Ask HN: Are my expectations on code quality and professionalism too high? • Hacker News Board

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

#171

Post by _bxg1 » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 2:27 PM UTC

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,…

Worth noting that the OP said "mid-sized company", which probably means one that doesn't have a runway measured in months. That makes a big difference.

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

#172

Post by JamesBarney » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 2:31 PM UTC

zests wrote: post #105

Near the start of my career I was at a small/medium sized company on a tiny engineering team (3.5 people). We also had a lot of responsibility. Naturally we did the only thing we could and formed silos and worked in our individual silos without too much regard for testing or pull requests. We had a lot of communication and I personally owned the "back-end" and was able to ship stuff fast. I knew how every piece of co…

100% this.

For instance I'm an engineer who cares far more for business/technical alignment than software practices.

If I had to choose between company A where I work closely with domain experts but the software practices are awful, vs company B where we understand the problem domain through 4 layers of management and business analysts but the software practices are top notch. I'd choose company A every time.

Also poorly applied software practices upset me far more than no software practices. For instance most places that implement code review don't use structured code reviews and spend most of their time enforcing their tech leads specific nitpicks (which are never written down) instead of actually looking through the code to reduce bugs.

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

#173

Post by projektfu » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 2:31 PM UTC

planxty wrote: post #63

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.

If you have a team of 5, and one wants to implement terraform or some other package like that, what is the current cost to the rest of the team that is unfamiliar with the new software? Will that one person be hobbled for the next few months trying to get their work done and support the other engineers who get blocked by tech they haven’t learned as well? Was the system viable using shell scripts or however it was originally set up? Is it going to tick off another developer who put effort into the current orchestration?

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

#174

Post by ThomPete » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 2:32 PM UTC

In Denmark we have an expression "fagidiot" loosely translated "idiot of your field".

A soldier who can't enjoy a war movie because their use or the sound of the machine gun is wrong.

The designer who can't stand the product because the typography turns them off.

This tendency to think that your field always needs to be applied to extreme perfection.

Anyone who want to know where the line is should try and launch a company following the "fagidiot"'s principle and see how likely they are going to be successful.

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

#175

Post by ian0 » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 2:32 PM UTC

I agree that your demands are unreasonable for a small company. It's like a person getting kitted out in full tour de france gear to ride their bicycle to the local shops.

However there is a time and a place. Smaller companies typically havent reached the point where they have both the time and driving need to improve processes. But they will eventually. And when they do they need a person who is able to implement it, like yourself.

I think its great that your concerned about it, that your eager to improve the processes. Dont be disheartened by the fact that its hard to make people change behavior - its normal. You can do it though.

Its important for now that instead of seeing it as a general team-quality issue, you look deeper and tie your improvements to things that are critical locally. Eg. if pushing to production is causing issues quantify it, explain it to folks and get their buy in to implement the process.

This kind of direct "immediate problem solving" approach will likely fly better than filing initiatives under the boring banner of good practice.

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

#176

Post by ornornor » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 2:34 PM UTC

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,…

That's not what OP is talking about though.

Not using prod DBs for development is common sense and best practice.

Not pushing to prod is common sense and best practice.

Same thing about breaking tests, spaghetti code without review.

It's not some pie in the sky, engineer-wants-to-tinker-with-shiny-toys like using Terraform or Kubernetes would be if you only have 10 paying users and two microservices.

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

#177

Post by zebraflask » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 2:36 PM UTC

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,…

This, unfortunately and hilariously, rings quite true.

Not to open the test-driven development can of worms, either, which seems to be part of the OP's dispiritment ... but I've yet to see any scenario where TDD was not a massive waste of time.

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

#178

Post by tjbiddle » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 2:39 PM UTC

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,…

If you're only running two micro instances, I'm assuming the rest of your infra is small.

Likely would have been a single day project to have everything inside of Terraform.

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

#179

Post by reallydontask » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 2:40 PM UTC

dangus wrote: post #124

reallydontask wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't we all? What exactly do you mean? Two micro instances don't seem to warrant using Terraform

Once you're experienced writing Infrastructure as Code, you always use it, no matter how small the project is. Right now I run a single micro instance for a personal project and I've got the whole thing Terraformed, which took me less than a workday - VPC, subnet, security groups, S3 buckets, and a basic provisioning script to setup the instance's software and cron jobs. It is (eventually, once you learn it) faster a…

> Once you're experienced writing Infrastructure as Code, you always use it, no matter how small the project is.

It's a good idea to start early with IaC but one of the marks of a good engineer is knowing what tooling to use for each circumstance.

Your app might be a perfect fit for Terraform or it might not, I couldn't possibly comment. Given the info you've provided it seems excessive but it's hard to say for sure

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

#180

Post by karatestomp » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 2:40 PM UTC

chasd00 wrote: post #134

darkerside wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any situation under which leadership shouldn't buy in to exactly what tech wants to do?

Scotty wasn't on the bridge, he didn't know what was out the window.

Point of order: Scotty was frequently on the bridge commanding the ship, and there's a strong argument to be made that he was the second-best at the job, after Kirk. Certainly 3rd best.