Comment by aleph_minus_one
12 hours ago
> Imagine a programmer telling their boss it’s not about working software it’s about the journey of writing the code. Good luck getting hired.
Your formulation is a little bit exaggerated, but I (and many, though far from all, programmers) would agree with the following more "tame" formulation:
Getting software to solve a business problem in an elegant and maintainable way means that we got the abstractions right. Similarly, if a software can easily and elegantly be modified to cope with new business problems, it is also a strong sign that we got the abstractions right. In this sense, the business problems that the software solves are indeed just waypoints on the journey of finding the proper elegant abstractions for putting the business problems into code.
Turning these novel insights about "good" abstractions into code and programming languages enables the team to iterate faster and generate business value faster. So, appreciating that it indeed all about the journey means a commitment towards an approach to accelerate the rate with which the team can turn business insights into code and code into business value.
I know that many managers do hate such a formulation, but I stand behind it.
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