Zeitgeist
Zeitgeist
What is the Zeitgeist of the software industry, and software community?
I thought I knew, but upon reflection, I’m pretty sure I don’t have a clue.
If I had to guess, I’d say it involves indifference, learned helplessness, and a Mexican standoff between management and developers. But I could be way off base.
Your thoughts, observations?
– Bob
Think Different
I’d say it’s a Mexican stand-off between a primate brain that evolved in seasonal or generational change in the company of a consistent and relatively small group, and the monster of free-market deregulated capitalism that brain accidentally created. It’s just that smart software developers spotted a key symptom and an industry has grown up to treat that one symptom.
Our brains are designed for us to known what we’re doing, Agile arose as we’re also good at adaptation to deal with the fact that in software we only know what we’re doing when it’s already been done and doesn’t need to be done again so we never know what we’re doing but we’re educated and paid to think that we do (hence most folks’ dysfunction at work), and that’s driven in turn by the market’s endless appetite for “innovation” driven by an addiction to growth by those who think that profit is good and their birthright.
Pick the bones out of that!
(See “Doughnut Economics” and “The Good Ancestor” for ways to think in wholly different modes that won’t kill our species.)
Thanks for adding to the conversation. I’m not understanding a word of your comment, but that doesn’t diminish my gratitude for your contribution.