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Thank god we’re held to such low standards. Every time I’ve worked in a field like pharmaceuticals or manufacturing, the documentation burden felt overwhelming

Thank god we’re held to such low standards. Every time I’ve worked in a field like pharmaceuticals or manufacturing, the documentation burden felt overwhelming by comparison and a shrug six months later would never fly.

Yiin 2y ago
there is difference between building a dashboard for internal systems and tech that if failed can kill people
- throwup238 2y ago
  Most software work in pharma and manufacturing is still CRUD, they just have cultures of rigorous documentation that permeates the industry even when it's low value. Documenting every little change made sense when I was programming the robotics for a genetic diagnostics pipeline, not so much when I had to write a one pager justifying a one line fix to the parser for the configuration format or updating some LIMS dependency to fix a vulnerability in an internal tool that's not even open to the internet.
- Mikhail_Edoshin 2y ago
  Well, a hand watch or a chair cannot kill people, but the manufacturing documentation for them will be very precise. Software development is not engineering because it is still relatively young and immature field. There is a joke where a mathematician, a physicist and a engineer are given a little red rubber ball and asked to find its volume. The mathematician measures the diameter and computes, the physicist immerses the ball into water and sees how much was displaced, and an the engineer looks it up in his "Little red rubber balls" reference. Software development does not yet have anything that may even potentially grow into such a reference. If we decide to write it we would not even know where to start. We have mathematicians who write computer science papers; or physicists who test programs; standup comedians, philosophers, everyone. But not engineers.
  - ozim 2y ago
    Difference is that code is the documentation and design. That is problem where people don’t understand that point. Runtime and running application is the chair. Code is design how to make “chair” run on computer. I say in software development we are years ahead when it comes to handling complexity of documentation with GIT and CI/CD practices, code reviews and QA coverage with unit testing of the designs and general testing. So I do not agree that software development is immature field. There are immature projects and companies cut corners much more than on physical products because it is much easier to fix software later. But in terms of practices we are way ahead.
    - dambi0 2y ago
      Isn’t this similar to saying the valves and vessels of a chemical processing system is the design and documentation of the overall process? I know that it’s frequently reposted but Peter Naur’s Programming as Theory Building is always worth a reread. The code doesn’t tell us why decisions were made, what constraints were considered or what things were ruled out
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- larodi 2y ago
  The word code comes from Latin coudex which seems mean - to hack a tree. Are we then not mere lumberjacks with the beards and beer and all :)))
mnau 2y ago
We are not engineers. We are craftsmen, instead of working with wood, we work with code. What most customers want is an equivalent of "I need a chair, it should look roughly like this." If they want blueprints and documentation (e.g. maximum possible load and other limits), we can supply (and do supply, e.g. in pharma or medicine), but it will cost them quite a lot more. By the order of magnitude. Most customers prefer cobbled up solution that is cheap and works. That's on them. Edit: It is called waterfall. There is nothing inherently wrong with it, except customers didn't like the time it took to implement a change. And they want changes all the time.
- namaria 2y ago
  > We are not engineers. We are craftsmen Same difference. Both appellations invoke some sort of idealized professional standards and the conversation is about failing these standards not upholding them. We're clearly very short of deserving a title that carries any sort of professional pride in it. We are making a huge mess of the world building systems that hijack attention for profit and generate numerous opportunities for bad agents in the form of security shortfalls or opportunities to exploit people using machines and code. If we had any sort of pride of craft or professional standards we wouldn't be pumping out the bug ridden mess that software's become and trying to figure out why in this conversation.
  - alternatex 2y ago
    That is quite a cynical take. A lot of us take pride in our work and actively avoid companies that produce software that is detrimental to society.
    - namaria 2y ago
      It is cynical but it is also a generalization better supported by the evidence than "we're craftsmen" or "we're engineers". If you can say "I'm a craftsman" or "I'm an engineer" all the power to you. Sadly I don't think we can say that in the collective form.
rcxdude 2y ago
OTOH, the level of documentation you get for free from source control would be a godsend in other contexts: the majority of the documentation you see in other processes is just to get an idea of what changed when and why.

