Publicado originalmente (en formato de "boceto") en Github: github.com/castarco/slow-coding-manifesto/pull/1.
The software development industry is prone to create and publicize manifestos of diverse nature. Somehow, we all came to realize that ours is a young field that needs us to push its boundaries, not only from the scientific and technical perspective, but also its practical and human sides.
Because of that, we've seen published documents like the GNU Manifesto, with clear doses of activism; The Cathedral and the Bazaar, and Homesteading the Noosphere following a more insightful and philosophical perspective; or The Agile Manifesto and The Async Manifesto focusing on organizational and communication aspects.
This manifesto is a little bit different, it has some bits of activism, although not focusing on what to do or how to do things, but on why. As the world goes on, some of us want to have a meaningful and positive impact on the world: we want to contribute with our knowledge and skills to solve our current and future problems in a socially and environmentally responsible way.
What do we want
- We code to have fun, because we enjoy solving problems, and because we care about others; not because we want to compete or to have a ball pool in our office (which we might want anyway, though).
- We spend a big chunk of our time programming, mostly for work, and we want to enjoy it, not to be stressed because "that's what work is supposed to be".
- We refuse to fit in the workaholic stereotype, there's life beyond our computers' screens and keyboards.
Why do we do what we do ♪ ♫ ♬
- We automate stuff not to accelerate production & economy, but because we want to liberate people from tedious, boring and/or dangerous work, because we want to help avoiding errors & disasters due to human error.
- We optimize software and processes not to make them run faster, but to save hardware resources and energy.
- Programming is a social activity, it benefits from respectful relations between coworkers. Caring about code quality is not just perfectionism, but caring about our colleagues, who will have to deal with our code.