Why Have Ethics?

For those who draw their ethics from religion, the reason for holding to right ethical beliefs can be as simple as, "Because God demands it," or "Because it is written in scripture." Having a deity behind your beliefs can give you that extra stability you need when you are in a position to compromise your ethical convictions. Still, many programmers do not rely on religious belief for their ethics. For these people, a practical answer will have to suit them.

Fortunately, there is a very practical response to the statement, "Why have ethics." The answer can be summed up in one word: trust. Ethics establishes an atmosphere of trust, trust between you and the customer, trust between you and your employer (if you have one), and trust within yourself. This trust is essential as a professional Visual Basic programmer, for it is by this trust that you will be remembered.

I once worked for a customer who had several systems for tracking various aspects of customer records. One of the systems was programmed by a man named Sam (not his real name). Although Sam had not been there for over a year, his name was brought up so frequently, you would have thought that he was still employed. Almost daily you would hear statements like, "Oh, here's some more rotten code that Sam wrote," or "Where is that Sam? I would like to wring the neck of the socalled programmer who wrote this report," or "I think Sam took that part of the source code with him, so we can't change it. It's just like him to do that." It was clear from those statements that, not only was Sam disliked, he was also not trusted. Sam would not be asked to fix any of the code that he left in shambles, even though he may have an understanding of the design. The customer had lost so much trust in Sam (and they had lost time and money as well), they would not consider his work as having much value at all.

The trust you convey through your ethics is clearly displayed in the programs you produce. If you write your programs well, they will be in use long after you have moved on to other projects. If you write your programs ethically, as a professional programmer will, your applications will speak well of you even when you are forgotten.