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Ask HN: Do we need a code of ethics?

3 points by ianamartin ↗ HN
This is partly inspired by the thread about WTFs becoming normal and accepted.

We are not a well-regulated bunch of people, and I think that is some of the strength of the developer population. Our lack of an oversight committee allows certain innovations to happen that might not.

But I wonder if we need something similar to a doctor's oath. Something like, "First, do no harm."

Harm is a difficult thing to define, probably. Perhaps this ethic is already in place in most people. People who do things that I would consider harmful probably don't think of what they do as such.

But maybe, just maybe, if you had to make a promise to not do harm, perhaps it would at least make you think about the nature of harm.

5 comments

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robin_reala
I remember at university having a lecture on professional ethics (sponsored by http://www.bcs.org/ I believe) and being told that I should always build to the client’s requirements, and that my code shouldn’t cause harm. My lecturer had no answer to my question about a hypothetical missile control system I might be building.
philbo
The obvious answer would be that you don't take on clients who are asking for a missile control system.
robin_reala
Works for me. I wouldn’t do any work for military contractors, and have felt uneasy about tobacco and gambling projects in the past. Nice to get to the point of your career when you can easily choose not to.
ianamartin
I don't think that building to requirements and causing no harm are necessarily orthogonal.

Which is most probably your point.

There's a reason that a doctor starts with "First"

I think that building software to requirements should take second place.