[spyrosg]

And yet, the programmer may have a responsibility to bring a salary back to his family. People will call him a criminal for obeying his boss, but they usually will not come and help him if he does the right thing and takes flak for it.

[f1notformula1]

This thread is somewhat framing this as ethics vs salary, but what I found most useful in your statement was the (somewhat implicit?) thought that there is often no ethical way to earn a salary for some programmers.

While this has not been true in my personal experience, I must say that I've been very fortunate in life. I can totally understand and see how this may be true for some programmers.

I wonder if, as an industry, there was a better way for us to handle such situations.

[nine_k]

Programmers enjoy a rare market where employers compete for hiring a good dev, not the other way around. Unless lots o employers do things so unethical you can't stand working on them, you can just walk away from an unethical boss and spend time digging through numerous invitations from other companies.

[spyrosg]

You may simply not be a good dev. What then?

I live in a market where finding a job quickly makes it another shitty job, and only after amply signaling your submissiveness (ah, Europe). You get no unemployment money, because it's you who quit, of course.

There's also the fact that you're the good guy and yet you're the one getting shafted, while the arses above keep doing what they do. Anyone with a brain will sense something's wrong, and will rethink their ethics.

[s73v3r_]

Programmers are highly in demand. The idea that a programmer and their family are going to be homeless because they didn't do what the big, evil boss said is not very convincing.

[randomdata]

But programmers are in high demand because of the many artificial barriers that are put up to keep most of them out of work. Just because you have a programming job now does not mean you will make it through the 16 weeks of programming trivia that the next employer expects before considering you a potential hire.

I may agree that it is not a convincing argument for anyone, doing any job, but I'm not sure the programmer part makes any difference.

[s73v3r_]

I'm not sure that I can agree with your statement. Most non-crappy developers can have a new job within a week or so.

[randomdata]

I really don't know if I agree with yours. As a developer in a rural area, while there are certainly jobs for programmers, they are never advertised. You have to find them by word of mouth. It could easily take more than a week just to discover what jobs are available.

Moving isn't realistic within the span of a week. Remote might be an option, but brings its own challenges.