Sometimes it is easy to forget that the code we write can have significant impact on other people.  Jay Kimble's What We Do Matters entry reminds us that it can:

I know you say “Jay you used to work on a corporate reporting system.  How could that hurt people?”  Easy, my system was used to make layoff decisions.  There were numbers in my app that I knew were there to help decide when people should be laid off.  If one of my numbers was slightly off it could have caused a bunch of layoffs.  If my numbers were too high it could bankrupt the company.

Just remember this the next time you are hurriedly throwing together a report for some big-wig right before a big meeting.

Jeffrey Palermo wonders if writing software is too easy these days.

Tools today make custom software too easy to develop.  This statement may seem controversial, but I believe it.  I’ve seen too many unskilled people take a programming tool and throw together something that seems to work initially.  The business folks can’t tell a fraud from an expert or evaluate the work, so they use it and then feel the pain later when they actually have to maintain it.

I know that many of us in the Domino world have seen our share of really bad applications.  In fact, that was the topic of our last DCNUG meeting.  Jeff's points are well laid out and I agree with most of what he says.  I do think that software development is part engineering, part artistry.  The really good developers (Masters) will build something that blows you away and then show you how it's done, and you will be able to understand it and use the same techniques in your own code.