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Ask HN: How do I help a colleague who introduces a lot of typos?

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Re: Ask HN: How do I help a colleague who introduces a lot of typos?

#31

Post by otterley »

> The script was part of a MR, the reviewer missed the typo. We noticed it in staging.

Good!

> We introduced tests for config editing scripts after that.

Good!

> And so it went on and on... The problem is not that it happens and we then refine our processes. It is the frequency.

Honestly it looks like he’s forcing you to fortify your delivery pipelines more quickly. It may be annoying, but on the other hand, it might be a blessing in disguise. It’s a choice between paying in full now and paying over multiple years.

But I will say that trying to solve this problem by hiring more perfect humans is a fool’s errand. People will make mistakes; it’s just a question of when the resulting incident occurs and what consequences result.

Re: Ask HN: How do I help a colleague who introduces a lot of typos?

#32

Post by otterley »

tornadofart wrote: post #30
otterley wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I’m seeing here is that you don’t have mature mechanisms to assure the reliability of your services yet. The second paragraph suggests that a misconfiguration was able to make it into production that arguably should have been caught at an earlier stage of the deployment pipeline. Anyone can make these sorts of mistakes; the fact that a particular colleague is more prone to them really doesn’t matter all that muc…

Sure, it is one way to look at it. My caveat would be: Processes aren't ever perfect.

They are not, but think of it like learning to play a guitar: at first, the strings cut into your fingers, but then you build up enough calluses and playing it stops hurting. Or, consider a building code: every rule was written in blood, and new buildings get safer over time.

Re: Ask HN: How do I help a colleague who introduces a lot of typos?

#33

Post by tornadofart »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #20
saagarjha wrote: post #7

Can you get better tools to catch his mistakes earlier?

This seems the obvious solution, but it might be useful to get a specific example from OP to see whether these typos can be reliably caught be automation, or if human eyes are required.

Updated with an example. We do, in fact, automate stuff and improve our processes, though nothing's ever perfect.

It's the sheer 'randomness' and 'creativity' of the ways typos can mess up things and the frequency that set some people off.

I am sometimes even a bit baffled.

Re: Ask HN: How do I help a colleague who introduces a lot of typos?

#34

Post by tornadofart »

otterley wrote: post #31

> The script was part of a MR, the reviewer missed the typo. We noticed it in staging. Good! > We introduced tests for config editing scripts after that. Good! > And so it went on and on... The problem is not that it happens and we then refine our processes. It is the frequency. Honestly it looks like he’s forcing you to fortify your delivery pipelines more quickly. It may be annoying, but on the other hand, it might…

"But I will say that trying to solve this problem by hiring more perfect humans is a fool’s errand."

No worries. I want to help him, not fire him. I guess the team's situation is a bit odd at the moment.

Re: Ask HN: How do I help a colleague who introduces a lot of typos?

#35

Post by tornadofart »

globular-toast wrote: post #12

Smaller code reviews. If you are a reviewer and don't feel you are able to review something (ie. to catch the typos) within a reasonable time period, reject the review and ask for it to be smaller.

Definitely will do that!

Re: Ask HN: How do I help a colleague who introduces a lot of typos?

#38

Post by viraptor »

> Telling him I suspect he has dyslexia.

Depends on how well you know him, but if you can do that in a friendly environment... Could be worth it. I wish someone pointed out my issues if anyone actually suspected them decades ago.

It can get complicated but from a co-worker with severe dyslexia I learned that there were some proven and practical things that improved at least his reading and ability to copy text.

So... If you're close enough, maybe it's actually worth a friendly chat. I mean, you need to be a doctor to give him an official diagnosis, but not to mention you care and suspect something.

Re: Ask HN: How do I help a colleague who introduces a lot of typos?

#39

Post by bgbntty2 »

> What I am not considering:

> - Telling him I suspect he has dyslexia. I'm not a doctor.

You don't have to be a doctor to tell him he might have dyslexia or something related. If he goes to a doctor to diagnose it, he'll be better off because of you. Either he'll have dyslexia and he'll know his problem or he won't and he'll start considering other causes.

People nowadays seem reluctant to offer medical advice of any kind. It's one thing to just hand him some pills, it's another to suggest he goes to see a doctor.

Re: Ask HN: How do I help a colleague who introduces a lot of typos?

#40

Post by dontchooseanick »

Just copy-paste everything !

Bare with me - I may have had the same. Countless hours debugging. I had to copy Assembly (68000) in my early days.

Copy-paste is a life saver. Don't type this very long parameter if you can copy its name from the definition file.

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