Software Craftsmanship risks putting the software at the centre rather than the benefit the software is supposed to deliver, mostly because we are romantics with big egos. (View Highlight)
Note: Dang - is my support of the idea being a profession really because I have a big ego and romanticize my work?
Non-programmers don’t care about the aesthetics of software in the same way non-plumbers don’t care about the aesthetics of plumbing - they just want their information in the right place or their hot water to work. (Although it’s fair to say they appreciate decent boiler controls.) (View Highlight)
Note: I understand this point, but I disagree with it. I think the pendulum will swing back to aesthetic beauty. Also, there is that Steve Jobs story of sanding the backside of the cabinets.
It would be great if programming were a proper profession, but it isn’t. A profession has a structured model for advancing through levels of skill and ability, be it studying for a law degree and articles (working for a legal practise) or the years of undergraduate and medical training a doctor undertakes before specialising. The latter has clearly-delineated ranks, from junior doctor, via a brutal regime of 80-hour weeks, to consutant. (View Highlight)
So from a purely demographics perspective we can see that the vast majority of people in the IT industry are there because a) it’s a well paid alternative to other white collar office work or even manual labour, and b) there is no incentive to make it anything other than a commodity numbers game. (View Highlight)
Note: Counterpoint to b - the task has become irreducibly difficult. Adding more bodies doesn’t help
Then there are the others. The minority of people who genuinely love programming and choose to excel at it. They understand software development is a skill, in fact a whole portfolio of skills (View Highlight)
Note: Craftsman
We need some sort of apprenticeship model, and a way to identify masters, both to apprentices and other masters. That sounds like the sort of model that craftsmen use (View Highlight)
Note: Wait is he making the same point as me?
I’d like a call to arms to stop navel-gazing and treat programming as the skilled trade that it is. (View Highlight)
Note: Craft is ego-centric and trade is humble focused on outcome in the authors mind
if you learn jiu jitsu in one dojo up to a certain standard (we’ll call it a black belt) and then turn up at another school, it’s pretty tricky to get any kind of calibration without involving some life-threatening fighting with the new kid. And without calibrating, you can’t know whether someone is any good.
Ever resourceful, the jiu jitsu schools developed a sort of dance, called the nage-ne-kata, comprising five groups of three techniques. For each technique you both execute the technique and have it done to you, to demonstrate not only your fighting skills but your falling and rolling abilities. All senior students would learn the nage-ne-kata, and if they went to a new school, the sensei would ask them to demonstrate it for them. It is still taught today in some ju jitsu schools.
You can tell a lot about someone’s jiu jitsu from their nage-ne-kata (View Highlight)
