do we really have to retread this? unless you are employed by a university to perform research (or another research organization), you are not a computer scientist or a mathematician or anything else of that sort. no more so than an accountant is an economist or a carpenter is an architect.
The article you are complaining about starts from the presumption that software
reread my comment - at no point did i complain about the article. i'm complaining that SWEs have overinflated senses of self which compel them to write such articles.
> what compels software people to write opinion pieces. like you don't see bakers, mechanics, dentists, accountants writing blog posts like this...
>> Computer Science
> do we really have to retread this? unless you are employed by a university to perform research (or another research organization), you are not a computer scientist or a mathematician or anything else of that sort. no more so than an accountant is an economist or a carpenter is an architect.
>> The article you are complaining about starts from the presumption that software
> reread my comment - at no point did i complain about the article. i'm complaining that SWEs have overinflated senses of self which compel them to write such articles.
You're incredibly tiring commenter, to a point I already recognize your nickname. What compels YOU to be this way?
I wish there was a block button for the "overinflated senses of self".
I observe this compulsion a lot and in my opinion, it's almost always coming from resentment driving ego in an attempt to compensate for insecurity and self-loathing, which ultimately ends up misdirected towards others. It's almost always accidentally entertaining, but sadly ends up diminishing rather than elevating discourse.
To refute GP's point more broadly -- there is a lot in /applied/ computer science (which is what I think the harder aspects software engineering really is) that was and is done by individuals in software just building in a vacuum, open source holding tons of examples.
And to answer GP's somewhat rhetorical question more directly - none of those professions are paid to do open-ended knowledge work, so the analogy is extremely strained. You don't necessarily see them post on blogs (as opposed to LinkedIn/X, for example), but: investors, management consultants, lawyers, traders, and corporate executives all write a ton of this kind of long-form content that is blog post flavored all the time. And I think it comes from the same place -- they're paid to do open-ended knowledge work of some kind, and that leads people to write to reflect on what they think seems to work and what doesn't.
Some of it is interesting, some of it is pretty banal (for what it's worth, I don't really disagree that this blog post is uninteresting), but I find it odd to throw out the entire category even if a lot of it is noise.
do we really have to retread this? unless you are employed by a university to perform research (or another research organization), you are not a computer scientist or a mathematician or anything else of that sort. no more so than an accountant is an economist or a carpenter is an architect.
Doing math or science is the criterion for being a mathematician or scientist, not who employs you how.
I haven't, because I'm not an SWE. I'm sure some SWE has, but I can't point to them as an example. But, even in the extremely unlikely case that that's never happened, the reason such a person isn't a mathematician or scientist is because they didn't do math or science, not directly because of their job.
Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it (poorly). Same for anyone doing software that entirely ignores Computer Science. You are missing core skills and reinventing well known wheels when you could be busy building smarter things.
no more so than an accountant is an economist or a carpenter is an architect
I know many accountants who would claim you can't be an a good accountant without being an economist. Arguably that's most of the course load of an MBA in a nutshell. I don't know a carpenter who would claim to be an architect, usually when carpentry happens is after architecture has been done, but I know plenty of carpenters that claim to be artists and/or artisans (depending on how you see the difference), that take pride in their craft and understand the aesthetic underpinnings.
reread my comment - at no point did i complain about the article. i'm complaining that SWEs have overinflated senses of self which compel them to write such articles.
You chose which article to post your complaint to. The context of your comment is most directly complaining about this specific article. That's how HN works. If you didn't read the article and feel like just generically complaining about the "over-inflated senses of self" in the software industry, perhaps you should be reading some forum that isn't HN?
Comments
do we really have to retread this? unless you are employed by a university to perform research (or another research organization), you are not a computer scientist or a mathematician or anything else of that sort. no more so than an accountant is an economist or a carpenter is an architect.
reread my comment - at no point did i complain about the article. i'm complaining that SWEs have overinflated senses of self which compel them to write such articles.
I wish there was a block button for the "overinflated senses of self".
I observe this compulsion a lot and in my opinion, it's almost always coming from resentment driving ego in an attempt to compensate for insecurity and self-loathing, which ultimately ends up misdirected towards others. It's almost always accidentally entertaining, but sadly ends up diminishing rather than elevating discourse.
To refute GP's point more broadly -- there is a lot in /applied/ computer science (which is what I think the harder aspects software engineering really is) that was and is done by individuals in software just building in a vacuum, open source holding tons of examples.
And to answer GP's somewhat rhetorical question more directly - none of those professions are paid to do open-ended knowledge work, so the analogy is extremely strained. You don't necessarily see them post on blogs (as opposed to LinkedIn/X, for example), but: investors, management consultants, lawyers, traders, and corporate executives all write a ton of this kind of long-form content that is blog post flavored all the time. And I think it comes from the same place -- they're paid to do open-ended knowledge work of some kind, and that leads people to write to reflect on what they think seems to work and what doesn't.
Some of it is interesting, some of it is pretty banal (for what it's worth, I don't really disagree that this blog post is uninteresting), but I find it odd to throw out the entire category even if a lot of it is noise.
what compels me to be which way? to call out obnoxious things in the people i'm surrounded by? dunno probably my natural revulsion to noxious things?
Doing math or science is the criterion for being a mathematician or scientist, not who employs you how.
I would love for you to show me any novel theorems you've proven or publishable experiments you've run during your career as a swe.
I haven't, because I'm not an SWE. I'm sure some SWE has, but I can't point to them as an example. But, even in the extremely unlikely case that that's never happened, the reason such a person isn't a mathematician or scientist is because they didn't do math or science, not directly because of their job.
Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it (poorly). Same for anyone doing software that entirely ignores Computer Science. You are missing core skills and reinventing well known wheels when you could be busy building smarter things.
I know many accountants who would claim you can't be an a good accountant without being an economist. Arguably that's most of the course load of an MBA in a nutshell. I don't know a carpenter who would claim to be an architect, usually when carpentry happens is after architecture has been done, but I know plenty of carpenters that claim to be artists and/or artisans (depending on how you see the difference), that take pride in their craft and understand the aesthetic underpinnings.
You chose which article to post your complaint to. The context of your comment is most directly complaining about this specific article. That's how HN works. If you didn't read the article and feel like just generically complaining about the "over-inflated senses of self" in the software industry, perhaps you should be reading some forum that isn't HN?