Ask HN: What does mastery look like in software engineering?
121–130 of 290 posts
Re: Ask HN: What does mastery look like in software engineering?
#122I’ve been pondering this a lot lately, as an engineering leader. Masters in my organization have an extremely high ratio of value shipped to hours worked. This means two things. They are able to discern and avoid work that does not provide value (this is often their greatest skill), and the best ones can direct a whole team away from large swaths of work that is not valuable. And they are able to build systems such t…
I don't disagree with this, but sadly, a prerequisite for that is a position of privilege where you're able to push back against non-valuable work. I've seen many, many very good software developers that have this quality, but get overruled, and their true value goes unrealized as a result.
Re: Ask HN: What does mastery look like in software engineering?
#123https://bellard.org/
Clean, well-documented projects showcasing demos that end up having huge impact. Some of these projects single-handedly spawned entire tech ecosystems. (see FFMPEG, QEMU, JSLinux)
Re: Ask HN: What does mastery look like in software engineering?
#124I’ve been pondering this a lot lately, as an engineering leader. Masters in my organization have an extremely high ratio of value shipped to hours worked. This means two things. They are able to discern and avoid work that does not provide value (this is often their greatest skill), and the best ones can direct a whole team away from large swaths of work that is not valuable. And they are able to build systems such t…
I think sometimes this means they do the unsexy stuff.
For instance, having an easy build process, or understanding version numbers, or preventing an upgrade to this year's compiler.
Re: Ask HN: What does mastery look like in software engineering?
#125I’ve been pondering this a lot lately, as an engineering leader. Masters in my organization have an extremely high ratio of value shipped to hours worked. This means two things. They are able to discern and avoid work that does not provide value (this is often their greatest skill), and the best ones can direct a whole team away from large swaths of work that is not valuable. And they are able to build systems such t…
I don't disagree with this, but sadly, a prerequisite for that is a position of privilege where you're able to push back against non-valuable work. I've seen many, many very good software developers that have this quality, but get overruled, and their true value goes unrealized as a result.
Precisely my observation of last couple decades.
Re: Ask HN: What does mastery look like in software engineering?
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
> They are able to discern and avoid work that does not provide value (this is often their greatest skill) junior dev here...could elaborate a little on what this means? Generally speaking the PM is the one creating a roadmap and informing what is the highest value item to work on. I must be misunderstanding what you're referring too.
I can give you an example from my career. We were building out a new webapp feature to deliver medical textbooks, which we had as xml documents direct from the publisher. Our customers, mostly large academic libraries and medical research companies, would get the electronic access to the books for much less than it would cost to get sufficient physical copies, and our cost for supplying the books would be minimal. A…
Precisely the reason why next time you would consider debating what's in it for me, prior to blurting out a solution.
Re: Ask HN: What does mastery look like in software engineering?
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
> They are able to discern and avoid work that does not provide value (this is often their greatest skill) junior dev here...could elaborate a little on what this means? Generally speaking the PM is the one creating a roadmap and informing what is the highest value item to work on. I must be misunderstanding what you're referring too.
I can give you an example from my career. We were building out a new webapp feature to deliver medical textbooks, which we had as xml documents direct from the publisher. Our customers, mostly large academic libraries and medical research companies, would get the electronic access to the books for much less than it would cost to get sufficient physical copies, and our cost for supplying the books would be minimal. A…
Thank you for the story, I definitely understand now. I am also relieved that you were compensated for this critically important pivot! /s
I am hoping this will be an area I can eventually excel in. I was a senior PM for a while and decided I wanted to write code instead. Been going down this crazy career change for about 6 months now. Right now I am just trying to survive and learn the basics of software development.
When I was PM I certainly had the luxury of working with invaluable devs I could brainstorm with on ways to optimize a feature idea that maintained customer value in the shortest time possible. I need to learn how to become that invaluable dev I had.
Re: Ask HN: What does mastery look like in software engineering?
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
> They are able to discern and avoid work that does not provide value (this is often their greatest skill) junior dev here...could elaborate a little on what this means? Generally speaking the PM is the one creating a roadmap and informing what is the highest value item to work on. I must be misunderstanding what you're referring too.
I can give you an example from my career. We were building out a new webapp feature to deliver medical textbooks, which we had as xml documents direct from the publisher. Our customers, mostly large academic libraries and medical research companies, would get the electronic access to the books for much less than it would cost to get sufficient physical copies, and our cost for supplying the books would be minimal. A…
It seems like this value you brought in is "outside" the domain of software engineering, however. Yes, the solution ended up being found in software engineering, but the problem came from a business operation thing, no?
(I wish you had gotten more thoroughly compensated for saving them a fortune.)
Re: Ask HN: What does mastery look like in software engineering?
#129Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Linus, as the namesake for Linux also made a huge impact on the field... and comes off as somewhat of an uncontrolled lunatic. What? Linus is one of the most Rational, Direct, No-Nonsense, Get Things Done Leader there is. Whenever i hear some self-appointed "expert" pontificate on Leadership/Management/etc. i always think of what Linus would say/do in that situation. People only think of him as a "Technical Guy" but…
As an "uncontrolled lunatic" myself, they are rather obvious in the field. I'll agree that many of the things he says are reasonable. An example is his recent defense of long lines and dismissal of the insane "80 characters per line" peeps. What I mean specifically by "uncontrolled lunatic" is that he often ignores convention and current opinion and does and says things that get him into trouble. He also has a temper…
I have heard these arguments before. You cannot separate Linus' so-called "shortcomings" from how they were instrumental in getting him to what he has delivered and where he is today.
Genius cannot be constrained by every single artificial social more and etiquette; we are Humans not Automatons. As long as they do not lead to destruction of product/project/self/others it is merely a character trait which makes the person unique. All successful companies know this and "manage" their most important people accordingly.
Re: Ask HN: What does mastery look like in software engineering?
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
> but every commit will replace entire module(s) flawlessly That's big commits, you're not supposed to do that. Masters commit individual characters that replace entire modules flawlessly.
Every module Pai Mei implements fits on a single page of his 80-column terminal, including comments. He manages this brevity not with obscure one-liners, but through algorithmic simplicity. Every module is precisely as complex as it needs to be to accomplish its purpose, no more, no less.
Pai Mei never deletes or modifies a single character. Every keystroke is perfect and can only be as it was initially.