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What Makes a Great Software Engineer (Dissertation) (2016) [pdf]

(faculty.washington.edu)
94 points azhenley | 3 comments | 19 Feb 25 23:40 UTC | HN request time: 0.615s | source
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austin-cheney ◴[20 Feb 25 00:30 UTC] No.43109664[source]▶
We certainly know what makes bad developers:

* decision anxiety

* fear of writing original ideas, both natural language and code

* the inability to measure things

* preference towards bias

* cognitive conservatism

* inability to form assertion criteria

Real engineers proceed on the basis of evidence and in the absence of evidence make arbitrary original decisions as necessary to gather evidence.

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1. wesselbindt ◴[20 Feb 25 08:39 UTC] No.43112473[source]▶
> * preference towards bias

I do prefer those things I'm biased towards.

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2. john_the_writer ◴[20 Feb 25 10:18 UTC] No.43113061[source]▶
I also like the things you're biased towards. :)
3. lioeters ◴[20 Feb 25 12:52 UTC] No.43114074[source]▶
Also I've never known anyone who has no bias. Even if such people existed, it's not a given that they would make the best decisions. I would imagine the best decisions are made by those who have a good set of preferences and opinions based on experience.