Bulldozer00's Blog

To put it mildly, I’m not too fond of software project and “functional” software managers that don’t read code. Even worse, wanna-be-manager tweeners and lofty software “architects” who don’t read code are the pits. Note that I’m not demanding that these exalted ones write code, just actually RTFC (Read The F#@^&*! Code). Why? I thought you’d never ask…..

You see, I’m a believer in the “trust but verify” motto popularized by Ronald Reagan during the cold war. The only pseudo-objective way to truly assess progress, consistency, and quality on a software project is to sample the product – you know, the code. If you know of a better way, then I’m all ears.

It’s not that I don’t trust people to try their best, it’s just that most hierarchical cultures are toxic by unintentional design and that forces people to innocently cover up or camouflage a lack of progress when they fill out their “weekly status sheets” or verbally report progress at useless CYA (Cover Your Arse) meetings. Sadly, once DICs get appointed into elite manager and architect titles, they tend to leave their code reading and (especially) writing days behind. Of course, they’ve arrived (Halleluja!) and they no longer have to do any “janitorial” work that can be done by fungible DORKs.

How about you? Do you think people in the roles of software project manager, software functional manager, and software architect should actively read code as part of their jobs?

In many companies, enterprise architects sit in an ivory tower without doing anything useful. – Ivar Jacobson