Redefining Professionalism

summarized frm

• a professional programmer picks a worthwhile problem to attack; we are engineers, not scientists, and therefore should attempt solutions that will solve real user problems
• a professional programmer has a dedication to the end-user experience; most computer applications built these days are Web applications built by small teams and hence it is now possible for an individual programmer to ensure that end users aren't confused or frustrated (in the case of a programmer working on a tool for other programmers, the goal is defined to be "dedication to ease of use by the recipient programmer")
• a professional programmer does high quality work; we preserve the dedication to good system design, maintainability, and documentation, that constituted pride of craftsmanship
• a professional programmer innovates; information systems are not good enough, the users are entitled to better, and it is our job to build better systems
• a professional programmer teaches by example; open-source is the one true path for a professional software engineer
• a professional programmer teaches by documentation; writing is hard but the best software documentation has always been written by programmers who were willing to make an extra effort
• a professional programmer teaches face-to-face; we've not found a substitute for face-to-face interaction so a software engineering professional should teach fellow workers via code review, teach short overview lectures to large audiences, and help teach multi-week courses