Yiin 2y ago

there is difference between building a dashboard for internal systems and tech that if failed can kill people

throwup238 2y ago
Most software work in pharma and manufacturing is still CRUD, they just have cultures of rigorous documentation that permeates the industry even when it's low value. Documenting every little change made sense when I was programming the robotics for a genetic diagnostics pipeline, not so much when I had to write a one pager justifying a one line fix to the parser for the configuration format or updating some LIMS dependency to fix a vulnerability in an internal tool that's not even open to the internet.
Mikhail_Edoshin 2y ago
Well, a hand watch or a chair cannot kill people, but the manufacturing documentation for them will be very precise. Software development is not engineering because it is still relatively young and immature field. There is a joke where a mathematician, a physicist and a engineer are given a little red rubber ball and asked to find its volume. The mathematician measures the diameter and computes, the physicist immerses the ball into water and sees how much was displaced, and an the engineer looks it up in his "Little red rubber balls" reference. Software development does not yet have anything that may even potentially grow into such a reference. If we decide to write it we would not even know where to start. We have mathematicians who write computer science papers; or physicists who test programs; standup comedians, philosophers, everyone. But not engineers.
- ozim 2y ago
  Difference is that code is the documentation and design. That is problem where people don’t understand that point. Runtime and running application is the chair. Code is design how to make “chair” run on computer. I say in software development we are years ahead when it comes to handling complexity of documentation with GIT and CI/CD practices, code reviews and QA coverage with unit testing of the designs and general testing. So I do not agree that software development is immature field. There are immature projects and companies cut corners much more than on physical products because it is much easier to fix software later. But in terms of practices we are way ahead.
  - dambi0 2y ago
    Isn’t this similar to saying the valves and vessels of a chemical processing system is the design and documentation of the overall process? I know that it’s frequently reposted but Peter Naur’s Programming as Theory Building is always worth a reread. The code doesn’t tell us why decisions were made, what constraints were considered or what things were ruled out
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
larodi 2y ago
The word code comes from Latin coudex which seems mean - to hack a tree. Are we then not mere lumberjacks with the beards and beer and all :)))

mnau 2y ago

We are not engineers. We are craftsmen, instead of working with wood, we work with code. What most customers want is an equivalent of "I need a chair, it should look roughly like this." If they want blueprints and documentation (e.g. maximum possible load and other limits), we can supply (and do supply, e.g. in pharma or medicine), but it will cost them quite a lot more. By the order of magnitude. Most customers prefer cobbled up solution that is cheap and works. That's on them. Edit: It is called waterfall. There is nothing inherently wrong with it, except customers didn't like the time it took to implement a change. And they want changes all the time.

namaria 2y ago
> We are not engineers. We are craftsmen Same difference. Both appellations invoke some sort of idealized professional standards and the conversation is about failing these standards not upholding them. We're clearly very short of deserving a title that carries any sort of professional pride in it. We are making a huge mess of the world building systems that hijack attention for profit and generate numerous opportunities for bad agents in the form of security shortfalls or opportunities to exploit people using machines and code. If we had any sort of pride of craft or professional standards we wouldn't be pumping out the bug ridden mess that software's become and trying to figure out why in this conversation.
- alternatex 2y ago
  That is quite a cynical take. A lot of us take pride in our work and actively avoid companies that produce software that is detrimental to society.
  - namaria 2y ago
    It is cynical but it is also a generalization better supported by the evidence than "we're craftsmen" or "we're engineers". If you can say "I'm a craftsman" or "I'm an engineer" all the power to you. Sadly I don't think we can say that in the collective form.

rcxdude 2y ago

OTOH, the level of documentation you get for free from source control would be a godsend in other contexts: the majority of the documentation you see in other processes is just to get an idea of what changed when and why.