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I only managed to read this in full a bit after the other thread was posted. Lots of interesting aspects to it, but one that stands out to me is how he is an e

I only managed to read this in full a bit after the other thread was posted. Lots of interesting aspects to it, but one that stands out to me is how he is an example of an engineer who didn’t realise the importance of people skills. I quite often see software developers who have an almost antagonistic attitude towards business, users and sometimes colleagues because they feel that their project failing to succeed is other people’s fault: “business didn’t give me the right requirements”, “users didn’t use the software in the correct way”, “all the other software developers are useless”. This attitude may not get in the way of small scale solo projects, but for any non trivial sized project, it’s going to work very badly. Significant sized projects require collaboration, you need to work well with others which may require compromise. Assuming that your organisation is not dysfunctional, it’s not unusual that requirements aren’t initially 100% clear, this is why software development is often an iterative process. The most valuable software developers know how to work with others towards the common goal of making excellent software and the process can sometimes seem messy due having to work with many different kinds of people, but that’s the skill you need to rise above being a merely great coder, but one who can’t really work with a team.

robviren 3y ago
I've seen similar sentiment as well. It's difficult to blame people as I am certain individual experiences dictate how they feel about business. Software engineering in particular feels like something that is just fundamentally misunderstood by most people. If I looked out and saw a half constructed building I would not tell customers that it is almost done. Most people can grasp that a building needs materials sourced from many vendors, some people working on certain aspects (plumber, carpenter, framer, etc), but for some reason they just look at software and are convinced it is a lack of resolve or dedication or something. I blame the popular notion of hacking together Facebook over a long weekend or similar. There is usually a lack of respect and clear communication at the heart of negative feelings. I attempt to properly level set expectations so there is even room for the soft skills you identified. It's hard to deploy them when the business has a fundamental misunderstanding and antagonism towards development.

robviren 3y ago

I've seen similar sentiment as well. It's difficult to blame people as I am certain individual experiences dictate how they feel about business. Software engineering in particular feels like something that is just fundamentally misunderstood by most people. If I looked out and saw a half constructed building I would not tell customers that it is almost done. Most people can grasp that a building needs materials sourced from many vendors, some people working on certain aspects (plumber, carpenter, framer, etc), but for some reason they just look at software and are convinced it is a lack of resolve or dedication or something. I blame the popular notion of hacking together Facebook over a long weekend or similar. There is usually a lack of respect and clear communication at the heart of negative feelings. I attempt to properly level set expectations so there is even room for the soft skills you identified. It's hard to deploy them when the business has a fundamental misunderstanding and antagonism towards development.