Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Have we sunk so low that we give prizes to those who teach that lying and theft are wrong?

Back in medieval times when I was in college and used punch cards for computer input…professors used to joke about (or so it went),

“So and so was a programmer for such and such big money profitable company. The big money fat cats at the big money profitable company fired so and so one day for nothing at all. So, to get even, so and so wrote a program that day-by-day erased all the software that so and so had written for the big money profitable company.”

Everyone in class actually perked up (yes, even computer science and engineering students can be perky at times), took note, listened, and wrote it all down on our engineering pads with our Pentel .5mm mechanical pencils.

The professor concluded the story with,

“That taught ’em (those dastardly folks at the big money profitable company) to treat programmers better!”

The professor failed to mention that so and so programmer was paid a salary by the big money profitable company. Hence, all software that so and so wrote at the office was owned by the big money profitable company. Hence, deleting that software was theft by so and so meaning that so and so was a thief. Perhaps it was lost along the way that being a thief was a profession to be disdained instead of honored.

Lying and theft are W R O N G.

If no one has told you the above before, I apologize for several generations of college professors. Somewhere along the line, we (and I mean ALL of US) went wrong in how we hire, encourage, oversee, and retain college professors and other influencers of youth and the otherwise influence-able.

Mozilla has just introduced a competition for ethics in computer science. They will reward—with $$$—professors who have great ways to teach the still teach-able that lying and theft are W R O N G. What Mozilla is doing is a good thing (I am not naive. I do expect that someone will find a way to make it a bad thing.). That Mozilla or anyone has to do this is a terrible thing.

Pardon the ranting of a bitter old man who spent much of his life trying to prevent destruction instead of trying to incur million$. And recently, I was asked—by a person who should know better—to lie about what users of software were doing to cover for errors in the software. It isn’t any fun working with people who came to admire instead of admonish the actions of so and so.