynamics. Maybe a craftsmen’s guild that unionizes skilled software practitioners.