[codegeek]

"If you answer to managers.."

I know you usually have good comments on HN, but is it just me or you really have something against "management". Anyway, the fact is that everyone answers to someone in some ways when it comes to money which we need to make to survive in this world unless you have family inheritance. Having said that, I am not saying that managers are necessarily the best thing in this world but i don't understand how you can get away without answering to someone. Even if you are a superstar entrepreneur who is his own boss, I have one word for you: customers.

"people who build rockets do, where attention to code quality is critical "

So are you saying that code quality is not critical elsewhere ? I agree in general that many companies have shitty code but there are many places which actually do care about code quality and code reviews are actually important.

"build CRUD apps to support their careers rather than your own, then you're not a professional."

Just think about what you said here.

[michaelochurch]

I wrote about my views on management, here: http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/04/30/gervais-macle...

Essentially, "manager" is a conflation of several corporate needs: (a) mentoring junior hires, (b) protecting the company from bad-faith employees, (c) protecting good employees from bad ones, (d) setting project priorities, and (e) putting a public face on the company (e.g. CEOs). Some of these jobs are more fun than others. There are huge conflicts of interest within what is called a "manager" and ultimately, employees get shafted.

Managers ultimately end up as the internal police force, because they're the ones who make firing and promotion decisions. However, there are a huge number of dirty cops. Most of them, in fact, are dirty. There are a few sadists who enjoy using the badge-and-gun just to fuck with people. There are others (much more common) who go full-on extortionist and use their power to build an image of outsized performance so they can hop out of cop work and into an executive or high-level strategic position. Rare is what police are supposed to be: principled public servants.

I don't have a problem with police. Society needs them. However, if the police started acting like the mob (with them making most of their income "on the economy") then I would. Corporate management is mostly dirty cops.

[samatman]

Perhaps you don't have much experience with the modern police force? Much of their budget comes from asset forfeiture, which is your basic perverse incentive.

[kyllo]

So are you saying that code quality is not critical elsewhere ? I agree in general that many companies have shitty code but there are many places which actually do care about code quality and code reviews are actually important.

He's saying safety-critical. Like NASA software. As in, if the code hits an NPE or array out-of-bounds or int overflow, people die. They actually use formal methods which is an exhaustive testing of every possible state the program could possibly enter.

We don't do this for business applications because it's extraordinarily expensive--can cost $100's per LoC.

And yeah, I think the several times daily I see "Microsoft Excel has encountered a problem and needs to close" is evidence that most major software shops have very poor quality control.

[jfb]

Code quality clearly isn't important, or we would have better tools. More controversially, why should it be important? Software quality is ineffable, unmeasurable, and therefore impossible to manage. So organizations just kick the ball downfield and accumulate technical debt by the bucketload, and they're arguably correct to do so. The only people who suffer are the programmers, and they're plenty of those, and more every day.