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Developers spend most of their time figuring the system out

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Re: Developers spend most of their time figuring the system out

#111

Post by toomanydoubts »

switchbak wrote: post #107
toomanydoubts wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for posting this. Yesterday I came across a job position on a company that does 100% mob(!) programming everyday¹. This means every programmer works 6 hours per day on a zoom call with 2 other programmers, rotating roles between typist, navigator and support every ten minutes. I couldn't help but feel my soul being slowly crushed as I read further on their description of the daily activities. Needless to say,…

That kind of context switching sounds like it's horrible for just about everyone (including the business).

Honestly, it's sounds kinda insane. Mob programming certainly is a tool with its good use cases, like maybe tracking a bug, onboarding a new team member or making critical changes to core stuff. However, I just can't imagine having three engineers making 100k+ sitted together everyday on a single laptop to write yet another REST api or whatever.

Re: Developers spend most of their time figuring the system out

#112

Post by bdamm »

wellpast wrote: post #84
kayodelycaon wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you worked at a place that did 100% pair programming, anyone who couldn’t succeed at pair programming would be filtered out. Personally, whether or not I can do pair programming has a lot to do who I’m working with, what I’m doing, and what kind of day I’m having. The same thing goes for test-driven development. I have ADHD and short-term memory issues. This causes me to work by feel on some tasks because I don’t…

I'm at a mandatory-pairing-multiple-times a day place right now and I've made the same observations you are identifying here. Pairing may be good to some degree for knowledge sharing but it works against good architectural design, which requires the kind of holistic thinking you describe, as well as kind of micro-iterative whittling away at the problem that interactive pairing couldn't ever achieve. In addition, the…

Good design and getting everything right up works right up until the requirements change and the design no longer meets the ask. Unsurprisingly, teams might not even know all the requirements when building something new. Having everything orderly up front is a pipe dream.

That said, there are definitely cases where sitting back and thinking through a design is a really good idea. In my experience, it's 1/10th of the job.

Re: Developers spend most of their time figuring the system out

#113

Post by zarmin »

yonaguska wrote: post #85
zarmin wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone with ADHD and memory issues, your comment is what I hope my future looks like. Would you mind expanding on how you're able to work through ADHD symptoms, motivation issues and such?

Medication and note taking helped a lot with me. Even better, a good note taking app since my handwriting is garbage, right now I'm using OneNote and I keep it pinned to every desktop separate from my code. Motivation- you need to actually align your tasks with an actual concrete personal goal or sense of accomplishment. And be invested in the work. Lacking that, you'll be dependent on external stressors to get anyth…

Thank you. I do rely on medication and note taking apps (though mine are a bit scattered).

One of my issues with motivation is what you mentioned: I really really struggle to get invested. Things that are "work" seem to live in an anti-motivation bucket, regardless of how organically interesting they may be to me outside of a work contest. I'm in my 30s now, and I've been doing this my whole life and it is killing me. It takes a tremendous amount of effort and an extremely imminent deadline to get me to start anything. This (ostensibly) runs completely contrary to my self-concept and value system, but the motivation problem permeates every fucking inch of my life, and always has.

I can read this back and recognize a defeatist attitude, but I don't know what else to do.

Re: Developers spend most of their time figuring the system out

#114

Post by a9h74j »

switchbak wrote: post #107
toomanydoubts wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for posting this. Yesterday I came across a job position on a company that does 100% mob(!) programming everyday¹. This means every programmer works 6 hours per day on a zoom call with 2 other programmers, rotating roles between typist, navigator and support every ten minutes. I couldn't help but feel my soul being slowly crushed as I read further on their description of the daily activities. Needless to say,…

That kind of context switching sounds like it's horrible for just about everyone (including the business).

Perhaps some psychologist at Yale has embezzled $50 million and is using it to fund a startup for psychology research purposes.

