Software Ethics

Recently a colleague and I had made a strange discovery. We both worked at a previous software consulting company where we worked with another person there. She was decent enough and assisted us on two of our projects at the end of their life cycle, which required small enhancements and maintenance. I was the team lead on the projects and responsible for architecture, design and construction. My colleague was the lead developer on the one project.

We discovered recently that she (the other developer) decided to take ownership of our code and enter it into 'My Dot Net Story' competition on her own behalf. Added to that she came second and won some prizes. On top of that she was interviewed by the guys from dotnetrocks which I admire greatly.

Now, my colleague is more upset than me. I am not concerned about the prizes but the fact that she was interviewed on dotnetrocks and took all the credit really disturbes me. The guys interviewed on dotnetrocks are reserved to the ranks of Robert C. Martin, Greg Young, etc.

How do you trust someone like this in the future? I know that my colleague and I will never work with her again because of this. Software development is a very small industry in South Africa. To burn your bridges that early in your career is not a wise choice.

In engineering we had compulsory ethics courses you had to complete and pass. To consider ourselves as professionals we should be following those ethics to the tee. To break those standards of ethics is to lose the trust of your fellow collegues and your employers.

Any other profession has a board that you have to report to. This applies to law, engineering and medicine. This gives the professionals a buffer to avoid any liabilities and also protects the employers to know that the professionals are required to be at a certain professional level. I really wish we could incorporate something like that into our industry.