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Evil programmer's tip: avoid “easy” things (2016)

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Re: Evil programmer's tip: avoid “easy” things (2016)

#111

This works until your boss understands software development

You just don't wake up one day and understand software development. If you do work as a software developer though, you will wake up one day and realize that you actually know very little about software development.

Re: Evil programmer's tip: avoid “easy” things (2016)

#113

I actively try to avoid to do anything the easy way, because I know ill get bored if do. Motivation is the most valuable resource in programming. I rather do something over engineered that I find interesting, then something simple and boring. Even if it takes 3 times the effort, I know ill put more than 3 times the effort in if I'm motivated, and ill end up learning something and ill end up with something I'm proud o…

Please don't do things like this, it makes it harder for your team. Find the challenge outside your work if you need it. Just do it the straightforward way.

Re: Evil programmer's tip: avoid “easy” things (2016)

#115
post #110

At my last job I made a feature to deploy arbitrary user code (most likely a trained model in Python) to a subdomain running a JS server that could take input parameters when called at that URL and would respond with the answer from the model. This effectively cut down DS deployments from potentially days to about 45 seconds. It was seen that be hard and I had a good amount of help from our awesome devops person and…

> It matters, I think, not if the task is easy or hard but if management/product view something as easy or hard. That's eye opening, thank you! I've once worked on a "hard" statistical model and all I got from my boss' boss was a "who cares" face. Then he was so happy to see our (to my view) dumb web app, he didn't even realized it was the model behind that app that consumed 80% of my time/energy :/

I've had this plenty of times, where praise and accoaldes come down tot he person who made the prettiest or shiniest thing. It's kind of why I moved into frontend development, I always have something so show every week, and management are always happy, since I always look like I have made amazing progress. It's gaming the system, but I would rather this, than what you experienced, where the developer looks like they are wasting time in the eyes of management.

Re: Evil programmer's tip: avoid “easy” things (2016)

#116

Whatever one thinks of the techniques recommended in this article, the perils of working on a "easy" but in actuality hard problem are not to be overstated.

The dreaded 3 point story that takes 3 weeks. ...yeah been there.

This is why I always severely overestimate the length of my tickets.

1. I am usually never behind schedule 2. I look like a hero when I deliver on time

Re: Evil programmer's tip: avoid “easy” things (2016)

#118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is what I believe you believe and I understand where it is coming from. I've managed juniors and I know they make mistakes. That said, if a junior brings up a question like "why does this error for some tests, but not others?" records = some_orm_thing() some_model_ids, other_ids = map(list, zip(*records)) The answer is obvious. Some tests return no records for the ORM thing and that doesn't unpack. If you ask th…

My wording was maybe a little strong, I did try and clarify a bit in another comment below but, I was maybe a little bit unclear and think I might not have fully understood the point you were making. I admit, I did take it as juniors should just shut up, which i admit probably wasn't the most good faith way to interpret it. I agree there's a difference between the kind of question like the one above vs. something lik…

I'm really happy you responded because I fully agree with you.

I think my larger point was that smart juniors should seek to get clarification privately after exhausting their own skill, but you're absolutely right that they should raise issues as they come up in a thoughtful way to accelerate the team and their own growth.

Re: Evil programmer's tip: avoid “easy” things (2016)

#119

At my last job I made a feature to deploy arbitrary user code (most likely a trained model in Python) to a subdomain running a JS server that could take input parameters when called at that URL and would respond with the answer from the model. This effectively cut down DS deployments from potentially days to about 45 seconds. It was seen that be hard and I had a good amount of help from our awesome devops person and…

It's sort of like how it's better to be a firefighter than a maintainer, which is guess is the point. The ease may be similar, but coming in to save everyone from an explosion gets you more points than oiling the valve every day so pressure doesn't build up in the first place. It's a cultural issue that is very hard to combat.

Reminds me of moments I had early in my career where I was the hero for fixing problems I caused. :) That company didn't have code reviews and my bosses weren't very technical, so it was pretty easy to pretend like I wasn't at fault for anything. Sometimes they'd figure out that I caused the problems and even then it didn't seem to really matter. If I had the skills I have now 7 years later, my bosses would probably think they're overpaying me because it wouldn't seem to them like I'm doing anything more of the time.

Re: Evil programmer's tip: avoid “easy” things (2016)

#120
One thing that annoys me is that if you carefully craft a complex subsystem that behaves well in prod that does not get noticed much. On the other hand a quickly thrown together something that requires heroic efforts to keep running and make stable might get much more noticed.
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