Re: who owns the code? was Re: Distinguishing type names from other identifiers

Re: who owns the code? was Re: Distinguishing type names from other identifiers

[Marc Wachowitz]

<rant apology=no>

Paul Van Bellinghen <pvanbell@mhv.net> wrote:
> I can tell you from experience that an engineer needs to have a circuit
> (HW engineer) or a piece of code (SW engineer) that he/she feels that was
> created (and maintained) by them in order to feel a sense of satisfaction
> in their contribution to the project.

It may be true for your own experiences so far, and for the experiences
so far of quite a few other people, but it isn't always true (and it might
even some day cease to be true for you, one never knows ;-). For example,
for me, both the most satisfying and the most effective motivation wrt. to
quality of the result is interest in the process itself (referring to the
social as well as technical factors) and in the product - at least beyond
a point where some very basic material requirements for living are met.
Of course there are necessary partial tasks which hardly anyone will enjoy
performing, but the intelligent reaction is to find ways to reduce them, as
far as direct involvement of humans is concerned (as someone said, program
development is intelligent laziness), and not to hand it down to unfortunate
losers in an insane form of competition, which is inhumane (and does waste
a lot of human potentials, too).

> Recall that we who live in a capitalistic system believe that private
> ownership and competition result in a higher quality of products overall.
> This is proven by a comparison with the products produced by socialistic/
> communistic systems of government.

<social-philosophy>
Clearly, there's a tendency towards "product ownership" - whether by a group
or by an individual - built into the current social/economical structure, but
that doesn't at all mean that I'd like it. I don't like it, but it does take
more than a few people to change this setup. I do carefully look at the subtle
influences this environment does have on mentality, and try not to let it take
root there, even though in many cases - far beyond the range of some obvious,
isolated decisions - it's hard to avoid following these patterns; that doesn't
preclude a critical view about this. As far as the supposed "success" alluded
to above is concerned, it's only true wrt. the popular confused usage of those
notions. So-called "socialistic" countries effetively had a more government-
(or state)-oriented capitalism, opposed to a more market-oriented capitalism,
which are both variations of the same fundamental structures, which are both
subject to Marx' Critique of Political Economy, and the more recent continued
development of Critical Theory (advanced by philosophers like Max Horkheimer
or Theodor W. Adorno). There's no need to be fooled by those countries' silly
propaganda pretending to have anything but cliches common with the notion of
communism, which would have to be a movement overthrowing this mess, a free
association of free individuals, which cannot be based on oppression.
</social-philosophy>

> People need to feel a sense of pride in the goods and services they produce
> in order for them to produce those goods and services to the best of their
> ability. This directly translates into quality.

<psychology>
Why make a detour via pride, with all its negative baggage, and not work
towards a social structure and climate where joy is derived from what's
actually going on, and can be shared with other humans without all those
pointless fights for (psychical or material) "territory"? Let's say you're
enjoying a beautiful sunset, something in which you'd hardly take pride,
and someone else is also enjoying it. Does their joy reduce your joy? I'd
guess it doesn't, and likewise, I don't see why pride should be somehow
positive. If humans appear to need to add pride to find joy, what does
that tell us about an environment which puts forth those conditions? The
human mind doesn't exist independent from the society by which it is formed
and which it is forming. Personally, I'd rather reduce such attachment; it
looks like it's no more conductive to happiness than a drug addiction would
be - just while one is addicted, one may believe that it would truly bring
enjoyment, and rationalize the suffering that comes with it.
</psychology>

</rant>

-- Marc Wachowitz <mw@ipx2.rz.uni-mannheim.de>

Re: who owns the code?

[Nick Roberts]

Pride goes before a fall...
...which why my programs keep crashing :-(

-- 

Nick Roberts
Croydon, UK

Proprietor, ThoughtWing Software; Independent Software Development
Consultant
* Nick.Roberts@dial.pipex.com * Voicemail & Fax +44 181-405 1124 *
*** Always game for a verbal joust (usually as the turkey) ***

Who owns the code?

[Robert Dewar]

<<well then Dr. Dewar, it seem then that you have been on a dozen
projects where the management of those projects were bad and not
organized and incompetent, so what is new?
>>

Not *on* those projects! I have operated as a consultant for many years
in many different environments. In some of these cases, it has been my
job to try to come in and help sort out the mess. I definitely don't
call that being *on* the project :-)