if you want stable and reliable software, give developers stable and reliable employment

@zachleat during the 1980s, when asked by potential employers "what commitment can you give us?" my response was always "exactly the commitment you can give to me."

@zachleat while I support stability for developers (union, anyone?), it sometimes goes too far. I have been in attrition-averse companies where complacent well-tenured engineers deliver flaky software. Those engineers have high cultural inertia so it is difficult to get them to start caring about robustness. If you can give your good developers confidence in their job stability while removing bad apples from your team, that's the dream.

@zachleat Fred Brooks second corollary

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@zachleat yes, and, unlimited Trader Joe's Takis.

@zachleat And a union

@davatron5000 well wait which of these are higher priority

@Aaron

@zachleat nah, I personally love the idea of struggling for my entire career and not having a retirement, while some Great People That Clearly Work Hard And Who We All Should Idolize make more money than a single person could possible need in multiple lifetimes.

@zachleat You mean programmers write better software when they don't feel like trapped rats? I am *shocked*, sir!

@zachleat ain't no employer wants a stable and reliable software, they want stable and reliable income and most of the time they outsource employment to HR agencies which fucks you over

@zachleat making money? In this economy??

@zachleat Is this a subtle call for publicly funding critical open source?

@zachleat Yeah

@zachleat does this work for relationships

@Stu if you want stable and reliable relationships, be stable and reliable for your friends?

@zachleat nice, this works for #Research and #Academia as well

@zachleat @Aaron hello comrades how do you do

@zachleat Exactly this. If I know I’ll be the one who deals with any defects in the software I write, I’m a damn sight more likely to avoid/mitigate them.

@zachleat The thing is they don't want stable and reliable software. Microslop is good enough for them... And that's why we no longer have stable and reliable employment.