In the upcoming Qcon Conference in London David Harvey is giving a talk on Software Craftsmanship with the title, you guessed right, Danger: Software Craftsmen at Work.

The abstract of his talk reads as follows:

Many – maybe all – of the ideas and practices being paraded under the banner of “Software Craftsmanship” are far from new. Skill, knowledge, expertise, pride in work are fundamentals of any creative endeavour: their re-packaging, and associated manifestos, positioning, posturing and advocacy, is building walls between developers, organisations and customers that we’ve been trying to break down for the last two decades. This talk will explore the contrarian position that craftsmanship is not enough, and that Software Craftsmanship is at best a distraction, at worst a danger.

The talk was mentioned by Jason Gorman on the Software Craftsmanship Google Group and had some ripple effect in the mailing list.

Personally I am not adverse to this kind of reactions. We have seen the same type of reactions in the early XP mailing list, heard the same comments about Agile Software Development till it all became mainstream. It is normal that some people feel the way they feel when it comes to changes.

One thing that struck me though is the sensation that the people who believe in Software as a Craft, also known Software Craftsmanship, are building walls around them.

What strikes me here is that the people that regard themselves as Software Craftsmen, or let me rephrase this, the Software Craftsmen I know, are very helpful and always try to help others, sharing coding exercisesand share their experiences.

Heck some of the companies even go through the hardships of making Apprenticeship Programs in order to mentor their staff. Something that is a major investment for any company in time and money.

In this past year I have seen the communication between developers multiply, each trying to help one another with ideas, pointers (not the C type), sharing code, and even agreeing to mentor.

Software Craftsmanship is definitely not about building walls, rather we knock the walls that are here at the moment to build bridges that bring us closer together.

Enrique