Andrea Di MaioWhen I made my comments to Clay Johnson’s post suggesting that more developers join Congress, I knew I could be stepping on delicate ground, but was not anticipating some of the remarks.
I felt as if I said something inappropriate against a minority, like a statement against eastern European immigrants or whether we should or should not have catholic icons in each classroom in my country. I appreciate that there is a fair amount of emotion around this topic and developers feel like they are finally getting some prime time rather than being hidden in the basement, silently coding and far away from executive eyes both in business and government. Do not get me wring, this is something great not only for them personally, but for IT as a whole, to get the dignity it deserves.
One that struck me is “bigot” (from Clay). Although I don’t think I said that developers should not run for Congress, I kind of like the label, if it implies I value certain principles and tenets. There are some characteristics that have been making a politician good since when democracy exists, and my observation that they are not common in developers. Again I am not saying that there is no developer possessing those traits, but that those are not the traits that make a company hire a developer.
Developers love precision and detail, because they need to see their application run (although not all of them are great at testing yet); politicians are about the bigger picture, can’t really carve out the details and have staff doing it for them.
Developers get their job done, do not like to delegate (and often don’t) and do not necessarily trust somebody else’s work or opinion; politicians need to delegate as they need to know and decide about hugely diverse issues, few of those being on one particular topic.
Developers do not need to communicate while politicians are all about communications, as they are always campaigning. This does not mean that developers are unable to communicate, but that such ability is rarely the most important trait (it is indeed when they grow in an organization and get into management).
Having been working in government myself, I would argue that a much greater influence would be played by developers in the staff of a Congressman rather that being Congressmen themselves. Preparing briefing notes, maintaining the daily contacts with constituents, advising about technology matters is where they would do best: they need to keep specialized in order to constantly add the value that Clay illustrates. If they were Congressmen, how much time would they spend on technology issues as opposed to roads, agriculture, taxes, fishing, international trade etc? Indeed technology permeates all policy areas, but the point of discussion for each area is likely to be nontechnical. They would need to turn into generalists, diluting their specific skills.
I would argue that some of the emotional reactions to my earlier post seem to support my statement about the lack of certain skills, such as diplomacy, of a consummate politicians. Of course developers would be a new breed of politicians but, if they want to run and be successful, they must develop those skills, realizing that they are going to undertake a very different career.
Finally, I have just realized that I have been using the term Congressman several times. I am looking forward to a next wave of criticism for sounding sexist. And bigot, of course.
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18 responses so far ↓
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2 Aaron Lees July 21, 2010 at 1:24 pm
“Developers do not need to communicate”
You claim you have experience working in software development. That must have been a really dysfunctional organization. High quality software development is all about communication. Your perception of software being the result of a loner toiling away in his basement/office for months on end is just wrong. A good team is communicating constantly to ensure they are working together, reaching compromises on engineering decisions and finding new problems to solve.
I’m not sure if developers in general would make good politicians or not. But you clearly don’t know about development; please just stop presuming you do.
3 Developer July 21, 2010 at 1:57 pm
Most of your statements could be true despite the lack of evidence you provide, since I’m guessing you meant to preface each paragraph with “most”, except for what Aaron picked out.
Communicating is all that developers need to do. If they are not communicating, then they are not doing their job. Developers need to communicate with the machine at a minimum to get programming done, but also other people if they want users or to get paid for it. That means emails/conversations with bosses, writing READMEs, creating websites, and/or writing comments/documentation in/for the code.
But overall, the entire topic is useless. All of your arguments are “Developers have quality X. Quality X is bad for a politician to have”. If the first type of statement were never made, then there could be a useful discussion about the second kind of statement.
4 Jc July 21, 2010 at 2:43 pm
oh no, you again.
you continue with the dumb stereotypes, huh? Haven’t we tell you already that good developers NEED to communicate? how do you think all the software you have in your laptop was produced? by someone in a basement isolated from the world for months?
The more complex a piece of software, the more it needs developers to communicate and TRUST others work. In fact, nowadays its a common practice to incorporate other people’s libraries in one’s software. And that means we need to trust those providers. Producing a complex piece of software on time also means a lot of delegating going on.
With those posts you show us how little you know about technology. After reading this and one of your earlier posts, I am sure there is no one in the software industry who will respect your “25 years IT industry” so called experience. Obviously you were there, didn’t learn even the basic traits of the trade.
5 Kam July 21, 2010 at 2:56 pm
Andrea,
If you are truly interested in determining if your previous post was bigotry, try changing each reference to developers to a reference to any of the following: women, blacks, immigrants or gays. I think the experience would show you why you received such a negative response.
I’m not a lawyer so I can’t say if you had posted one of those hypothetical variants if you would be liable for hate speech. Perhaps we should elect another lawyer to congress to help figure that one out.
At the very least your post was dismissive and offensive. I hope it inspired a developer to run for congress just to prove you wrong.
-Kam
6 Jed Sundwall July 21, 2010 at 3:03 pm
Perhaps I should write a blog post making blanket statements about the characteristics of analysts mired in enterprise software strategy, and how such analysts aren’t fit to participate in policy making discussions. You know, because “those analysts” are really only fit to ponder the motivations of C-level executives and exploit their lack of understanding about technology. We don’t need those kids of people involved in politics because…
Oh wait, that’s a terrible, facile, and useless thing to say.
