Comments on: You Are Not Paid To Write Software

By: dotnetchris

dotnetchris — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 20:30:00 +0000

Nathan,

“Software developers are hired to write code whose output–a product or service–can be sold at market for a profit.” That is not a software developer that is a programmer. Programmers are more like machinists, or mechanics, they don’t develop the ECU reading device and tester that really tells them what’s wrong, they just plug it in and use blind faith that it’s correct. The need for programmers in the future is going to massively dwindle. In a relatively short period of time we will hit a technology stand point that we will no longer need programmers to push bits around that everything will be done at a higher level about defining services, data models, workflows and the grunt work of marshaling bits around and mapping x to y will fall by the way side.

If you’re a programmer, be very fearful of your career longevity. You are a cog in a machine, nothing more.

I would rather be the person who formulated and placed the machine into existence to start with. And that’s why I am. That requires solving business problems inherently, not do X, do Y as your business says. It’s the whole do as I mean, not as I say. A business is not capable of determining software needs, they’re a business it’s not their job to, that’s my job.

By: Brian

Brian — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 16:46:00 +0000

Logically, it seems that there’s an boundary around which writing tests doesn’t make sense. In certain industries, you’d create tests for your test system before using it to test a design. There’s a closure problem there: At some point, we have to decide that we have confidence in the techniques that we’re using, and just move ahead.
The critical considerations in reaching closure involve time horizons well beyond the act of creating code. Are we creating an asset that our organization will re-use? How frequently will a feature be used, and what are the consequences of its failure? Will a customer refuse payment if this feature doesn’t work?
Over the years I have found that my work process often involves mimicking an organization’s behavior until I understand how it creates pain for them, and then building assets quietly behind the scenes, with appropriate test development, to create assets that eventually let me code circles around my peers. Often those tools involve some level of automation of the code generation process.
Does my management understand why this works? No. They are businessmen, which means that they take a practical attitude about resource acquisition and profit generation. If the have a candidate pool of people that only know how to exploit software assets (rather than create them), then they will figure out how to make money by exploiting the exploiters. We need to be fairly cautious about trying to change the culture in such environments. Emperors tend not to support those that reveal their nudity.

By: Derick Bailey

Derick Bailey — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 16:11:00 +0000

lol – you said exactly the same thing i did, but thought you were saying something else. :D

By: Nathan Alden

Nathan Alden — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 15:08:00 +0000

Am I really having to point out that yes, software developers are actually hired to *shock* develop software?!? Nooooo, I coulda sworn we were hired to “solve problems and provide solutions” (whatever that means). How much more markety can you make this sound?

Software developers are hired to write code whose output–a product or service–can be sold at market for a profit. It’s that simple. You can call your job whatever you want and call what you do whatever you want, but that’s not why an employer hires you. He hires you to, yes, shut up and code–although some are nicer about that than others.

The vast majority of software developers are not hired to solve problems where we happen to write software. We are hired with the express purpose of writing software that follows a business plan designed to make money.

By: gconz

gconz — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 22:08:00 +0000

“Writing software is the simple, mechanical part of what we do. A machine can write software.”

I hadn’t realized we had reached Judgment Day. When did SkyNet become self-aware?

By: Rasmus Bækgaard

Rasmus Bækgaard — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 19:59:00 +0000

Word!
You said it :D

By: RagsOnWeb

RagsOnWeb — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 00:06:00 +0000

I get Paid after reading his blogposts :) Hats off to Derick

By: Guest

Guest — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 17:56:00 +0000

from test driven development
to feature driven development
to _value_ driven development!

even better, measurable_value and so money driven development!

By: Wayne Molina

Wayne Molina — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 11:51:00 +0000

I live in a very non-technical metro area (although you wouldn’t think that at first glance), so most companies that I interview with are basically like “We just use WebForms and stored procedures” like it was pre-2005; no Model-View-Presenter type of pattern, just code in event handlers. So far I’ve been the only person on the team and in the entire company that even knows what TDD is (same for other good things like ORMs, IoCs, the SOLID principles, etc.) let alone when you’d want to use it. Really thinking of getting out of development since I’m so tired of getting that “deer in the headlights” look from my teammates when I ask about what ORM they use or how they test code.

By: Steve Pye

Steve Pye — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 11:32:00 +0000

But even that takes “solution” out of the question. Writing software is a part of the process… understanding need, developing solutions, and when needed, writing software to help fulfill those solutions is a much larger process, and is really what a developer should be paid to do. If we’re doing our job well, we’re only “writing software” if it’s absolutely necessary.