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Times are great for programmers now. How does it end?

vaghetti.dev

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Re: Times are great for programmers now. How does it end?

#301

Post by kalado »

LAC-Tech wrote: post #176

I feel like we have so much leverage and don't use it at all. We're still attending stand-ups every day with non programmers telling us when we can and cannot refactor. It's nuts to me that a skilled profession - that not many can do - lets themselves get micro-managed like this. If anyone has read Developer Hegemony , I'm fully on board with that general premise - we start operating like lawyers with partnerships, a…

This doesn't sound like a correct stand-up to me.

My understanding and how we are actually doing it: You say what you did and plan on doing, no comment are made, it's just an FYI for everyone else. And/Or you have the chance to present a problem you are having and you arrange a "let's talk later" with someone who can help you.

What you are describing sounds like a daily mini breakdown / refinement.

Re: Times are great for programmers now. How does it end?

#302

Post by zelos »

commandlinefan wrote: post #14

Lawyers and doctors have always enjoyed “good times” and there’s no reason to think they’ll stop. Why not programmers, too?

That's not true for lawyers as far as I know (at least in the UK, I suspect the same applies elsewhere). There's an oversupply of law graduates, getting a pupillage/training contract is very competitive and fees are being cut.

Re: Times are great for programmers now. How does it end?

#303

Post by bryanrasmussen »

irrational wrote: post #167
echelon wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nothing is different now. 1. Venture capital is making major investments in India, Europe, Latin America, and Asia. At a scale never before seen. 2. Offices will never happen again. Now employees could be in Antarctica for all you're concerned -- as long as they're on a relatively friendly time zone with the rest of their team, it'll work. This time is different.

From the USA, there aren’t very many friendly time zones. Both Europe and India are absolutely terrible time zone wise. I absolutely hate having very early and very late meetings (i.e., anything before 9 and after 5 Pacific time). Central and South America on the other hand…

If you work in a particularly hot climate maybe sleeping during the day and working at evening, night would not be that bad.

Re: Times are great for programmers now. How does it end?

#304

Post by herodoturtle »

cudgy wrote: post #298

Standups with the entire team of say 5 or more people are usually a waste of time for most of the attendees. Most attendees are simply listening to updates and questions between the lead and the other team members. Sure, sometimes an unrelated developer might have insight but it is rare and can cause rabbit hole conversations that waste other team member’s time. Would prefer a structure where an experienced developer…

I disagree with this, but only under certain conditions.

The standup is meant to be a quick meeting, 10 minutes tops.

It's not there for deep advice between lead and each team member.

Instead it's there to get everyone on the same page.

The deep one-on-one meetings still happen separately - when needed.

And as you say, the added benefit of daily standups is that sometimes a team member has great insight into someone else's issue.

Of course, standups that take too long are terrible.

But if done right, they're helpful, and a lot of fun.

Re: Times are great for programmers now. How does it end?

#305

Post by detaro »

LAC-Tech wrote: post #176

I feel like we have so much leverage and don't use it at all. We're still attending stand-ups every day with non programmers telling us when we can and cannot refactor. It's nuts to me that a skilled profession - that not many can do - lets themselves get micro-managed like this. If anyone has read Developer Hegemony , I'm fully on board with that general premise - we start operating like lawyers with partnerships, a…

> We're still attending stand-ups every day with non programmers telling us when we can and cannot refactor. It's nuts to me that a skilled profession - that not many can do - lets themselves get micro-managed like this.

I mean, that's really doing it wrong. (yes, I know people call everything "standup" even if it as here has nothing to do with the idea of what its supposed to be, but still...) This is not universal in software.

Re: Times are great for programmers now. How does it end?

#307

Post by ggm »

lelanthran wrote: post #272
ggm wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No lawyer, accountant, doctor, engineer, scientist or other professional stands up each day to report *to their peers* on their progress Doctors do something not far removed. It's really important to them to caucus on case management. I think other professions may do the same.

> Doctors do something not far removed. It's really important to them to caucus on case management. Maybe, but it is removed. From my recollection, doctors don't standup each day to report on what they have or have not done and their individual progress, they report on purely on problematic patients that could do with expertise from a different expert, and it's not a daily progress report. If software development fol…

I'm not entirely sure this is more than a matter of degree. I liked most of your point but I think you devalue aspects of this mode of work discussion. It's important to discuss work and holding yourself to account in a shared endeavour is not of itself bad. I have little doubt it's also used as passive aggressive bullying sometimes.

Re: Times are great for programmers now. How does it end?

#308

Post by Kaze404 »

strken wrote: post #85
Kaze404 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the saddest thing I've read on this website. I hope for your own sake you allow yourself to learn new things in the future.

It's not about what you're allowed to do, it's about what professionals in a field need to do to get to the top. I've been programming since I was 8. I've been drawing since I was 29. I will probably never reach the same percentile of drawing ability that I have with programming ability. That's okay for me because I enjoy it anyway, but from the perspective of training people to do their best work, starting younger c…

There's a huge gap between what you said, which I think is totally reasonable, and saying "18 is awfully old to learn something new". Of course learning something when you're younger likely makes you better at it compared to starting when you're older, but an 18 year old is statistically not even through 1/3 of their life.

Not to even consider the amount of people who get into their trade at such a young age. I'll be honestly surprised if they make up any significant amount of the population, and I'm saying this as someone in that boat.

Re: Times are great for programmers now. How does it end?

#309

Post by rand49an »

Dave3of5 wrote: post #292
edanm wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, I'm not defending every single workplace here. Obviously some developers aren't treated well, and in those cases, they should find another job. I was commenting on the fairly blanket statement made. But the way the conversation should go isn't the developer deciding when refactoring should happen. It's the developer giving an analysis of the cost and benefit of a refactoring (it will take X time, but will save…

For non-tech people the code should be a black box they shouldn't know the internal details. In terms of refactoring there is no way to give a Cost Benefit analysis as that's too subjective. This should be a maintenance cost that's factored into the project at a high level. So you would say there a X days per year (normally about 20%) of the working days of the year spent on maintenance. Company I'm at has this and i…

An MOT is a bad example because they don't do any maintenance at all. An MOT is essentially a safety certificate to make sure you aren't driving around in a car that's due to fall apart and injure yourself and others. How you attain that certificate (by ongoing maintenance) doesn't matter.

Re: Times are great for programmers now. How does it end?

#310

Post by cudgy »

herodoturtle wrote: post #304
cudgy wrote: post #298

Standups with the entire team of say 5 or more people are usually a waste of time for most of the attendees. Most attendees are simply listening to updates and questions between the lead and the other team members. Sure, sometimes an unrelated developer might have insight but it is rare and can cause rabbit hole conversations that waste other team member’s time. Would prefer a structure where an experienced developer…

I disagree with this, but only under certain conditions. The standup is meant to be a quick meeting, 10 minutes tops. It's not there for deep advice between lead and each team member. Instead it's there to get everyone on the same page. The deep one-on-one meetings still happen separately - when needed. And as you say, the added benefit of daily standups is that sometimes a team member has great insight into someone…

“get everyone on the same page”

Meetings are expensive, even if they are for short periods. A simple email should be typically sufficient for information that is common to all team members. I’ve almost never attended a 10 minute meeting with more than 2 people. They are always longer, especially if they are fun.

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