
The Fountainhead and Software Engineering - aard
https://medium.com/@ard_adam/the-fountainhead-and-software-engineering-d991b269af2e
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thundergolfer
As someone who's got an Architecture degree, read _The Fountainhead_ , and
works as a Software Engineer, my response to this is pretty hearty skepticism.

To make a response to the article's summary, which is

> I am confident that giving engineers more autonomy and ownership will
> transform the way software is created and increase the quality of the
> results, and The Fountainhead provides an excellent example of what real
> autonomy and ownership look like.

It is already well known that giving Software Engineers more autonomy and
ownership can be excellent for productivity and software quality, and it's a
bit laughable that the author says _The Fountainhead_ is what "real" autonomy
and ownership look like.

Howard Roark is far less realistic a person than the majority of protagonists
in fiction books, who themselves aren't of course realistic. Howard Roark is
an argument in character form, and the universe of _The Fountainhead_ is built
to forward Rand's worldview, not be a vehicle for the exploration of life's
conflicts and complexity.

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rarecoil
> the universe of The Fountainhead is built to forward Rand's worldview, not
> be a vehicle for the exploration of life's conflicts and complexity.

This. I've also read _The Fountainhead_ , and Roark's personality would not
get him the same result in the real world. It's fantastic and fictional.

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ncmncm
The Fountainhead is written to appeal to adolescent fantasies. It has worked
very well for that purpose. Adolescents adore it for making them feel superior
to everybody actually doing anything.

Most people lose their adoration when they find that actually doing things is
hard and takes actual, you know, work. Some don't, because they have
discovered that not doing anything does not keep one from fantasizing about
having done it.

