@zatnosk Please do elaborate on your whys...

@ckeen The hippocratic oath talks about life and death in a context of directly preventing or causing death, and the obligations that come from the abilities to do so.

Programmers don't treat humans, we make tools for humans. Yes, any tool I make should be safe and stable, especially if it can be involved in a life or death scenario, but that's more a matter of
* double checking your work
* testing
* allowing others to check your work and correct and critizise it

@ckeen "treading carefully in matters of life and death" doesn't give me any obligations other than "I did my best" - and combined with "I know I will make mistakes", it just becomes a weak promise that "I've tried to avoid bugs, but there are probably some anyway, and I can't do shit about that".

Overall it's weak sauce and it doesn't focus enough on error-correction and cooperation, IMO.

@ckeen Also
> 2. I will remember that programming is art as well as science, and that warmth, empathy and understanding may outweigh a clever algorithm or technical argument.

This one is adapted from the parallel in the hippocratic oath, there a doctor promises to not only treat with medicine and knowledge, but also with warmth and empathy - BECAUSE humans need warmth and empathy to get through sickness.

Warmth and empathy is nice in a programmer, but it doesn't make the software less faulty.

@zatnosk Thanks! Your explanations do help me to understand your points better.

@ckeen I apologize if I was a bit too ranty in my argumentation, but I have _FEELINGS_ about this topic.

@ckeen And yes, of course there's need for empathy and understanding of usecases for the people that will use the tools we make.
But that doesn't mean warmth can outweigh an algorithm. It's a bogus simili with no concrete meaning.
Empathy and understanding are needed to design the tools well. Clever algorithms and technical arguments are needed to build the tools. Both are always needed.

@ckeen
In medicine, there's always a weighing of how much of each is needed.
Empathy wont close a gunwound.
"the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug" are sometimes not needed (I'm no doctor, so I can't be more specific here).

@zatnosk Yes those are all valid points!

@zatnosk @ckeen

I am wary of the notion that in order to be empathic you just need to plan out you use cases

empathy is not formalizable.

I don't think that Biily Blaze's manifesto language on empathy excludes tech competence.

But I think it's worthwhile to state that we need a different kind of competence too.

And if we feel about algorithms first, I can't avoid to suspect there's a power proposition in that

I want to report an episode of mine...

@catonano @ckeen I think you might have misread my argument?

I said empathy is needed along with understanding of use cases.
To make good tools, we need to both understand how the tools will be used and we need to understand and empathize with the people who are going to use them.

@zatnosk @ckeen

ok, yes, I might have overlooked that.

I apologize but I have feelings about this too

In the Guix dev mailing list we had an argument when a non binary person asked to be addressed with gender neutral pronouns

And the objection raised was based on some English language _formalism_

I'm always wary of arguments based on formalism, forrmalism can't help you in some cases.

So this clarification of yours is very welcomed.

@ckeen @zatnosk

and in case you don't know it already (if you do, ok) I suggest this enlightening @aparrish 's text

http://opentranscripts.org/transcript/programming-forgetting-new-hacker-ethic/

@catonano @ckeen I've read that text at some point and it really resonated with me. @aparrish hits on some important nails, that highlight some of the same points that I see as issues with this "Programmer's Oath".

@zatnosk @ckeen @aparrish

may I ask you how so ?

@catonano @ckeen mostly that we need to analyse the consequences of the ideals we choose.
@aparrish's text shows how important it is to focus on building tools _for people_. We need to be mindful of the people and contexts our tools are used in, when we make them.

And that mindfulness is lacking in the "Programmer's Oath" as I see it, because it doesn't analyse previous oaths deeply enough.

So instead of an oath that has a similar effect to the hippocratic, it's an oath that sounds similar.

@zatnosk @ckeen @aparrish

Now I should ask you to rephrase the manifesto in a way that you think takes into consideration previous oaths

But that's probably a bit too much 😌

@catonano @ckeen It's not that it doesn't take it into consideration.
It's just that it takes inspiration from the words rather than from the intention - and the same words in a different context can be disastrous.

@zatnosk @catonano @ckeen

Ok. So I should ask you to try to use the right words for expressing the intention

But still that could be too much

@catonano @ckeen It would be a big task yeah. I'm glad that you're not asking me to do that :)

@catonano @aparrish @zatnosk Thanks for this link, very interesting and thought provoking!

@ckeen @zatnosk @aparrish my pleaaure 😄