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I think that this type of thinking has been very harmful to our industry. Of course, life is about people. Business is about people. Plumbing is about people.

I think that this type of thinking has been very harmful to our industry. Of course, life is about people. Business is about people. Plumbing is about people. But what makes software special is code. And this sentiment leads to horrible conclusions. If software is about people, not code, who would you expect to manage it better - an engineer whose undergraduate and graduate training was in code, or a business MBA whose training was in people? If software is about people not code, then who should be prioritized, management who is managing people, or engineers writing code? This is similar to the Jack Welch mindset of buisiness are more about playing financial games than building great products and it has resulted in the doors blowing off of airplanes in flight.

effed3 2y ago
> If software is about people, not code, who would you expect to manage it better - an engineer whose undergraduate and graduate training was in code, or a business MBA whose training was in people? Both. The strict separation between tech and humanistic education is the root of (quite) all (modern) evils, and having these two skills in a single person is even better.
- AnimalMuppet 2y ago
  Exactly. Technical people building working code that does things that people don't need is just as much a waste as non-technical people knowing what people need but unable to produce code that works. You need both.
  - fuzzfactor 2y ago
    So much of the time the foundation is that the software, in its entirety, IS the user interface to the electronics. It's been that way since the beginning. Electronics got started much earlier than software and there were physical control panels of various effectiveness too. Before things deteriorated, it was expected that a UI designer who did not know how to code it their own self, or a coder who was not capable of doing vastly better UI than a non-coder, would not have been suitable for mission-critical situations where living things are expected to interact with electronics. It all still converges to where you need exactly the same people coding that are designing the UI/UX or it's not going to end up as good as it could be. "Fortunately" most of the coding and UI out there which are proliferating fastest are not mission-critical. That would be a nightmare . . .

effed3 2y ago

> If software is about people, not code, who would you expect to manage it better - an engineer whose undergraduate and graduate training was in code, or a business MBA whose training was in people? Both. The strict separation between tech and humanistic education is the root of (quite) all (modern) evils, and having these two skills in a single person is even better.

AnimalMuppet 2y ago
Exactly. Technical people building working code that does things that people don't need is just as much a waste as non-technical people knowing what people need but unable to produce code that works. You need both.
- fuzzfactor 2y ago
  So much of the time the foundation is that the software, in its entirety, IS the user interface to the electronics. It's been that way since the beginning. Electronics got started much earlier than software and there were physical control panels of various effectiveness too. Before things deteriorated, it was expected that a UI designer who did not know how to code it their own self, or a coder who was not capable of doing vastly better UI than a non-coder, would not have been suitable for mission-critical situations where living things are expected to interact with electronics. It all still converges to where you need exactly the same people coding that are designing the UI/UX or it's not going to end up as good as it could be. "Fortunately" most of the coding and UI out there which are proliferating fastest are not mission-critical. That would be a nightmare . . .