Showing posts with label software developers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label software developers. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 12, 2025

You’re a Computer Science Major. Don’t Panic.; The New York Times, November 12, 2025

 Mary Shaw and , The New York Times ; You’re a Computer Science Major. Don’t Panic.

"The future of computer science education is to teach students how to master the indispensable skill of supervision.

Why? Because the speed and efficiency of using A.I. to write code is balanced by the reality that it often gets things wrong. These tools are designed to produce results that look convincing, but may still contain errors. A recent survey showed that over half of professional developers use A.I. tools daily, but only about one-third trust their accuracy. When asked what their greatest frustration is about using A.I. tools, two-thirds of respondents answered, “A.I. solutions that are almost right but not quite.”

There is still a need for humans to play a role in coding — a supervisory one, where programmers oversee the use of A.I. tools, determine if A.I.-generated code does what it is supposed to do and make essential repairs to defective code."

Thursday, January 12, 2017

Should software developers have a code of ethics?; CIO, 1/11/17

Sharon Florentine, CIO; 

Should software developers have a code of ethics? 

"While there are organization-- and company-specific codes of conduct -- like these guidelines from the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers - Computer Science (IEEE-CS) joint task force on software engineering ethics professional practices, there's no one all-encompassing set of standards that includes the entire industry.

But maybe there should be...
Teaching people to ask the right questions involves understanding what the questions are, says Burton, and that everyone's values are different; some individuals have no problem working on software that runs nuclear reactors, or developing targeting systems for drones, or smart bombs, or military craft...
The questions should be around should it be built, what are the fail-safes, and what can we do to make sure we're having the least harmful impact we can?" he says.
There's no one "right answer" here, and a code of ethics certainly won't put all the ethical issues to rest. But it could be a good place to start if individuals and organizations want to harness the great power of technology to create solutions that serve the greater good."