Software Engineering Has Its Own Political Axis From Conservative To Liberal 283
An anonymous reader writes "Steve Yegge is back at it again. This essay is on the notion that software engineers range from conservative to liberal in their notion of software and how it should be built. He says, 'Just as in real-world politics, software conservatism and liberalism are radically different world views. Make no mistake: they are at odds. They have opposing value systems, priorities, core beliefs and motivations. These value systems clash at design time, at implementation time, at diagnostic time, at recovery time. They get along like green eggs and ham. I think it is important for us to recognize and understand the conservative/liberal distinction in our industry. It probably won't help us agree on anything, pretty much by definition. Any particular issue only makes it onto the political axis if there is a fundamental, irreconcilable difference of opinion about it. Programmers probably won't — or maybe even can't — change their core value systems. But the political-axis framework gives us a familiar set of ideas and terms for identifying areas of fundamental disagreement. This can lead to faster problem resolution.'"
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
just come out and say it (Score:4, Funny)
Re:A is like B, except where it is not: news at 11 (Score:0, Funny)
(cue left-wingers saying "that's the right wing" and right-wingers saying "that's the right wing")
Inser ftfy meme here.
Re:We need to politicize software development (Score:5, Funny)
Because, you know, there are like only two ways to code: Liberal and Conservative. There certainly can't be a THIRD way like Funny or Informative or Surprise and Fear. Damn! Or Ruthless Efficiency!
I'm definitely a Surprise programmer. I'm surprised when it works.
Re:"They get along like green eggs and ham" (Score:3, Funny)
Me, I keep coming back because there's a rare chance of seeing an actual sentient commenter, and then wondering how long until he gets hate-modded to -3.
You would probably be better off reading only negatively modded comments. There would be a lot less to filter out.
Re:You Say "Steve Yegge" Like I Would Know... (Score:5, Funny)
Well, I never heard of him, but he does have a wikipedia entry so he can't be that obscure.
Why... (Score:5, Funny)