Am I a Master?

Several people have observed, with a snigger, that I am the only person registered for the forthcoming Software Craftsmanship conference who is listed as a Master. Ade Oshineye has gone further by writing “Anyone who seriously claimed [to be a master] would suddenly find themselves having to explain why they were better than everyone around them. Someone could attempt it but they’d need a lot of ego and a diminished capacity for self-doubt and self-awareness.” (original here)

Gosh. The main reason I listed myself as a master is that Jason Gorman was kind enough to describe me as one in his promotional material for the event. Seriously, though, should I be prepared to call myself a Master of Software Development? It’s a tricky question because traditional craftsmanship is not an accurate parallel to what I do at work. As Oshineye points out, there’s no agreed way of determining what mastery of software means. Like many of the analogies applied to software development, a consideration of “craftsmanship” can improve our understanding but it is misleading to assume craftsmanship – or any other analogy – will provide a complete and useful model. Software development is like… software development. Perhaps the most useful insight that comes from comparing software development with craft is the realization that apprenticeship might be the most appropriate way of learning a set of poorly understood and rapidly evolving skills.

If I really am a Master I should be able to point to my masterpiece. But, as is the way with most software development, all the successful systems I’ve been involved with have been team efforts. Even my books have been co-authored. So if I had to go before my peers to argue my case as a Master, what would I say?

I think the most important considerations in this assessment are whether your peers recognize that you have:

• advanced the body of knowledge of the field
• made efforts to pass knowledge on to others
• carefully and consistently met high standards in your own work.

Having defined the criteria of a Master for myself I feel confident that I can meet them (how convenient!). I won’t risk further accusations of self-aggrandisement by listing my claims here, but you can read them on my web site if you want.

As for the third category, I’ll leave it to the people I’ve worked with over the years to decide.