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Don't Feed the Thought Leaders

earthly.dev

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Re: Don't Feed the Thought Leaders

#281

Post by aryehof »

Something I like to do when given “non-contingent advice” about a project, is to ask the person making the suggestion to review the published current requirements (functional and non-functional) and constraints, and submit a recommended change.

In decades of projects, I have yet to receive one.

When receiving offhand hedgehog like suggestions from someone important, e.g. the CEO, I tend to ask if they insist we pause and consider it, given that to do so would likely affect the cost and progress of the project.

In decades of projects, I have never been asked to do so.

Re: Don't Feed the Thought Leaders

#282

Post by oxfordmale »

lmm wrote: post #152
bennyelv wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most people, including the managers are aware of the problem you've highlighted. What's the solution?

The solution is don't measure test coverage. Measure something you actually care about, like minutes of downtime.

Every time a bug is found I ask my team to write a unit test for it to prevent regression for that bug.

During peer review I encourage Engineers to verify that the actual business logic has been tested, for example calculations.

If done correctly, a low unit test coverage can actually be of more quality than enforcing an 80% threshold

Re: Don't Feed the Thought Leaders

#283

Post by CRConrad »

labrador wrote: post #12

1996: OOP all the code! 2000: XML all the data! 2004: AJAX all the websites! 2008: JQuery all the browser code! 2012: Nodejs all the website backends! 2016: TypeScript all the JavaScript! 2018: Rust all the system code!

2016 --> 2018?

Shouldn't that have been 2020, or did you switch to mid-terms there?

If we put "Rust all the system code!" at 2020, we have four years to think about what the next one is going to be.

Re: Don't Feed the Thought Leaders

#284

Post by CRConrad »

syntheticnature wrote: post #272
samplatt wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YourSQL = MySQL. It's so simple but it made me chuckle for a sold five seconds.

Amusingly, the "My" in MySQL is a person's name.

Probably the sister of Maria or something; presumably named for Little My: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_My . (Most people named that in Finland are, directly or indirectly.)

Re: Don't Feed the Thought Leaders

#285

Post by mtrower »

mym1990 wrote: post #260
quetzthecoatl wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Messi can teach the ones who teach football. Not the best example. He was doing unbelievable things when he was a literal teenager. A surprisingly better example would be Cristiano Ronaldo. Ronaldo was absolutley frustrating to watch in his early career. It was someone trying hard to do flashy moves without any end product. He needed guidance, rules and structures. He also slowly transitioned from Winger to Forward/S…

I literally have no idea what you mean by 'Messi can teach the ones who teach football' but my comment was not an invitation to discuss who is better. The rules I am talking about are the ones like 'you can't kick the ball out of bounds', 'you have to score between the goalposts', 'this is a corner kick', 'this is offsides'. Neither Messi nor Ronaldo made those rules, but they are all time greats in their competency.

No wait, he has something here. Not about who is better; that’s irrelevant. But, on “rules”. What’s being discussed here are “best practice” rules —- strategies of social construct that are sometimes smarter to bend or break, or maybe can be changed entirely if you can prove a more successful method. The “rules” you’re mentioning are perhaps more akin to physics —- fundamental laws that govern the game. You really aren’t supposed to break those, regardless of talent or success.

Re: Don't Feed the Thought Leaders

#286

Post by mtrower »

bendbro wrote: post #164
iainmerrick wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your response to this article about how contingent advice is usually better than universal advice is to propose a universal theory?

I'm sure there are contingencies that can make contingent advice worse than universal advice.

Sure —- in situations where time is critical, for example, fast, suboptimal decisions can be more effective than slow, optimized decisions. So having something general drilled into your head can, in those cases, be preferable.

Re: Don't Feed the Thought Leaders

#289

Post by devchix »

devchix wrote: post #265
megameter wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a very similar problem in advice-giving for technical questions, the problem of "Why do you want to do that? You should do this instead." I've seen others recommend trying to ask binary yes/no questions ("I think it's like this. Yes/no?") or to turn an open-ended question, when asked, into a set of binaries rather than guess at the intent. The property that seems to be common in addressing both is benchmark-…

> the problem of "Why do you want to do that? You should do this instead IIR, there's a word or idiom that describes this kind of solution, I can't think of it and now it's going to bother me until I do. It's a stackoverflow issue, someone asks "How do I do X?" Someone will counter, "Why do you want to do X?" and upon receiving additional information, answer, "You don't want to do X, or this other thing you're doing…

I remember now! It is called the XY problem.

https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/66377/what-is-the-x...

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