Re: Developers spend most of their time figuring the system out

#115

Post by adhd3 »

kayodelycaon wrote: post #55
gleenn wrote: post #19

People always struggle or avoid doing pair programming, and people always think it means that the developers' time now costs twice as much, but this is a total lie. When I worked at a place that did 100% pair programming with rotation every day, a new developer could hit the ground flying . Sitting next to someone who knows the system and can answer your question immediately means you get up to speed millions of time…

If you worked at a place that did 100% pair programming, anyone who couldn’t succeed at pair programming would be filtered out. Personally, whether or not I can do pair programming has a lot to do who I’m working with, what I’m doing, and what kind of day I’m having. The same thing goes for test-driven development. I have ADHD and short-term memory issues. This causes me to work by feel on some tasks because I don’t…

Thanks I also have adhd and this comment was illuminating

Re: Developers spend most of their time figuring the system out

#116

Post by a9h74j »

toomanydoubts wrote: post #111
switchbak wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That kind of context switching sounds like it's horrible for just about everyone (including the business).

Honestly, it's sounds kinda insane. Mob programming certainly is a tool with its good use cases, like maybe tracking a bug, onboarding a new team member or making critical changes to core stuff. However, I just can't imagine having three engineers making 100k+ sitted together everyday on a single laptop to write yet another REST api or whatever.

Does Zoom have a "Mutex" button for obtaining keyboard access?

Re: Developers spend most of their time figuring the system out

#117

Post by a_t48 »

kayodelycaon wrote: post #55
gleenn wrote: post #19

People always struggle or avoid doing pair programming, and people always think it means that the developers' time now costs twice as much, but this is a total lie. When I worked at a place that did 100% pair programming with rotation every day, a new developer could hit the ground flying . Sitting next to someone who knows the system and can answer your question immediately means you get up to speed millions of time…

If you worked at a place that did 100% pair programming, anyone who couldn’t succeed at pair programming would be filtered out. Personally, whether or not I can do pair programming has a lot to do who I’m working with, what I’m doing, and what kind of day I’m having. The same thing goes for test-driven development. I have ADHD and short-term memory issues. This causes me to work by feel on some tasks because I don’t…

I keep putting off getting a formal ADHD diagnosis, but this sounds a lot like me. :) My programming/thinking style is very instinctual and doesn't really fit any sort of linear style. I kind of put things together as I go, trusting my subconscious to get all the little details together. I can explain post hoc why I wrote something a certain way, but won't be able to do it beforehand.

Re: Developers spend most of their time figuring the system out

#118

Post by ratww »

brailsafe wrote: post #109
kayodelycaon wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you worked at a place that did 100% pair programming, anyone who couldn’t succeed at pair programming would be filtered out. Personally, whether or not I can do pair programming has a lot to do who I’m working with, what I’m doing, and what kind of day I’m having. The same thing goes for test-driven development. I have ADHD and short-term memory issues. This causes me to work by feel on some tasks because I don’t…

As someone also with ADHD, I can relate in a lot of these respects. The idea of doing pair programming every fucking day would ruin me. I really don't mind collaborating or discussing with people, because I think that's what our brains are great for, but not in the pair programming sense, and not every day. In my last job, I was very open about this, but my manager seemed to basically brush it off and pull up a chair…

I don't think I have ADHD, but I burned out pretty quickly after a few months of 8h/day pair programming. I started taking medication and took some extended vacation.

Thankfully the CEO of the company wasn't much into it, so he forced our pointy-haired boss of a manager to make it optional.

The whole team unanimously decided to never do it again.

Re: Developers spend most of their time figuring the system out

#119

Post by Gravityloss »

kayodelycaon wrote: post #70
Gravityloss wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Text is linear. Would drawing be an easier method for you to explain something? It often is for me.

Not really. But I’m glad you asked! Google “crazy conspiracy board meme” and you’ll have a good analogy for what’s happening. If I start writing it down, things randomly disappear from board. Which requires me to look at the gaps and fill in the blanks. You can imagine what this looks like from the outside. My dad has interrupted me so many times with “get to the point” and the only response I have is “working on it.…

Yeah, for mind map style note taking I use hierarchical bullet lists. It's the same topology (if there are no cycles) without having to worry about layouts, and you can have both hands on the keyboard. I go up and down a lot and move blocks around.

Re: Developers spend most of their time figuring the system out

#120

Post by catmanjan »

giantg2 wrote: post #102

In my experience, the biggest obstacle in understanding the system is that the underlying business process is not properly documented. A technical system is only as good as the business system it's implementing. Knowing the business process makes it much easier to understand the technical implementation, especially if you're trying to find bugs in the technical system since you can more easily see the mismatch betwee…

Yes, and given its not documented there are bugs in the underling business process which end up getting encoded into the software...
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