The care and feeding of software engineers (or, why engineers are grumpy) An Article by Nicholas Zakas humanwhocodes.com We do say “no” very quickly, not just to designs, but to everything. That led me into thinking about the psychology of software engineers and what makes us the way we are. softwaremakingprocess
Design with courage Make a bold decision (that is controversial). Make a mistake (as a result of a bold decision). Challenge “conventional wisdom”. Challenge authority (that preaches conventional wisdom). Challenge hierarchy (that perpetuates conventional wisdom). Ignore the committee (and the need to converge). Decide who your clients are (and aren’t). Ignore clients that aren’t (especially those who pay the most). Cultivate clients if none exists (instead of compromising your design). Be a generalist (and ignore your job title). Be a specialist (who specializes in being a generalist). Design things from scratch (and build them yourself from scratch). Design things that no one wants (yet). Design freely (and think freely). Chuánqí Sun, The vanishing designer The boldest decisions design