The Coding Notes

“ Programming, as a profession, is of great importance to society. Other professions with similar importance have oaths and codes of conduct to guide the professionals in their field, like M.D’s and lawyers. This has benefited their professions in many ways, like taking the lead in the creation of legislature.” ( Read my extended summary of Uncle Bob’s presentation ) Inspired by Uncle Bob I'm taking a glance at an oath for programmers. Why is it important? How can we build on the experience in other professions? What role could an oath play? After 3 other posts, here is my attempt at a Programmer’s Oath. It is an adjusted copy of the Declaration of Geneva , the most widely sworn oath. I’m quite happy with the outcome. Still, like code, any oath it should be properly reviewed. In programming the direct subjects of our work are the programs we create. An oath shouldn’t be complicated by including possible patrons (e.g. ...

“ Programming, as a profession, is of great importance to society. Other professions with similar importance have oaths and codes of conduct to guide the professionals in their field, like M.D’s and lawyers. This has benefited their professions in many ways, like taking the lead in the creation of legislature.” ( Read my extended summary of Uncle Bob’s presentation ). Inspired by Uncle Bob I'm taking a glance at an oath for programmers. Why is it important? How can we build on the experience in other professions? What role could an oath play? In a profession long ago.. In a galaxy long, long ago (2014), I worked as a licensed an in-house insurance agent. A year later I started as an independent financial advisor. While I worked in the financial sector, the lack of trust in the sector was… noticeable. And yes the sector deserves it. The global financial crisis of 2008 is just one of its sins. Some people experience the fallout even today. Jus...

Here’s a recap of a talk by Uncle Bob on a programmer’s oath: “ Programming, as a profession, is of great importance to society. Other professions with similar importance have oaths and codes of conduct to guide the professionals in their field, like M.D’s and lawyers. This has benefitted their professions in many ways, like taking the lead in the creation of legislature.” ( Read my extended summary of Uncle Bob’s presentation ). The oath Uncle Bob proposed in the talk seems to be comprised of code centric points (five out of nine literally mention code). At many points it seems to be more of an opinionated work instruction, than oath aspiring to higher goals.  In my opinion it mainly shows how unfamiliar our profession is with oaths (and probably ethics). Still, other fields have been swearing oaths for millennia. Like any good coder, we should build on the work of others. This should allow us to skip a few millennia... more on this tomorrow.

In ancient times reading and writing was considered a highly specialized skill. This skill was practiced by Scribes. This allowed laws to be passed on, stock to be kept of grain stores, planning to be done of crop rotation. Today programmers are the modern scribe. Almost all our important interactions happen through software that programmers have created.  Interacting with a television, microwaves, computers, phones et c . Scribes, as a profession, had an oath, a code of conduct and ethics as a group of professionals. We as programmers do not have these yet. Since 1946 the number of programmers has been rising, Bob says to around 100 million in 2017. And he poses that this doubles every 5 years. The facts say there are only 13 million, but growing with 20% each year . This means that there is a doubling in the amount of developers each 4 years. That also means that the craft of software development gets continuousl...