Furthermore, you seem to be implying that public office should be the purview of professional politicians. I guess you’re not one for pluralism—kind of hard to fathom in a democracy.
7 Luigi Montanez July 21, 2010 at 3:09 pm
Not to pile on more, but the point about communication really needs to be corrected. Modern software development practice (commonly referred to as agile development) stresses open communication as one of the most important tenets. Do a term search for “communication” on the Wikipedia page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agile_software_development
8 Andrea Di Maio July 21, 2010 at 3:18 pm
@aaron – Your point seems to revolve around developers communicating with each other, which is fine. My point is about developers communicating to users and other parts of the business, at which they have been less successful.
9 Jed Sundwall July 21, 2010 at 3:20 pm
Also, for the record: you’re not a bigot, you’re just wrong!
10 Andrea Di Maio July 21, 2010 at 3:25 pm
@Jc – Thanks for your comment. I replied to your other comment. I do know very well that developers do collaborate (open source communities are a great example), but this does not apply to anybody in any software development organization, as it also depends on how the developer is measured , whether he or she is a freelance or works for corporation, whether that organization is a vendor or a user of information technology and so forth.
I am afraid there is still substantial evidence that IT organizations (be they internal or external to user organization) have a long way to go to be able to communicate value to their clients. Which is why, very often, we have individual users who turn themselves into developers (we call them “citizen developers at Gartner).
Now these people are not professional developers but turn themselves into developers to get what they need done.
Maybe they should run for Congress
11 Andrea Di Maio July 21, 2010 at 3:27 pm
@Kam – I appreciate my earlier post may have come across as politically incorrect (hence the reference to equal opportunities in the title in this one). However, it was meant to mimic the equally dismissive tone that Clay’s had about politicians. Clearly I should have said so at the beginning of my post, and apologize for not doing that.
12 Andrea Di Maio July 21, 2010 at 3:32 pm
@Jed – I am not really wearing just my analyst hat in making these statements. I have been in government and I do work with governments on a daily basis.
As I think I have said quite clearly, anybody can run for Congress. History shows that there have been actors, media tycoons, CEOs and so forth running for Congress or Parliament or Senate in various countries: some have been successful, some have not been successful.
I do not think that politician should be a profession, but reality is that representing people is a full time job and requires (I insist) certain traits and skills that are not – let me say so – natural in developers.
I am pretty sure analysts should not be involved in policy making either, otherwise the policy making process would never converge (we are always on the “Yes, but” front, as you’ve probably figured out)
13 Jed Sundwall July 21, 2010 at 3:56 pm
Yes, but…
I suppose you’re making my point for me. I simply don’t think there’s any need to say “Keep developers out of politics.” You’re right: all sorts of people have held public office with varying degrees of success. Why request that we exclude a certain professional class?
Democracy, for better or worse, necessitates people with a particular set of skills—communication being paramount. There’s no need to worry about developers with poor communication skills being elected to office—they wouldn’t be able to win an election!
Clay’s original post clearly communicated (oh, the irony!) that he perceives a need for a new class of politician with an unorthodox skill set. Paul Graham, his prime example, is hardly a poor communicator.
Based on this, I recommend that you re-title your original post to: “Anyone can get involved in politics, but you probably shouldn’t bother if you’re a poor communicator because you’d be a lousy politician and likely wouldn’t get elected anyway.”
14 Andrea Di Maio July 21, 2010 at 7:32 pm
@Jed – You are right, but the tone of Clay’s post in conjunction with the presumption of some technologists that they will change government is what deserved the title.
Maybe a better title would have been “Developers, stay out of politics please”. But on hindsight the stronger title was useful to get so many people throwing stones at me but also getting data points that prove my point about communication.
15 Jed July 22, 2010 at 12:54 am
Ha! I can’t fault you for choosing a provocative title, but beware of conflating developers with developers-who-leave-comments-on-blogs. Commenters (you know, like me) are rarely given to civility.
16 Yassine Dawdy July 22, 2010 at 6:32 pm
I notice that your articles are full of contradictions ! and I can’t understand why you insist that we can’t do the easy job of a congressman ! why this scares you !
I am really surprised of this weird behavior ! someone should really give us some clues about your “IT experience” !
17 Andrea Di Maio July 22, 2010 at 6:46 pm
@Yassine – My IT experience is shortly summarized in my bio and, for what is worth – the next post gives some hints about where I come from. Of course I’d love to discuss those contradictions. I have been responding to a load of comments (some good, some nonsensical and some just useless), so keeping a straight line has not been too simple.
I guess the position was and still is:
- everybody is welcome to run for Congress
- there are many categories that are underrepresented and there is no evidence that they would not be more useful than developers to the public cause
- the traits and skills that make a great developer are not necessarily those that make a great congressmen.
Incidentally, some people point to developers who are great speakers: I do not believe this is a key skill for a developer, although being able to communicate a message is a desirable attribute.
If I have to take the developers who responded to my blog post as well as those who wrote elsewhere (without the guts of being open for comment) as a statistically relevant sample – which is not – I guess that would prove by itself the title of my original post.
18 Going on Holidays on an Upbeat: A Few Gems from the Developers’ Mob July 25, 2010 at 9:32 am
[...] If you are truly interested in determining if your previous post was bigotry, try changing each reference to developers to a reference to any of the following: women, blacks, immigrants or gays. I think the experience would show you why you received such a negative response (comment to my second post) [...]