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

[Marc Rochkind <mrochkind@gmail.com>]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1916 bytes --]

On Wed, Jul 3, 2024 at 9:27 AM Vincenzo Nicosia <katolaz@freaknet.org>
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! 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.

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.

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.

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.) Management, by
definition, is the art and science of using resources to reach an
objective. Programmers generally are concerned only with themselves as a
resource and with their own personal programming objective. It is unusual
to find a programmer who understands management.

Marc

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 2418 bytes --]