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Comment by ilcavero | Hacker News Reader

this one of the many examples of the anti-intellectualism that is so pervasive in the software development scene. Are the inflexible, detail-prescripting methodologies he describes any good? of course not, but I haven't seen a single seriously used methodology be like that in real life unless it fell on the hands of negligent/incompetent management and/or engineers.

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You are lucky if you've never seen a methodology misused or misapplied. I have seen it many times, in my own work experience and in the failed projects I've taken over.

I'm not sure how you got the idea that I'm anti-intellectual. My intention was to express my own opinions and experience and start a discussion. I wasn't trying to wave anything away.

There's a difference between enterprise IT and other environments. For example, if you are a government tax department, your agenda is driven by legislative changes, and you want a fairly rigid process to ensure that things are done accurately and correctly.

>anti-intellectualism that is so pervasive in the software development scene

Errrr....

How else do you characterize an industry that seems content to re-learn lessons of the past over and over?

1) Industries don't learn; people do. We have a lot of turnover and growth in this industry, so a lot of new people. 2) Although there are high points of genius we may never reach again (Turing, etc), we are making progress. Software today can do things hardly imagined a few decades ago. 3) Part of how we make progress is to try "unlearning" things; throw out conventional wisdom and try something "crazy". Maybe it will fail the same way as before, or maybe this time it will work. Maybe the constraints that produced the conventional wisdom have changed. 4) People problems will always be hard, in every industry. Productivity is a people problem.

I am against a general ignorance of where the industry's been, which manifests as a refusal to learn basic software engineering concepts that are laid out in a book like the Mythical Man Month. Seems like every new medium (such as the web) starts with masses rallying around a figurehead who proclaims "this time it's different! We don't need any of that engineering stuff!" A few years later, they do.

This trend of anti-intellectualism is worrying. I doubt it's new -- Dijkstra had similar sentiments -- but the worst part is the developers who seem to enjoy being ignorant.

It seems like almost all professions have a body of knowledge. Software Engineering doesn't.

Imagine getting open heart surgery, your chest is open, and doctors start arguing over the best methodology to do it.

This is exactly why software engineering needs to professionalize.

I don't see developers always having more leverage than their business counterparts. Really, I'd love to see developers wholly accountable to their peers, along with some sort of entrance exam. I think the world at large would take developers a bit more seriously.

It does, and it has for quite some time: http://www.computer.org/portal/web/swebok

OMG. I just hope you are being sarcastic.

That's everything we are complaining about right there on the index.

No sarcasm intended. You don't have to agree with SEI or IEEE, but the complaint was that there wasn't an organized body of knowledge. My response was to show that there is.

I'd be interested in knowing what you find so objectionable about SWEBOK.

This is not a fair analogy. Open heart surgery is a repetitive and well-defined procedure with clear goals and context. Software Engineering is a complex and creative endeavour where individual talent makes a big difference. There is no methodology that will help a mediocre writer produce a great novel. It takes skill and talent.

Actually, there are surprisingly large and persistent differences between hospitals in their complication rates for various surgeries. It is fueling a debate about how to evaluate them and how to promote the methodologies of the more effective places. Not really all that different from the software industry.

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