Two good essays on the class structure of US society. The second one is the better of the two, but you kinda gotta read the first one to understand what he's talking about:
@GuerillaOntologist it's always funny to see how people view things relative to their own life experiences. For example, the rant against software metrics in the second essay denies the usefulness of metrics to advance science. Taylorism proved long ago that metrics can be used as a whip, but that doesn't mean that the measurement of processes is evil. The author seems to be in the "trough of disillusionment" in the hype cycle of living in the USA. :-D
I didn't get that at all. As I understood it, he despises metrics employed by corporations to judge and punish workers. Taylorism, as you say. I doubt he would claim that measurement itself is evil (that would hardly make sense), it's who is making the measurements and for what purpose that makes metrics harmful.
@GuerillaOntologist "My advice to [software engineers] is: Always fight metrics. [...] Always, always, always fight a metric that management wishes to impose on you, because while a metric can hurt you [...] it will never help you."
Hard to read this as supporting some metrics. Again, self-experiences, he's obviously only experienced software engineering metrics used in a context of punishment and never in the context of making the job easier. I've seen both.
IMO, the key phrase is "a metric that *management wishes to impose on you*" I'd imagine a metric that made the job easier wouldn't need to be imposed by the management. So I don't read this as being opposed to any and all metrics in any and all situations, but to those *imposed* by management.
@GuerillaOntologist IME, all software metrics (in a corporate setting) are viewed that way. Software developers still want to be cowboy coders. Another quote, "I’ve worked in the software industry long enough to know that software engineers are the most socially clueless people on earth. I’ve often heard them debate “the right” metrics to use to track software productivity." This isn't talking about imposition. I've 30 years in software. Ignorance runs rampant.
