Yesterday, while walking down the street, I saw some words written in Latin on a terrace: “Primum non nocere”. I looked them up on Google and found that they mean “First, do no harm”. It’s a motto for health-related professions that emphasizes their main objective: the well-being of the patient and avoiding any harm.
I liked the idea, and after doing some research, I found that there’s nothing similar for programmers. So I started thinking and came up with a possible motto for our profession: “Tuere usorem, data, veritatem”.
Tuere: protect
usorem: the user
data: the data
veritatem: the truth
The user: as programmers, our main objective should be the user, making their experience as pleasant as possible and ensuring our program makes their life easier or more comfortable. In the case of open-source code, it can also help them learn.
The data: after the user, data is the most important thing because it’s almost always irreplaceable. It’s our responsibility to do everything possible to keep it safe and accessible.
The truth: today’s technology can be used to falsify information and spread lies, and the pace of change only makes this worse. As creators of much of this technology, we have a moral commitment to the truth.
What do you think? Does it make sense? Is there already a similar slogan that I haven’t found? I’d love to hear your thoughts!
PS: I don’t know any Latin, ChatGPT did the translation for me, so there may be some mistakes.
It makes sense to me 🙂
Just a note on the Latin translation: I studied Latin in secondary school, I am not an expert Latinist, but I think it should be something like
`Usuarium, data, et veritatem protege` or `Usuarium, data, et veritatem tue`
This is because I think the final verb should be imperative, and therefore users, data and truth become accusative, and should be placed before the verb.
More than a motto, it should be an exhortation to do the right thing.
Does this make sense?
It does make sense, since my idea was to come up with something similar to that medical motto that sounds like an exhortation. But to be honest, I think maybe using plain English would have been a better choice 🙂
I love it – I like that the user comes first (rather than refactoring!), and I like the general idea of having a motto as a grounding principle.
Also digging up old school Latin, but I think you can ditch the “et” and add an enclitic “-que” to the penultimate item in the list. So something like “Usuārium, data, vēritātemque prōtegite.”
I think that’s correct, like in “Senatus Populusque Romanus,” right?
Regardless of the Latin grammar (Romani ite domum), I love this motto. Having all the right answers is useless without effective communication. While a lot less terse and memorable, I implore every software professional to read the ACM code of ethics and professional conduct.
https://www.acm.org/code-of-ethics
I love this code! Those are exactly the ideas I wanted to capture.