All the best engineering advice I stole from non-technical people (2019)

Post by [deleted] » Mon, May 31, 2021, 7:10 AM UTC

mbrodersen wrote: post #78

valeron102 wrote: post #26

Do you guys think that managers should have some tech background so they could assess any situation and get better decisions. I've been involved in a few projects were the lead senior developer was having difficult times with the manager. Any thoughts?

Do you think a military commander should know anything about the military/weapons/etc.? Do you think a ship building manager should know anything about ships? Yes of course! It is a myth that you can have a manager managing something that he/she doesn’t understand. Without actually delegating their job to people who do (and then take the credit).

Post by RHSman2 » Mon, May 31, 2021, 11:03 AM UTC

WJW wrote: post #45

RHSman2 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good manager doesn’t need to be technical as they are a managing people. That is the hard part. Not tech.

If that was truly the case, then why do so many engineers complain about having a non-technical manager? Thinking that a manager does not need even a little bit of domain knowledge is something managers tell themselves to feel good about themselves, but it is not actually true. Both the people part _AND_ the technical parts are the hard parts of technical management.

Post by RHSman2 » Mon, May 31, 2021, 11:09 AM UTC

booleandilemma wrote: post #57

RHSman2 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good manager doesn’t need to be technical as they are a managing people. That is the hard part. Not tech.

If you’re a manager and not technical you’re not going to understand what your people are doing, you’re only going to understand what they tell you. Also, you’re going to be manipulated and hoodwinked by the managers around you who are technical. Lastly, the engineers you’re managing are going to laugh at you behind your back. I’ve seen all of this happen before.

Post by just_one_time_ » Mon, May 31, 2021, 1:38 PM UTC

lwhi wrote: post #73

nrvn wrote: post #31

Kind advice to everyone willing to share their write ups: avoid Medium. I can’t read the article because of the signup wall. It is cheap and easy to set up a blog on your own custom domain.

Fair enough, but this doesn't have much to do with the article. I don't understand why it's the top comment.

Post by ajdude » Mon, May 31, 2021, 8:42 PM UTC

C-x_C-f wrote: post #69

ajdude wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m kind of like that but in the other direction. I disable JavaScript on everything by default, and if I run into a website or a blog that won’t work without JavaScript, most of the time I just give up and leave the site instead of enabling JavaScript for that specific domain.

This. I've also noticed that websites that don't run without JS are either interactive apps (for which it is understandable) or sites that want to load JS from so many places that I simply can't be bothered figuring out which ones to whitelist.