> The managers' job is to take cleverness out of our jobs, not because they're assholes or don't trust us (usually not the case) but because if our work relied on our cleverness or creativity, then they wouldn't be doing their jobs, which is to deliver business value reliably.
Great point. Or as Daniel Geer et al put it[1] (discussing security, but applicable in general): "The central enemy of reliability is complexity. Complex systems tend to not be entirely understood by anyone. If no one can understand more than a fraction of a complex system, then, no one can predict all the ways that system could be compromised by an attacker. Prevention of insecure operating modes in complex systems is difficult to do well and impossible to do cheaply: The defender has to counter all possible attacks; the attacker only has to find one unblocked means of attack. As complexity grows, it becomes ever more natural to simply assert that a system or a product is secure as it becomes less and less possible to actually provide security in the face of complexity."
Fair point, and I agree, but complexity and creativity are orthogonal.
Managers clamp down on individual creativity and cleverness because they fear complexity, and rightly so, because 95% of software complexity serves no value, and only creates frustration and risk. Their risk-limiting optimization tends to suck all the fun and creativity out of the job, although that's not their intent.
Here's the problem: complexity emerges anyway (Greenspun's Tenth Rule). Force people to use Java instead of high-level languages and they'll invent AbstractFactory patterns and hideous, undocumented DSLs in the name of "object-oriented programming". The problem with software is the same problem that exists in legislation: laws are never unmade. The difference is that no one needs to know or care about horse-carriage requirements from 1730 in Philadelphia, but the legacy complexity in software lives on, making everything unreadable and messy.
Moreover, the end-result of all this unexpected complexity is that most software jobs become a legacy slog, which further reduces the room for creative expression.
Great point. Or as Daniel Geer et al put it[1] (discussing security, but applicable in general): "The central enemy of reliability is complexity. Complex systems tend to not be entirely understood by anyone. If no one can understand more than a fraction of a complex system, then, no one can predict all the ways that system could be compromised by an attacker. Prevention of insecure operating modes in complex systems is difficult to do well and impossible to do cheaply: The defender has to counter all possible attacks; the attacker only has to find one unblocked means of attack. As complexity grows, it becomes ever more natural to simply assert that a system or a product is secure as it becomes less and less possible to actually provide security in the face of complexity."
[1] http://cryptome.org/cyberinsecurity.htm