Balancing acts: reconciling competing visions of the way software technologists work

Abstract

The practice of software development has been viewed by some as marked by anarchy and fragmentation and by others as characterized by order and universalism. How is it that two essentially opposite stereotypes of the way software technologists work have gained such prominence? The paper argues that both characterizations are valid and explores them in the context of an ethnographic and historical investigation of software process standards in a computer company. These tendencies toward order and disorder manifest themselves in several different ways which suggest that both forces are an inescapable concomitant of working with software. As a result, these tendencies must be managed in tandem to achieve an equilibrium rather than dealt with in isolation. This is likely to require sophisticated forms of professional judgement on the part of practitioners.