
Most developers are morons, and the rest are assholes - cookiestack
http://diveintomark.org/archives/2004/08/16/specs
======
Tyrannosaurs
Why do people even post this stuff?

When I clicked on this I guessed that this was going to be on of the best
click-whore titles I'd seen for a while sitting over the top of an article
that was far more reasonable and intelligent. Turns out not - the title is a
fair representation of the article.

In it the author confesses that in the past he's been both a moron and an
arsehole and having read the article I have no problem believing this. Sadly
the rest of the piece is somewhat more questionable.

I'm not going to bother talking about the contents of the article - it's too
obviously wrong to warrant the attention (yes these people exist but they're
not the majority or representative) - but I'd like to ask this question.

If you're a developer who feels that everyone you've worked with is either an
arsehole or a moron, what does it really say? Do you believe that this is the
way the entire industry is (in which case do you really want to be working in
it)? Or have you been particularly unlucky (in which case, really, what are
the chances and shouldn't you look at your job selection)? Or is there perhaps
something in your own attitude?

(P.S. And yes specs matter in many cases but this article says little useful
about why).

~~~
Confusion

      Why do people even post this stuff?
    

If I had to venture a guess: venting. The article is not trying to be
rational, reasonable or show any sense of perspective. Given other articles by
the same author, I'm inclined to say this one simply was never meant to be
posted to HN or other fora. Should he not have posted it at all? I'm unsure:
it's his blog and he has a right to vent. Perhaps some readers know the
context and think it is pretty funny. In any case, I don't expect he was being
serious.

The real question is: why does anyone bother to submit or, equally bad, upvote
this? And then your question fully applies. My guess is it is being upvoted by
people that do not actually have experience working in teams on 'specced'
software. It's upvoted by people that imagine this is how it must be to
implement a spec with a team.

~~~
Tyrannosaurs
Yes sorry, I meant submit rather than post. I get why someone would vent
(though personally I see it as one of those rants which might have been better
done as "write the entry, feel better, don't actually post").

------
malux85
We had one of these asshole developers ... one who would - exactly as the
article says - follow the spec exactly, and when point to the spec when things
went wrong. He had no sympathy, because he was just doing as he was told.

We fixed him though. After one of his long rants about the spec, we told him
that he was going to be tasked with writing the next spec.

All of a sudden, he had the other asshole developers pointing to his spec

It actually humbled him, and turned him into a good developer.

------
michaelpinto
I knew if I waited around long enough that specs would come back in style!
Back in the day we use to make fun of folks who "rolled up their selves and
started writing code" — then web 2.0 happened and beta logos decorated every
site. Of course I tend to do client focused work, so specs have a double value
(although too many folks will say they read them when they haven't).

------
wnoise
Morons drive the creation of assholes. You need to be able to use the spec to
push morons to stop being morons.

------
mrspeaker
I don't understand how people get to a point like this. Sure finding good devs
is hard, but there are millions of us. You've always got choices (even in
2004) - and if you're not surrounded by good people then it's your own fault!

~~~
kls
You know in a sense you are right, we have become a society of victims and
blame layers. It is infections and you do have choices the problem is there
are few great optimist left so many never see the choices due to constraints
in their perception and apathy.

------
lhnz
What if you're never given a spec.

~~~
malux85
Communicate, communicate, communicate. The first thing you need to do is talk
to your manager / boss / leader and explain why a spec is important for you
and for him. Explain that if we have a spec then _he_ wont have to deal with
angry calls that the system doesn't do X,Y,Z. Explain that without a spec
you'll be forced to assume.

If you're the manager, then it's your job to explain to the customer why a
spec is important.

You've just gotta communicate my friend :) Managers, Team leaders and Clients
(in my experience) are usually very good if you only communicate :)

I listened to a really good audio book recently and it talked about "The
importance of communication, either the conversations you're not having, or
not having well" ..

Chances are you as a developer are more than skilled enough to write the
software, and your manager is more than capable of managing - but there's just
a lack of (good) communication :) hope that helps

------
mgunes
(2004)

------
JoachimSchipper
Please do not editorialize titles.

~~~
mooism2
It's not editorialising --- it's the first sentence from the article, and it
gives us a better idea of the article content than the article's own title
gives us.

~~~
JoachimSchipper
It's an article about specifications and how people get in trouble with them -
"why specs matter" is totally clear, "Most developers are morons, and the rest
are assholes" isn't.

~~~
mooism2
"Why specs matter" is clear about the ultimate point the article tries to
make, but entirely fails to communicate the tone of writing it uses.

"Most developers are morons, and the rest are assholes" tells you what the
article is like to read. I expect some people will dismiss the article without
following the link to read it based on that alone. That's good! (Other people
will find themselves compelled to click...) But it doesn't communicate that
the article is ultimately about specs, it's true.

The submitter has chosen to emphasise a different aspect of the article than
did the author. That's not editorialising. It's presenting the article
differently for the different context of HN (as opposed to the context of Mark
Pilgrim's blog).

Editorialising would be if the submitted title was "Specs are useless because
no-one reads them properly" or "Mark Pilgrim is a moron and an asshole". Both
of them have an element of truth, but it is a stretch to get there from the
article itself.

