Programmeurs Sans Responsabilité

In all my years of software development, I have honestly never encountered a developer who really just wanted to be a drone. Someone who wanted to code directly off the spec without a care for what they were doing or why. Until today.

But then it’s not so surprising when they’re given advice like “Learn from me. Always remember my 3 rules: I didn’t do it; It’s not my area; and I don’t know anything about it.”

Surely it’s not too much to ask that a developer actually understands the rationale behind the code they are producing. Surely it is reasonable to assume that a developer has questioned the design and implementation to the point they are at least happy that it conforms to their understanding of the problem domain and that it is traceable to some functional spec.

How can so many people have such a low care-factor for the work they do and the software they produce?