141–150 of 174 posts
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> An important part of their role is estimating how long a task will take to complete Agile exists because a very large number of people dispute this.
Agile exists to micromanage people.
Every framework that seeks to scale agile is ultimately a malignant attempt to retrofit it into an older method that is more conducive to reporting.
Imo great engineers produce a lot of good to great quality work fast. They care about the big picture and get involved with the actual domain they're working in. They see code reuse opportunities and friction company wide vs only whatever team they're on. Great software engineers will write tools, packages, and guidelines that the entire company can use- not just their small team. They know how to standup to manageme…
I like to think a great engineer is also not afraid to write some iffy code in 1/10 the time if it solves 90% of the problem and not be bothered by the code being not to pretty.
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The idea was that the three week pieces add up to the whole of the larger task. (Yeah, I know - only if you didn't miss anything. Take the time to think it through well enough that you don't do that. And what if you have things you don't know? Then you have to do a research project to find them out before you can give valid estimates .)
"And what if you have things you don't know?" I usually find stuff out in the middle of work - a question comes up I don't have an answer for, and many times , no one else does either. In effect, no one can estimate it, but we didn't even know that up front. And... I've often hit things where the time to give an 'accurate' estimate takes more time than the actual work effort. Is that common in your "limit everything…
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> Anecdotal, I'm 6'1. At a middle school age, I was _hounded_ into playing basketball (until they realised I had no talent whatsoever, or any inkling that I wanted to attempt to improve that). There's definitely a selection bias in who gets started playing basketball in the first place. This has had a bigger impact than you'd imagine :-) For example quite a few tall football players have been nudged when they were ki…
> genes do matter at a certain level. And the only example that has been given is that someone who is legally considered disabled cannot compete in the top 0.01% of professional sports. I had a bit of a search, and Jahmani Swanson [0] is 4'5, and would absolutely wreck pretty much every single non-NBA basketball player you would ever meet in your life (I am aware that the team are an exhibitionist team, and not an NB…
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> genes do matter at a certain level. And the only example that has been given is that someone who is legally considered disabled cannot compete in the top 0.01% of professional sports. I had a bit of a search, and Jahmani Swanson [0] is 4'5, and would absolutely wreck pretty much every single non-NBA basketball player you would ever meet in your life (I am aware that the team are an exhibitionist team, and not an NB…
Someone 1m 50 is considered disabled? Why? How?
[0] https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/dwarfism/symp...
In 50 years of programming I've worked with a few. One characteristic is a deep understanding and command of all that they touch. For example, I worked with Bill Schelter (GNU Common Lisp). In 1980, prior to the Internet, we were working on a problem (tail recursion). He was using the emacs editor and he found a bug. Bill stopped what he was doing, fetched the sources for emacs (using ftp), found the source of the bu…
>> Bill stopped what he was doing, fetched the sources for emacs (using ftp), found the source of the bug, fixed it, and sent off a patch. After that he restarted emacs and continued right where he left off. >> Greatness isn't about "team player", "hard working", (...) Greatness is a property of the person, a deep love of the craft, and a focus on "doing it right". In your history I see a great deal of "hard work" an…
To be the top of the top, you must have natural talent and nurture and bolster that with hard work. The common denominator of all the exceptional people is hard work.
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> genes do matter at a certain level. And the only example that has been given is that someone who is legally considered disabled cannot compete in the top 0.01% of professional sports. I had a bit of a search, and Jahmani Swanson [0] is 4'5, and would absolutely wreck pretty much every single non-NBA basketball player you would ever meet in your life (I am aware that the team are an exhibitionist team, and not an NB…
I think you are underestimating the struggles he would have against even a decent 6 foot player.... you could block his shot from 10 feet away.
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> An important part of their role is estimating how long a task will take to complete Agile exists because a very large number of people dispute this.
Perhaps a corollary might be that not enough great engineers exist to give good estimates, so we attempt to avoid giving estimates with much consequence attached.
Estimating is not and never was part of the job.
Don't be guilted into thinking you aren't great just because you don't have a crystal ball.
Imo great engineers produce a lot of good to great quality work fast. They care about the big picture and get involved with the actual domain they're working in. They see code reuse opportunities and friction company wide vs only whatever team they're on. Great software engineers will write tools, packages, and guidelines that the entire company can use- not just their small team. They know how to standup to manageme…
In 50 years of programming I've worked with a few. One characteristic is a deep understanding and command of all that they touch. For example, I worked with Bill Schelter (GNU Common Lisp). In 1980, prior to the Internet, we were working on a problem (tail recursion). He was using the emacs editor and he found a bug. Bill stopped what he was doing, fetched the sources for emacs (using ftp), found the source of the bu…
> Great software engineers I've known seem to have complete command of all of the ideas, tools, and techniques. They understand their tools "all the way down to the metal" and all the way "up to the esthetics". You can see great people in all crafts (like woodworking). Do people like this exist today? I mean, the complexity at every level in the stack seems to have grown exponentially(maybe?) for decades. Are there e…