the developer philosopher

Why software development should help you in life… and politics?

As software developers I consider we have the opportunity to interact practically with a large audience and build a know-how on complex systems. Maybe more than most people actually do, and this knowledge can be used in your daily life…

What exactly is software development about ?

First, I must confess that it is often hard to explain what software and software development is to people without prior knowledge. You can find a lot of definitions like “a collection of instructions that tell a computer how to work”, “the art of creating a program which can perform a required task” or “the collective processes involved in creating programs”. I think we need something more “practical”, so I would say that software programs are tools used by people to exchange and manipulate meaningful information, i.e. concepts (I know this does not cover all types of software but mainly those used by people in their real-life). Usually, these concepts are bound to a specific domain like accounting (e.g. ERP), natural language communication (e.g. chat), etc. Software developers simply are people building these tools.

Manipulating meaningful information is actually what your brain always does. And this information…