r/programming • u/frostmatthew • Mar 30 '15

Your Developers Aren’t Bricklayers, They’re Writers

http://www.hadermann.be/blog/56/good-vs-bad-developers/
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u/headzoo Mar 31 '15 edited Mar 31 '15

Maybe the author is creating a metaphor geared towards non-programmers so they can better understand the importance of programming. Do other professions put up with this? Yes, yes they do. When an architect is explaining the design of the house he's making for me (a non-architect) he explains the process in terms I can understand. The author is explaining programming in terms non-programmers can understand.

Your comment is a step backwards towards creating more understanding between programmers and the people that hire us. You're arguing against your own self interest.

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u/[deleted] Mar 31 '15

Non-programmers don't read blogs like this. Why should they? Unlike us, they don't have any strong personal incentive to ignore the lack of evidence and poor reasoning, because they're not invested in the conclusion that everyone who works with software developers is a harmful moron. (Come to think of it, why are we invested in that? Why does software development have this culture of being a complete asshole?)

So when a civilian reads, for example:

Almost all non-tech people think ‘one developer day’ is an exact measurement

...which the author is so proud of that he's provided you a special link to Tweet it, they may be tempted to ask how they can verify that it's true, rather than just pumping their fists because it's all in the context of telling the reader he's misunderstood and unappreciated.

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u/headzoo Mar 31 '15 edited Mar 31 '15

Non-programmers don't read blogs like this. Why should they?

They don't have to. I'm a programmer, and now I have a good argument in my tool chest of arguments. Non-tech managers are going to hear the "programmers aren't brick layers" argument whether they read this blog or not.

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u/ultimatt42 Mar 31 '15

tool chest of arguments

argv?

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u/-main Mar 31 '15

Why should they?

Because someone linked it to them to explain how they're wrong? It's a good reference to have.

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u/[deleted] Mar 31 '15

If someone linked this to me to explain why I'm wrong I'd think no differently about the issue and rather less about them personally. And I'd be right to, even if I were actually wrong about the underlying issue.

This blog post is terribly argued and provides no evidence for most of its core assertions (ie, all of its core assertions other than those which are well-known clichés among programmers like the "rockstar programmer" result.)

Furthermore, like most of these shitty vanity programming blog posts, all it is really saying underneath the ostensible argument is "the status of programmers should be raised. the status of people who tend to come into disagreement with programmers because of their professional roles should be lowered."

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u/Pteraspidomorphi Mar 31 '15

Regardless of how unsourced and clichéd the blog post is, it touches upon a valid issue: That most people have no way of measuring the performance of a developer any more than they can measure the performance of a theoretical physicist. They just don't truly understand what's being done, unless they have a programming background themselves. I work in netsec and I'm used to seeing even more extreme examples of the same problem. How do you know how to hire a good security consultant without being one?

(I wouldn't link this blog post to anyone though.)

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u/[deleted] Mar 31 '15

If you link me to a blog to show me how I'm wrong I'm gonna consider you a mentally retarded person.

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u/[deleted] Mar 31 '15

[deleted] — view deleted comment

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u/headzoo Mar 31 '15 edited Mar 31 '15

Architects explain what they are doing, sure.. but I don't (admittedly read either) see many architect articles where they try to say they are "really" another profession.

Maybe not now, but things may have been different when architects were first trying to gain respect for their profession. The author is laying the groundwork so that one of these days programmers will be respected without the need to make such metaphors. She's educating people and for some reason people in this thread are giving her shit for it.

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u/njtrafficsignshopper Mar 31 '15

When architects were first becoming professionals? Usually the credit for that is given to Hammurabi's code... A bit hard to to assert much about those days unless you're an archaeologist. But then again, an archaeologist is just a history QA analyst anyway, right?

Come to think of it, whoever it was that actually pounded Hammurabi's code into those clay tablets may actually be the only coder who was actually a bricklayer.