The Confidence Game

After my conference talk I had a little break. Since then (among other things) we've brought in the New Year and bore witness to the final in-ring performance of the "never seen 17, greatest of all time, and the last real champion" WWE superstar and actor John Cena. I considered titling an article after his signature catchphrase, "You Can't See Me", but the subject matter that I had in mind extends beyond myself.

I've previously (and repeatedly) made the assertion that despite the presence of standards, best practices, titles and other commonalities, the production of software is not commoditised to the extent that the production of many other kinds of goods that we are accustomed to in every day life are. I think it is fair to say that this is contrary to popular belief and contrary to the rhetoric of a sea of commentators on the production of software.

Over the past few months and many articles I've been writing about how software comes to be, and why it doesn't always meet our expectations, jumping between physical and digital space as it seems appropriate. Code and its associated concerns are highly relevant, but making software happen (and being an effective software developer) goes beyond what happens in digital space and is largely subject to the activities and attitudes of people and the decisions they make in physical space, in the project, and in the business.

Enter: The Confidence Game.

Most people will be familiar with The Confidence Game from other domains of life. "Is this a waste of time?", "is this a waste of money?" - winning The Confidence Game looks like other people answering "no way" or "absolutely not" in response to these questions.

The Confidence Game has pervasive influence. For instance, technology choice (is this going to work for us?), conference agendas (is an audience interested in this?), the division of labour (can they deliver?), and the investigation of issues (is this the problem?). In the interest of making quick decisions, proxies are used. Years of experience. Lines of code. Social media followers and reactions. Adoption rates. There is also the zeitgeist. Throughout much of 2025, rhetoric around generative AI is pervasive. If you wound back the clock to 2021, the same could be said about the Web3 movement. If you were to go back further still you could identify more techno-social hype cycles.

Some have matured and remain part of the furniture. Many have fallen by the wayside. The overall pool of technological primitives is transient and both expands and contracts through time.

Right and wrong, perception shapes the future.