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> They won't be impressed at all by someone's big title and even bigger budget while they're exercising that professional judgement either. Some of these people

> They won't be impressed at all by someone's big title and even bigger budget while they're exercising that professional judgement either. Some of these people have had pretty stellar careers so I think it's safe to say their professional conduct hasn't damaged them with their employers or clients. It really depends on the status of the profession in society and the company. I'd expect lots of software organisations to fire a bunch of people looking for people pleasers until this becomes an accepted part of the business approach.

Silhouette 2mo ago
I'd expect lots of software organisations to fire a bunch of people looking for people pleasers until this becomes an accepted part of the business approach. No doubt. Imposing this kind of professional standards to regulate an industry as rich as tech would never work unless the penalties for cutting corners involved making the offending organisations significantly less rich very quickly. They would need to be taught a very clear lesson that hiring people pleasers had become an expensive mistake. As I commented elsewhere - the problem then becomes who gets to define what the proper path is. For example destroying companies because they chose not to follow the latest sage advice from anyone who once signed the Agile Manifesto does not seem like a good way to promote better quality software to me. And yet it seems highly likely that those are the kinds of people who would initially be engaged as "experts" by those seeking to establish the regulatory environment. I don't want people like them. I want the quiet, unassuming developer you've never heard of because they're the principal engineer of a team you've also never heard of that has been developing life saving medical equipment without a single significant failure in a live environment for the 15 years since their first device went into use at a local hospital. Get me those people to write the rules - starting with what is acceptable practice when developing software that really needs to work and letting the people who know how to achieve the most challenging results figure out how to tone everything down for applications where imperfections might be more acceptable - and then we can talk about whether regulating software development effectively is now a viable proposition.
- disgruntledphd2 2mo ago
  > As I commented elsewhere - the problem then becomes who gets to define what the proper path is. For example destroying companies because they chose not to follow the latest sage advice from anyone who once signed the Agile Manifesto does not seem like a good way to promote better quality software to me. And yet it seems highly likely that those are the kinds of people who would initially be engaged as "experts" by those seeking to establish the regulatory environment. This is why any such regulation is likely to end up in a much better state if it's driven by actual practitioners. However, given how many software people are wildly against this, it seems unlikely to happen and so we'll end up in the less good state you note above.
  - Silhouette 2mo ago
    It looks like we agree here. I too think any useful regulation should be specified primarily by experienced practitioners who have been achieving demonstrably good outcomes. And I too think that in reality it would mostly likely be a very different type of person who got to write the rules - which is why I don't think our industry is ready for that kind of regulation and I believe introducing it now would be counterproductive.

Silhouette 2mo ago

I'd expect lots of software organisations to fire a bunch of people looking for people pleasers until this becomes an accepted part of the business approach. No doubt. Imposing this kind of professional standards to regulate an industry as rich as tech would never work unless the penalties for cutting corners involved making the offending organisations significantly less rich very quickly. They would need to be taught a very clear lesson that hiring people pleasers had become an expensive mistake. As I commented elsewhere - the problem then becomes who gets to define what the proper path is. For example destroying companies because they chose not to follow the latest sage advice from anyone who once signed the Agile Manifesto does not seem like a good way to promote better quality software to me. And yet it seems highly likely that those are the kinds of people who would initially be engaged as "experts" by those seeking to establish the regulatory environment. I don't want people like them. I want the quiet, unassuming developer you've never heard of because they're the principal engineer of a team you've also never heard of that has been developing life saving medical equipment without a single significant failure in a live environment for the 15 years since their first device went into use at a local hospital. Get me those people to write the rules - starting with what is acceptable practice when developing software that really needs to work and letting the people who know how to achieve the most challenging results figure out how to tone everything down for applications where imperfections might be more acceptable - and then we can talk about whether regulating software development effectively is now a viable proposition.

disgruntledphd2 2mo ago
> As I commented elsewhere - the problem then becomes who gets to define what the proper path is. For example destroying companies because they chose not to follow the latest sage advice from anyone who once signed the Agile Manifesto does not seem like a good way to promote better quality software to me. And yet it seems highly likely that those are the kinds of people who would initially be engaged as "experts" by those seeking to establish the regulatory environment. This is why any such regulation is likely to end up in a much better state if it's driven by actual practitioners. However, given how many software people are wildly against this, it seems unlikely to happen and so we'll end up in the less good state you note above.
- Silhouette 2mo ago
  It looks like we agree here. I too think any useful regulation should be specified primarily by experienced practitioners who have been achieving demonstrably good outcomes. And I too think that in reality it would mostly likely be a very different type of person who got to write the rules - which is why I don't think our industry is ready for that kind of regulation and I believe introducing it now would be counterproductive.