Death of a Craftsman: A software developer identity crisis
summary
Argues that the craftsman identity—centered on TDD and SOLID mastery and a moral split of programmers into the unwashed masses, the virtuous craftsman, and ivory-tower heretics—misses the point that organizations make software, not lone coders. Claims code is only descriptive, not strategic, and urges focusing on domain modeling, systems thinking, and strategic architecture to reduce complexity and technical debt and to make software actually valuable rather than merely elegant.
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chapters (32)
- 0:00DEATH OF A CRAFTSMAN
- 0:16I AM NOT A SOFTWARE CRAFTSMAN
- 0:31CLARIFICATION
- 1:10IDENTITY CRISIS
- 1:52SOFTWARE CRAFTSMANSHIP PROVIDES ANSWERS
- 2:02AN IDENTITY
- 2:17PRIDE AND PROFESSIONALISM
- 2:30HEROES AND ADVERSARIES
- 2:41THE PROGRAMMER OF COURSE!
- 3:02MASTERY OF THE CRAFT
- 3:21I CAN SLAY THE DRAGON!
- 3:45WHO MAKES SOFTWARE?
- 4:14ORGANIZATIONS MAKE SOFTWARE
- 4:50WHAT IS THE CRAFT?
- 5:01THE CODE FETISH
- 5:14THERE IS NO TRUTH IN THE CODE
- 5:27THE CODE HAS NO DIRECTION
- 5:40THE THREE KINDS OF PROGRAMMERS
- 6:20IVORY TOWER ZEALOTS
- 6:49BANISHED FROM THE REAL WORLD
- 7:00CRAFTSMANSHIP IS CONSERVATIVE
- 7:16PROGRESSIVE LEARNING MEANS LOOK FOR COUNTER-EXAMPLES RATHER THAN CONFIRMATION
- 7:32DO CRAFTSMEN QUESTION THEIR BELIEFS?
- 7:46TENSION!
- 8:29BUSINESS VS CRAFTSMAN
- 8:51COMMUNICATION BECOMES NEGOTIATION
- 9:06COMMUNICATION SHOULD BE COLLABORATION
- 9:18BEYOND TECHNICAL SKILL
- 9:34SYSTEMS THINKING
- 9:53WHAT IS A GOOD DEVELOPER?
- 10:25THE PERFECT KNIGHT
- 10:36AN EMPTY ARMOR
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