Nah, I don't think Spolsky is responsible

I've certainly seen the phenomena you describe, but it doesn't seem like that belief is completely universal. "Humanists often contend that machines tend to dehumanize people by forcing them to have rigid personalities, but really, the contrary is true. Because the machines are rigid, the people who use them must–if they are to be successful–supply more than their share of flexibility." – Gerald Weinberg, The Psychology of Computer Programming, chapter 11.

I also wonder how long of a lasting impact he's even had on his founded companies. Trello is obviously absorbed into the Atlassian blob, Stack Overflow's current owners are clearly in the extraction phase, and while Fog Creek always seemed a cool place to work, my understanding is its current incarnation of Glitch is just your typical mid-sized tech co.

While I kind of agree, I think it's an extension of thinking that started at the dawn of the industrial age, where people had to contend with the rather limited options for how the technology could work, and build systems around it. The rise of engineering was one of the consequences. But the options (mechanical devices) of the industrial age were obviously much less flexible than what we have now in software, and you're probably right that that flexibility has had a big effect on how many people think.

I disagree. You could just as easily say that 95% of tech is reusing other people's stuff and so tech companies just copy, sorry reuse , the hiring methods of other tech companies. Larger companies are more likely to have an engineered hiring process and they are also more visible than smaller companies, so their hiring methods are the ones that get copied.

I think he wasn't responsible in the sense that he was simply present for a naturally emergent phenomenon; but at the same time, he was responsible for actively participating in and promoting that phenomenon. Responsibility is relative to authority, and Spolsky ended up with a very significant amount of authority. Whether or not his behavior was good or bad, it's pretty clear that he had more responsibility than any one person really should . I wouldn't consider that his fault : he didn't really seek it out, or intentionally abuse it. I would, however, consider it what happened . If we tack a step back, and look at this scenario as a system , we can see that it's the structure of the system itself that lead to these problems, not the intentions of any of its participants. Now that we have the power of hindsight and objectivity, we can use that to design a better system. The big question …

> Nah, I don't think Spolsky is responsible. It's hard to read his guide now with recent eyes and not completely agree with him. [1] . Software had been hiring for a while and never hit it. Plenty of other professions have very technical or algorithmic thinking without it. I'm not convinced it was inevitable as you say. 1. https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2006/10/25/the-guerrilla-guid...