[TUHS] Re: Anyone ever heard of teaching a case study of Initial Unix?

["G. Branden Robinson" <g.branden.robinson@gmail.com>]

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Getting in before the COFF boom lowers...  :-O

At 2024-07-03T17:29:26-0600, Marc Rochkind wrote:
> > The programmers considered as "fungible workforce" by mainstream
> > software engineering and project management theories are *paid* to
> > to their programming job, and they mostly have to carry that job
> > over working on prescribed objectives and timelines which have been
> > decided by somebody else, managers who know nothing at all about
> > software development. Personal interest in the project, passion,
> > motivation, curiosity, creative power, sense of beauty, the joy of
> > belonging to a community of likeminded people, are never part of the
> > equation, at any point.
>
> What a cynical take on software development!

There's some truth to it.  But I'd agree that it is not the whole story.

> The logical error is to assume that if something is sometimes true
> (e.g., "managers who know nothing at all about software development")
> then it is always true.

Yes, and this fallacy is a popular one among almost any sample of humans
one takes.

> My experience over many decades is quite different. Most often,
> managers know software quite well. Where they fail is in their very
> poor understanding of how to manage people.

This aligns closely with my experience.  Often the worst managers I've
had were those who had the best programming "chops".

> The bias that operates in software development, and perhaps all
> organizations, is that when there is a disagreement between management
> and non-management (e.g., programmers), the non-managers usually
> assume that they are always right and the managers are wrong.

An obvious solution to this sort of problem, long held to be inherently
horrific, is to cultivate a more mature perspective on management, and
skill at performing it, by having workers manage themselves.  One often
finds this insight at or near the heart of "revolutionary" approaches to
software development like Agile or Lean, sometimes under many layers of
obfuscation to avoid alarming MBAs and others whose career plans from
adolescence involved going directly into professional management from
university.

That solution is, of course, worker self-management.

> I have never met a programmer or group of programmers who were always
> right. Most often, they are ignorant of financing, regulatory
> constraints, product schedules, commitments, staffing issues, and
> everything else that isn't coding.  (There are exceptions, but they
> are uncommon.)

Indeed.  One way to overcome this ignorance and produce more exceptions
is to educate one's staff in these very phenomena.  I won't digress on
why this doesn't often happen in practice.  It doesn't take much
imagination, or professional experience, to reason it out.

> Management, by definition, is the art and science of using resources
> to reach an objective.

Stated this broadly, programmers solve management problems all the time.
Mightn't their skills "port"?

> Programmers generally are concerned only with themselves as a
> resource and with their own personal programming objective.

If I s/Programmers/People/;s/progamming//, then I find this statement
no less true.  Cooperators and defectors appear in every aspect of life.

> It is unusual to find a programmer who understands management.

As noted, a solution exists.  But it is an unpalatable one to those
touted, by themselves or others, as "thought leaders".

Regards,
Branden

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