How to develop softwareAmitai Schlairhttps://schmonz.com/2014/03/27/how-to-develop-software/Yareev's schmonz.comikiwiki2017-01-07T18:22:22Zcomment 1https://schmonz.com/2014/03/27/how-to-develop-software/comment_1_78afd59cab3f3b3cc5353442d4a5c6bd/Nathan Arthur2014-12-30T03:26:33Z2014-03-28T03:07:14Z
<p>I like these ideas, but I suggest replacing “knowledge” with “understanding”, throughout. Also I think you give “technical skill” short shrift – it matters, first as a baseline requirement, then as an enabler of great things (once you have those other three sorted out, I agree). I’m also not sure that everything I’d categorize as “technical skill” can be earned simply through work.</p>
comment 2https://schmonz.com/2014/03/27/how-to-develop-software/comment_2_c11551ba7c26169631618b09a5303d0f/Amitai Schlair2017-01-07T18:22:22Z2014-03-28T03:38:37Z
<p>I like these comments. Maybe you’ll like mine.</p>
<p>I chose “knowledge” intending to drop the word “epistemology” in that section somewhere, and wound up not, but that had been my angle: be precise about what it means to know, and then never pretend. The word “knowledge” also originated from what began as a much different post that’s not done yet, from which this one sprang. I like saying “understanding” too, but I figure it’s a gift that comes just about for free with one’s paid subscription to meaningful empathy and meaningful knowledge.</p>
<p>Bekki and I were discussing whether there were a necessary and/or optimal ordering to these four. For purposes of writing, I chose this ordering because knowledge is what I’d started off writing about and the order of the first three seemed logical enough, but also because technical skill gets plenty of shrift elsewhere. I wanted to give the other three longer shrift. The post that this isn’t, when it will eventually is, will have lots to say about technical skill and its relation to the other three. It is, as you say, a requirement. Without it we’re nice people, which is necessary but not sufficient.</p>
<p>For purposes of learning, I think I probably had a slight head start on being honest with myself about what I don’t know, then used that to acquire technical skill, then realized that having done so made me useful to other people, which made me want to care about them more, and am still figuring out that maybe not everyone deserves my trust (but not enough to make me want to change whether I’m trusting by default). Am I representative? Are there other orderings? I can easily imagine coming at it from empathy, using that to motivate technical skill, etc.</p>
<p>This post was short because otherwise it’d have been way too long. <img src="https://schmonz.com/smileys/smile.png" alt=":-)" /></p>