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?

#241

Post by reallydontask » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 4:39 PM UTC

ncallaway wrote: post #189

reallydontask wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

I can't think of a project of any size that terraform would be excessive for. Agree, if you're introducing it to a new team and don't have time to teach the tooling that could be problematic. But being somewhat familiar with Terraform I would use it to launch a single EC2 instance. Because it's about as fast to do that as it would be for me to use the AWS Console. It's not that I think Terraform is needed for that sm…

The original comment suggested that Terraform was being introduced at the wrong time.

You are right that size is not the best measure of suitability.

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

#242

Post by bcardarella » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 4:39 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,…

I would argue the mid-level devs are more dangerous in this regard than junior devs. Mids tend to follow rules and really consider them gospel. Seniors know when and how to break those rules. Juniors are a bit all over the place in terms of outcomes and expectations.

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

#243

Post by rezonant » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 4:41 PM UTC

phonebanshee wrote: post #221

rezonant wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All things with balance, and I agree analysis paralysis and overengineering are real problems to avoid... but I'm sorry you can't deploy without CI/CD unless it's like a desktop or mobile app or something. You don't skip that for servers. Does it have to be perfect? Hell no, but it needs to be in place before you can seriously call it shipping

I'm guessing that you work on server-side stuff, because most people who do mobile/desktop work would say exactly the opposite if they desperately had to come up with a general rule: do whatever you want for servers, but you have to do things right for mobile/desktop. Those are your servers, and you can fix them whenever you want. You push software to end users, and it's gone forever.

I do, mostly. Also anticipated there'd be at least one mobile/desktop app dev who would swoop in to say it's important there too and I agree! It's just so common to have two servers to deploy to, and as soon as you do, you aren't going to repeat manual steps to deploy your software on them. I guess in that sense app stores are sort of like CI for apps :-P

But indeed, especially on mobile where you need to have releases go through external validation, CI/CD can save you a lot of time.

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

#244

Post by wolfspider » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 4:53 PM UTC

I’ve been there before and you will be lucky to change just a couple of those deficits within the timespan of 2-3 years. It’s still worth pursuing but just make sure that the organization is willing to take it on like an actual project and not as an extra hobby you yourself are working on. The first place to start is buy-in from the other devs and most likely that will be the most time consuming and frustrating part of the whole endeavor. Work on it together from the perspective of reducing tech debt.

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

#245

Post by JamesBarney » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 4:53 PM UTC

rezonant wrote: post #110

danpalmer wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why it's important that early team members are experienced engineers. They know which corners should be cut today to get the prototype out, and which shouldn't because they'll take 30 mins to do "properly" and save a day of work before the runway is even up. I work in a small company that has all the things the author mentioned and that can work quickly as a result. Almost none of it comes from "we'll do it t…

I highly agree here. Do not staff a very new startup with junior engineers and expect a good outcome. Furthermore, you absolutely do need to cut corners _somewhere_, but a seasoned team understands that taking on such tech debt will require a reduction in velocity at some point in the near future. It is then incumbent upon engineers to ensure management understands that the team is borrowing from future velocity to d…

I really wish we had more precise terms for tech debt.

For instance I think type/schema debt (where your domain model has changed from your original type/schema debt) is very painful and has a very high interest rate.

I think duplicate domain logic has a medium to high interest rate.

I think code organization(what methods go where) has a low to medium interest rate.

I think white spacing, duplicate non-domain logic and code style has a low interest rate.

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

#246

Post by cies » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 4:58 PM UTC

jrs235 wrote: post #213

raihansaputra wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really, really agree. Especially on the last point. Having a small, experienced team is I think the least risky way to build products. Taking the right shortcuts is the big advantage here. Not only about technical debts, but also on reducing planning things to the last detail and reducing overhead on researching best practices for a non-proven stack.

Can you clarify your last sentence? Do you mean not spending too much time planning things out to too much detail?

I think what is meant is that a senior can shoot these things more/less from the hip, hence needing less research time.

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

#247

Post by peelle » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 5:04 PM UTC

I work for a small company that's been around for 20+ years. All of those things you outlined as basic, are things that I have been fighting for the last eight years. I've won a few battles, compromised on a few others, but lost most.

In my opinion your expectations are too high for a small company. Most of the people I have worked with at small companies don't have experience with most those basic tools. Some actively are afraid of code reviews, and others see tests as writing the same code twice, hence a waste of time.

Management and coworkers pay lip service to wanting these things, but I've found that they see them as nice to have extras, and not as time saving efficiency increasing tools.

Don't get me wrong things can change. One way I found is to overwork myself and implement it outside of my normal projects. Then I just have to keep pushing and educating people to follow along. That's how I got the majority of our code under revision control.

The other way is that management finally has enough of a problem and someone convinces them one of those basics will make things better. In our case managment got tired of making new features live, and finding out afterwards that something else had regressed. That's how we got end-to-end tests.

Company culture can change, but it'll be slow. Try and frame things in a cost-benefit light for management. For developers try and show them how it will make their life easier, and show them the cool factor. Good Luck!

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

#248

Post by chasd00 » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 5:04 PM UTC

karatestomp wrote: post #180

chasd00 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

i voted you up, it was a risky analogy given my limited knowledge of Star Trek compared to the majority here :)

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

#249

Post by miltondts » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 5:07 PM UTC

JamesBarney wrote: post #245

rezonant wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I highly agree here. Do not staff a very new startup with junior engineers and expect a good outcome. Furthermore, you absolutely do need to cut corners _somewhere_, but a seasoned team understands that taking on such tech debt will require a reduction in velocity at some point in the near future. It is then incumbent upon engineers to ensure management understands that the team is borrowing from future velocity to d…

I really wish we had more precise terms for tech debt. For instance I think type/schema debt (where your domain model has changed from your original type/schema debt) is very painful and has a very high interest rate. I think duplicate domain logic has a medium to high interest rate. I think code organization(what methods go where) has a low to medium interest rate. I think white spacing, duplicate non-domain logic a…

Even better if those could be demonstrated by studies/concrete data instead of "I think/feel..."

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

#250

Post by metalforever » Fri, Jun 05, 2020, 5:27 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…

The problem is that sometimes, the overhead isn't the right decision from a cognitive load perspective and a fiscal perspective (cost of infrastructure + developer time).