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Ask HN: What is the first thing you implement at a new company?

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Re: Ask HN: What is the first thing you implement at a new company?

#161

Post by steve_adams_86 »

dmichulke wrote: post #39
colinbartlett wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In that vein, I invariably have one massive commit on every project to remove trailing whitespace first. That way when my well-behaved editor removes them with each commit, it's not littering up the diff.

Frankly, I saw this in a few projects and it feels like the responsible is one of those people that can't actually code but wants to convince management of their impact with their huge commit stats. I also hate whitespace but it's just a symptom (the other developers' editors / git config probably don't show the trailing whitespace). Given this, it's a mere symptomatic remedy, the problem will reappear, and the only…

I think the process would include having the team become aware of the situation and improving their editor configuration to stop littering whitespace everywhere. Otherwise I agree, that seems like a waste of time to do in isolation.

I'd probably address it more completely if so many files are going to be touched, and whitespace is only one symptom of bad formatting connections. Perhaps everyone should employ the same formatter on save, for example. There is far more value in that. Getting rid of only superfluous whitespace is a bit of a time sink for what you get in return (as much as it drives me nuts).

Re: Ask HN: What is the first thing you implement at a new company?

#162

Post by finaliteration »

vorpalhex wrote: post #127
organsnyder wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, it's extremely difficult to know which particular lines of code are obsolete. This becomes even more difficult as a codebase ages and is worked on by more contributors. Add on another exponent for every business stakeholder that has a hand in defining the business rules—especially if you have requirements coming from multiple sources that may not be aware of each other.

Which is why comprehensive testing is important. If we have test cases that accurately capture our requirements, then we can refactor and know when we've err'd from the path. If we don't have test cases, then we have to make best guesses (and we know how that one turns out).

Accuracy is key, here. I came into my current job with some pretty awful tests in place that “passed” and showed good coverage but did absolutely nothing for actually hitting the necessary cases...

Re: Ask HN: What is the first thing you implement at a new company?

#163

Post by fragileScrump »

Basically, when I ask for a role, whereby I expect to be placed in charge of the project, I expect exactly that. Not some fluffy title, with a cushy salary.

I expect to be able to destroy the scrum process, hang the scrum master. Toss agile in the garbage. Ask the product owner what they actually want. Do that, in about a month. Finish the project 6 months ahead of schedule single-handedly, because web apps are fucking easy.

At that point I get to make doing nothing look like my job, because I put myself ahead of the game. Finishing in weeks, what would have taken months of multiple people wanking a daily stand-up ritual every fucking morning. While other people waste time on acts of contrition, defending their thesis from hecklers in a public square, I'm getting shit done, making computers do my bidding. (not people)

But no. It doesn't always work like this. And sometimes you just have to quit so fast that you make some dipshit's head spin. Because he was so fucking caught up in how to make the perfect outlook invitation, by clicking the proper button in skype.

Fuck stand-ups. Fuck one-on-ones. Fuck code reviews. Fuck performance reviews.

Concentrate on working in a library as silent as a tomb, and fucking destroy shit. That's how programming works.

Re: Ask HN: What is the first thing you implement at a new company?

#164

Post by finaliteration »

klibertp wrote: post #131
gota wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminds me of the Joel Spolsky's post on why you should never re-write your code from scratch [1]. The reasoning goes most 'ugliness' comes from bug-fixes that people encountered along the way, and by re-writing that 'two page function' you lose all that accumulated knowledge. In short, the hacks that make us want to rewrite code are there for a reason [1] https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-sho…

Rewriting the code from scratch does not necessarily mean clean-room reimplementation! It doesn't even mean you can't include parts of the original in the new code. Rewriting from scratch means rethinking the design, or basic structure, of the code while keeping all its functionality. It's not about getting rid of hacks, it's about lining them up neatly in one place instead of having them all mixed, twisted, nested a…

Exactly this. It’s usually much better to refactor/rewrite small pieces at a time where you can rather than taking a scorched earth approach on the entire codebase, and usually that involves including some of the “hacks” until you can get a better grasp on what the right design is.

Re: Ask HN: What is the first thing you implement at a new company?

#165

Post by jacquesm »

adyavanapalli wrote: post #133
jacquesm wrote: post #76

Proper logging, if they don't have it. Otherwise, take a hard bug and fix it.

Do you know any resources for learning this?

Any open source project with open bugs (that's most of them).

Proper logging: that's a complex subject and it took me a good chunk of my career to figure that out.

Re: Ask HN: What is the first thing you implement at a new company?

#166

Post by jSully24 »

fastbeef wrote: post #6

For the first month or so I take a very humble listening position, even if I immediately see things I want to fix. More often then not, there is a background and a history to things that could lead to a) my “fix” being unnecessary and/or ill-informed and b) friction with the rest of the team because here comes a whippersnapper upending all our stuff. Process and code fixes are _much_ easier once you have good rapport…

I was asked in an interview "What is the first thing you will change?" (I was interviewing for a Manager position, but I think this applies no matter the position you are being interviewed for.)

My response was - "I don't know. I need to spend time getting to know the team, understand our product, and better understand priorities."

I try to use this question in interviews with senior people, be they Developers or Managers. It can expose someone who will quickly blow your team up should they join. I like working with people who have great passion and will stand up for their ideas, but understanding the problem first is alway wise!

Getting to know people, products, and customers, (not that customers aren't people) with listening and questions makes everyone better.

Re: Ask HN: What is the first thing you implement at a new company?

#167

Post by raziel2p »

fragileScrump wrote: post #163

Basically, when I ask for a role, whereby I expect to be placed in charge of the project, I expect exactly that. Not some fluffy title, with a cushy salary. I expect to be able to destroy the scrum process, hang the scrum master. Toss agile in the garbage. Ask the product owner what they actually want. Do that, in about a month. Finish the project 6 months ahead of schedule single-handedly, because web apps are fucki…

You sound like a horrible coworker and employee.

Re: Ask HN: What is the first thing you implement at a new company?

#168

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

carlmr wrote: post #88
Joeri wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understood it differently. As in: there is always a reason for the fence but you never know whether it is justified or not without understanding it. Don’t tear down the fence until you understand why it was put there for the wrong reasons.

True, but what I think s_kilk was getting at is that sometimes (especially in software) a bad developer will put a "fence" somewhere without a reason. And if that person already left the company, maybe you can never find out why. That's why it's important to start with some testcases of required behavior, and then refactor only code that is supported by tests. Because sometimes the fence is there for a reason, but of…

> some testcases of required behavior, and then refactor only code that is supported by tests

The difficulty is making sure that you have all the requirements and aren't missing any, and once a system gets big enough, that gets really difficult.

Re: Ask HN: What is the first thing you implement at a new company?

#170

Post by lolsal »

fragileScrump wrote: post #163

Basically, when I ask for a role, whereby I expect to be placed in charge of the project, I expect exactly that. Not some fluffy title, with a cushy salary. I expect to be able to destroy the scrum process, hang the scrum master. Toss agile in the garbage. Ask the product owner what they actually want. Do that, in about a month. Finish the project 6 months ahead of schedule single-handedly, because web apps are fucki…

Your attitude (if not sarcastic, maybe I missed the clues) makes me think you have not ever worked at a large company or on software that is more complex than a CRUD application.
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