Editing Magnifica Humanitas: A Plain-Language Overview (section)

== Why programmers should care ==

For programmers, this encyclical is unusually relevant.

Software increasingly determines how other people:

* communicate;
* work;
* obtain information;
* receive services;
* conduct business;
* learn;
* spend money;
* exercise authority;
* and understand the world.

That gives programmers genuine power.

It also gives us genuine responsibilities.

The programmer therefore cannot finally judge a program merely by asking:

* Does it compile?
* Does it pass the tests?
* Is it fast?
* Does it scale?
* Is the architecture elegant?
* Can it be automated?
* Can AI generate it?
* Will somebody pay for it?

Those are legitimate questions.

They simply are not the final questions.

The Virtuous Programmer must eventually ask:

* Is it true?
* Is it useful?
* Whom does it serve?
* Whom might it harm?
* Does it respect the user?
* Does it respect the worker?
* Does it leave meaningful human responsibility somewhere?
* Does it enlarge human capacity or merely create dependence?
* Does it allow smaller communities and individuals to act?
* Does it serve a genuinely good end?

This is where ''Magnifica Humanitas'' intersects directly with [[Open Sourcing the Virtues of a Perl Programmer]].

'''Practical Wisdom''' asks what our technical power ought to be used for.

'''Spiritedness''' gives us the energy to confront systems that are broken, unjust, dehumanizing, or simply poor servants of their users.

'''Good Order''' asks us to build technologies, projects, businesses, and communities in forms that human beings can inhabit rather than merely endure.

And '''Diligence, Patience, and Humility''' remind us that technical brilliance is not the same thing as wisdom.