It’s about time I probably asked this question about the new Manifesto for Software Craftsmanship, but seriously, am I missing something?
Firstly, the whole idea about craftsmanship applied to software isn’t too much of a new idea. I remember reading Software Craftsmanship: The New Imperative when it first came out, and how the Pragmatic’s also talked about this concept.
I’m probably biased a little bit because I probably believed in what craftsmanship stood for before being fully immersed in agile for the last five(?) years. A part of me understands why this is important for agilistas. After all, I hear of stories all of the time where in many organisations that focus solely on Scrum without adopting any developer discipline still have a “crappy codebase”.
Yet I worry that it focuses on the wrong problem. I worry that it may be addressing a symptom, not a cause. I worry that it will further split our industry into two camps, those who craft (or should craft) software, and everyone else.
The real question I ask myself when going into new organisations and with new teams is, “Do people care about the quality in their work?” This question applies to all parts of an organisation, all parts of a team, not just developers.
So I’m jetlagged, tired and honestly just ranting a little bit, but I still ask the question, “Am I missing something?”.
