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Ask HN: Are my expectations on code quality and professionalism too high?

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Re: Ask HN: Are my expectations on code quality and professionalism too high?

#61

Post by BerislavLopac »

ransom1538 wrote: post #56

Me as a manager at a startup: "Look, we have 5 months of runway. Does that make sense?" Young dev from large corp: "Yes. But if you don't use Terraform we wont be able to see our infrastructure changes over time. We don't even have a proper code review process." Me as a manager at a startup: "We have two micro instances. Do not install Terraform. Finish the import prototype... now." Young dev from large corp: "Sigh,…

> Then proceeds to blow 2 hours complaining on hacker news

You are absolutely right, that was wrong. They should have instead ignored you and install Terraform.

Re: Ask HN: Are my expectations on code quality and professionalism too high?

#62

Post by p0nce »

ransom1538 wrote: post #56

Me as a manager at a startup: "Look, we have 5 months of runway. Does that make sense?" Young dev from large corp: "Yes. But if you don't use Terraform we wont be able to see our infrastructure changes over time. We don't even have a proper code review process." Me as a manager at a startup: "We have two micro instances. Do not install Terraform. Finish the import prototype... now." Young dev from large corp: "Sigh,…

How long has your startup been in existence? If it's more than a few years and you haven't found market fit then it explain why you have "5 month of runway"

Re: Ask HN: Are my expectations on code quality and professionalism too high?

#63

Post by planxty »

ransom1538 wrote: post #56

Me as a manager at a startup: "Look, we have 5 months of runway. Does that make sense?" Young dev from large corp: "Yes. But if you don't use Terraform we wont be able to see our infrastructure changes over time. We don't even have a proper code review process." Me as a manager at a startup: "We have two micro instances. Do not install Terraform. Finish the import prototype... now." Young dev from large corp: "Sigh,…

I think you have some things to learn, as a manager, and as an engineer.

Re: Ask HN: Are my expectations on code quality and professionalism too high?

#64

Post by afarrell »

ransom1538 wrote: post #56

Me as a manager at a startup: "Look, we have 5 months of runway. Does that make sense?" Young dev from large corp: "Yes. But if you don't use Terraform we wont be able to see our infrastructure changes over time. We don't even have a proper code review process." Me as a manager at a startup: "We have two micro instances. Do not install Terraform. Finish the import prototype... now." Young dev from large corp: "Sigh,…

When that dev gets older, he'll get the self confidence be honest about his reasons and say, "No. Then we won't be able to see our infrastructure changes right now and in 2 weeks time we will be confused enough that our forward progress will slow significantly."

Re: Ask HN: Are my expectations on code quality and professionalism too high?

#65

Post by toshk »

franee wrote: post #13

Oh my. Run away. If that is their current culture, there will be a lot of pushback if you want to initiate changes. Especially among the senior (responsible for the mess) ones who get defensive real fast. Maybe ask more about how their engineering culture is next time around during interviews.

Not in my experience.

The devs in teams I've worked with (including me) are most of time all quiete aware of the places where their code en setup is lacking and as long as they don't feel personally attacked are very happy with people who come with implementable solutions.

The not feeling attacked and implementable parts are key.

Re: Ask HN: Are my expectations on code quality and professionalism too high?

#66

Post by leothekim »

Sounds like you’ve got alignment on these things at your startup but no one knows how to make time for it. What have you done to step up and lead your team out of the jungle?

I am not being flip when I ask this. I’ve worked at eight startups because situations like this can turn into opportunities if you put your back into it. Most of the work at a startup is about turning chicken shit into chicken salad. If your team had it all figured out, it probably wouldn’t be much of a startup.

Re: Ask HN: Are my expectations on code quality and professionalism too high?

#67

Post by planxty »

Silhouette wrote: post #17
jmchuster wrote: post #12

No, i would say that your standards are quite reasonable. I would also say that there are many companies that do not meet those standards. Usually they have no excuse for doing so, just that no one there knows or most likely just don't care. There are also many companies that go overboard with their code review and tests, get none of the intended gains, produce more slowly than they can, because of an attempt to cate…

There are also many companies that go overboard with their code review and tests, get none of the intended gains, produce more slowly than they can, because of an attempt to cater to the lowest denominator. But I suppose if you're going to pick one of two extremes, that would still tend to be the lesser of two evils. I'm not sure that's necessarily the case. IME, not much will kill both the pace of development and te…

Testing is a skill to learn like anything else. Teams that dogmatically apply any new practice or process without making a genuine effort to learn that thing will never extract value from it. If your team can try, fail, and learn from mistakes, you are in a mature organization. If your team gives up quickly because of fear of dogma or has no strategy for dealing with the challenges of learning new skills, it's unlikely your team will ever extract value from testing until the team culture itself changes.

Re: Ask HN: Are my expectations on code quality and professionalism too high?

#68

Post by ravenstine »

You you want code review and testing, then start looking for another job right this moment. It doesn't matter whether the company has a right to crappy-but-working code. They are probably not going to change their standards until the situation with their software becomes untenable for them, so I wouldn't hold out hope that things will get better in X years.

In the mean time, see what standards you can implement without their permission. If you can fit some tests in there without sacrificing velocity, I see no reason not to add them. What are they gonna do? Tell you no? That will be a litmus test for whether you have any future with these people.

Re: Ask HN: Are my expectations on code quality and professionalism too high?

#69

Post by viraptor »

ransom1538 wrote: post #56

Me as a manager at a startup: "Look, we have 5 months of runway. Does that make sense?" Young dev from large corp: "Yes. But if you don't use Terraform we wont be able to see our infrastructure changes over time. We don't even have a proper code review process." Me as a manager at a startup: "We have two micro instances. Do not install Terraform. Finish the import prototype... now." Young dev from large corp: "Sigh,…

The time when you have 2 micro instances is the best time to implement terraform. You can do it in 5min, existing infra is obvious, and you likely can explain it to 2 other people and be done.

Once you're established, growing, and accumulating features it will take weeks/months. (And if you need a duplicate environment for staging, how many clicks will it take?)

Re: Ask HN: Are my expectations on code quality and professionalism too high?

#70

Post by nocitrek »

mattmanser wrote: post #27

To counter the flood of 'you sound reasonable', I think you are probably being unreasonable. The hint is "spaghetti code". What might have happened is you started slagging off everyone's code as soon as you've come in and now you're plucking at straws to justify it as you're getting ostracized. Also, objectively speaking, how can writing MORE code and spending MORE time talking to people be faster? Your argument make…

I am much more comfortable refactoring my codebase and gradually raise standards of quality of it because of unit tests. If I change piece of code I will know if I modified key functionality of my software. When someone else is editing the code, he is also confident that the module he did not work on is still working as expected. He does not need check up with me and waste mine and his time. I am not sure why would you test your code manually. Total redundancy.
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