The Best Programming Advice I Ever Got (2012)

Post by dkrikun » Sun, Dec 16, 2018, 7:41 AM UTC

wmichelin wrote: post #186

dkrikun wrote: post #185

Could not disagree more. The author most probably freed the company from its dysfunctional stagnation due to some political issue. It is thanks to his ignorance that he resolved an issue, something that had to be done. In general, staying out of other people code is a bad idea. It promotes lack of transparency and agenda proliferation. This is because the owners of the code start being a "monopoly", can work less har…

Sounds like you didn't read the article :)

Post by Matumio » Sun, Dec 16, 2018, 8:29 AM UTC

jpnelson wrote: post #86

ken wrote: post #63

There's definitely value in respecting boundaries. Sometimes you have to take a small local inefficiency in order to create a bigger global efficiency. That's life. In my experience, though, this is a much bigger problem in software because nobody really knows what they're doing. There's no industry standard way to do almost anything. You can argue about "use Foo!" or "don't use Foo, use Bar!" and there's no one Corr…

That's an interesting perspective. I think you're right that we don't have "correct" and standard answers because we don't assume total competency, but I think we don't assume total competency because software development (both the requirements and the practices) change fairly rapidly. I wouldn't be surprised if in 100 years, we're still trying to figure out standards, if the pace keeps up.

Post by dang » Sun, Dec 16, 2018, 8:48 AM UTC

WilliamEdward wrote: post #133

haxorito wrote: post #43

I made same mistake, I saw how old system underperformed and that I could make it better, faster, more stable and bring higher profit. When I presented that my boss, next I know I’m in room with HR, my bosse’s boss and technical lead (who was practically executive director), to my surprise boss started conversation with “your actions concerning me...” they told me to give all the related code, documents and remove ev…

You're clearly leaving out some important detail, which makes me think this is 100% your fault and you were being stupid, even though you want to play the victim

Post by XorNot » Sun, Dec 16, 2018, 9:39 AM UTC

rocky1138 wrote: post #94

squarefoot wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"People will sabotage things simply because they want the useful idea to be theirs." Not just that, they will sabotage things if it makes them more profitable, which probably happens in thousands companies worldwide everyday. 1. Get a contract. 2. Sell some crappy software to the customer. 3. Wait for them to ask for more speed. 4. Complain it's their fault because their hardware is too old. 5. Offer to either instal…

The way capitalism is supposed to work is you quit this job and open a shop which does the same thing as the existing company but doesn't artificially reduce speed, using that as a competitive advantage. The end result is that the first company is required to either adopt your strategy or fail, either solution leading the consumer to a better result.

Post by darrenhobbs » Sun, Dec 16, 2018, 10:04 AM UTC