Attitude & Responsibilities
Just like project managers defend their schedule and marketers defend their promises, developers have to defend their code
In the end, if the code is bad, the developer is to be blamed. → We’ve been unprofessional if we allow the schedule to interfere with our design
It is the developers’ responsibility to have all the codebase clean, management has no control and no power over it, as it should be
Wash your hands
Imagine a doctor refused to wash their hands before an operation because a patient argues it takes too long. That would be wrong, probably criminal
When hand-washing was first recommended to physicians by Ignaz Semmelweis in 1847, it was rejected on the basis that doctors were too busy and wouldn’t have time to wash their hands between patient visits.
→ So too it is unprofessional for programmers to bend to the will of managers who don’t understand the risks of making messes