Standards

Do we, in the programming profession, hold ourselves to high enough standards?

Here's what Christopher Alexander writes:

"In my life as an architect, I find that the single thing which inhibits young professionals,new students most severely, is their acceptance of standards that are too low. If I ask a student whether her design is as good as Chartres, she often smiles tolerantly at me as if to say, "Of course not, that isn't what I am trying to do... I could never do that."

Then, I express my disagreement, and tell her: "That standard must be our standard. If you are going to be a builder, no other standard is worthwhile. That is what I expect of myself in my own buildings, and it is what I expect of my students.""

-- from the foreword to Patterns of Software by Richard P. Gabriel --

I submit that we (in the programming community) have, for the most part, accepted standards that are too low. I submit that we have "sold out" to those who believe that "good enough" is good enough. We tolerate poor managers, poor developers, and poor techniques, and we congratulate ourselves on our mediocre efforts. We consider programming a job, an activity that occurs between the hours of 9:00 AM and 5:00 PM, with breaks for lunch and interruptions for meetings.

I submit that we have no standard to look to, no Chartres, in our profession. We build a thing and proclaim it to be wonderful, or at least what the user wanted (and with few major defects). We do not consider what could have been. We do not even consider what the "other guy" is building. We look at our own constructs (and not too closely, lest we see the warts) and think "that is a worthy accomplishment and therefore we are worthy".

Our efforts are expensive. Our processes are inefficient. Our participants are poorly educated, self-centered, and ignorant. Our results are unsatisfying. Users dislike, no, hate, that which we produce. We consider them beneath us and their opinions unimportant.

We think that we know what it is that we do, yet we do not know our profession's history.

One day we shall be weighed in the balance. On that day, I fear, we shall be found wanting.