Software Development (CSC 321 2016F) : Outlines
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Back to Outline 13 - Behavior-Driven Development. On to Outline 15 - Test-Driven Development.
Summary
We consider ethical expectations of computer scientists (or at least computer programmers).
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Overview
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u A question from the faculty ... Do you discuss issues like global warming or the role of the US in the broader world?
See http://www.cs.grinnell.edu/~rebelsky/s2d@g/
A. There were some allusions to considering who has access to computing-related products and education and the forms this access takes, but I would have liked to see a more explicit treatment and an acknowledgement that this status quo is not a static, natural phenomenon, but one that is actively enforced and reproduced.
B. I like to think that coding is potentially one of the best ways to create change in today's technological world for the better.
C. As I just had implicit bias training, it is cool to see that it is mentioned in the reading to not discriminate others through coding.
D. About the entire ethics in computing thing, I think the primary point, that software should contribute to society and well being is almost entire ethics agnostic in the vast majority of cases. After all, I can think of far more cases where someone as a developer would undermine society and civil rights by working for a profitable firm than actually help tackle some of the major issues of today.
E. I would appreciate discussing how we can start bringing some of these practices more into our department and community. I enjoyed learning about ethics in the context of software engineering and would be curious to see how well professionals actually measure up to some of these standards. I wish I had more time to dig into the material.
F. I guess with regards to the second link, those are some very broad concerns. Being the novices we are, how do we situate ourselves in those problems? I agree that something like healthcare information is very sensitive and should be protected, but although I might agree, that doesn't seem very pragmatic.
G. I would like to discuss about encryption and if there are encryption algorithms we can take advantage of in the ruby programming language.
H. I would like to discuss the idea of global surveillance and where to draw the line. It's a grey area for me and I'd like to get more opinions on it.
I. In the "Computer Society and ACM Approve Software Engineering Code of Ethics" reading, it seems to me that the idea about helping each other in developing software is widely adopted by the open source community but not some corporations.
J. I think most of the ethics code is basic courtesy. If you do a job for someone, you obviously shouldn’t half do it. When you create software, you obviously should cite sources and where you got ideas from (as we have been doing in Grinnell), and you should take responsibility for any errors in your program and actively work towards making it better. It's not just acting ethically, but it is being a good person and programmer.
K. Despite the fact that the second reading ends with the line "In summary, without being a predictor of doom...", I'm now very vividly feeling like we're all going to suffer a horrible catastrophe that cripples our current society in the near future (approx 5-15 years). Not a good feeling.