Visual Basic® Style Guide, The

How to Have Ethics

Ethics is a vast subject, but there are a few key attributes of right ethical behavior that are especially relevant to the professional programmer. The remainder of this chapter discusses five of those attributes.

Honesty

For the professional programmer, honesty is the most important ethical attribute you can possess. Honesty greatly affects our agreements with others, and a large part of the programmer's job (especially during the design phase of a project) focuses on agreements. Honesty is noticed by the customer and others, and so is dishonesty. As a programmer, you interact with many people, including your employer, your coworkers, your customer/ users, and even yourself. Honesty in all these relationships is vital to professional ...