I have literally seen this firsthand enough to consider it repeatable. I am not making up characters for effect. I have seen and worked with people who didn’t want to write tests because they thought it made them appear weak. I have seen people say they use Ruby because they “don’t want a compiler holding their hand” as if a compiler diminished them personally (I have nothing against Ruby specifically).

Programming is a young field compared to basically all the others. It is immature. It is undergoing massive change quickly. It does have an immature, barely developed theory of practice. This has weird effects, just like how other disciplines had weird quirks when they were young too. What was young medicine like?

I have a great deal of empathy and respect for programmers. Same for engineers and doctors. None are infallible. Doesn’t change my read that our (programming) culture could be better than it is in specific ways, which could result in better decision making in the aggregate.

As for your last point, I agree! I’ve worked too closely with them for there to be any mystique left. I don’t want programming to become civil engineering or medicine but I think we can learn things from how they think about quality and systems. They’ve had more practice at it.