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Many software companies are a joke

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Re: Many software companies are a joke

#161

Post by ratww »

ZephyrBlu wrote: post #133
_fizz_buzz_ wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what I am thinking. E.g. I am looking at lichess which has a massive user base and is developed by one full time developer and a few dozens volunteers. Twitter is obviously bigger, but I simply don't buy that you need more than 7000 people to run that site.

Maybe you don't need 7000, but software is even worse than icebergs (Only 30% visible). How many people at Twitter are there to fulfill functions we aren't even aware of? Compliance, privacy, legal, internal tooling, etc and god knows what else. My experience at a tech company with around the same number of employees is that it actually feels understaffed in some of the areas I've seen. It's surprising how much respo…

The whole reason it feels understaffed is because there's too many people.

I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but software doesn't really scale linearly. Unless they're 100% independent, the communication overhead will always be there. Fred Brooks and all that.

With 7000 developers working in a connected system, it probably feels slower and less things get done than if there were less people.

It's not simple to go back to having less people, however. The architecture is most certainly tied to the organizational structure (Conway's Law), and firing people will make it worse in the meantime.

Re: Many software companies are a joke

#162

Post by lupire »

genezeta wrote: post #71
bayesian_horse wrote: post #31

Finding out what needs doing - through meetings, documentation and so on - is very much a part of software development unless there is only one developer and he is also the only stake holder. This isn't even necessarily inefficient, because productively doing work that isn't needed isn't helping anyone either.

One place I worked at some years ago... We had this "important project" coming up, a certain big feature that was wanted in the platform. A project which would take about 6-9 months with the collaboration of various teams across the company. I was involved but only in a helping role. One member of my team was involved but they were fairly inexperienced and so I was asked to go in as support. After the first two meeti…

Yes, some product managers or whatever are terrible at there jobs, just as some programmers/engineers are.

Doesn't mean the job role is useless.

Re: Many software companies are a joke

#163

Post by sirwhinesalot »

blowski wrote: post #136
sirwhinesalot wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've figured out 20 years ago that writing code, showing the resulting program to customers and getting feedback was the most effective way to find out if you're actually solving customer problems. Some group of people wrote about it in something called the "Agile Manifesto" or some such.

How do you think an author of the Agile Manifesto would respond to the original article?

Considering how companies are implementing the "Half-Arsed Agile Manifesto" rather than the actual "Agile Manifesto", I think reading this article might be what pushes them to jump off a bridge. 20 years of companies failing to understand your 4 line text, and using it to justify things that are utterly antithetical to what it stood for, has got to hurt. It's so simple:

- Individuals and interactions over processes and tools

- Working software over comprehensive documentation

- Customer collaboration over contract negotiation

- Responding to change over following a plan

Sounds like an environment the author of the post would like, he even describes such an environment later on, one that he enjoys so much he overworks for no extra pay.

Then there's the twelve principles, one of which is:

"Working software is the primary measure of progress."

Another one is:

"The best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams."

Another is:

"Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done."

Following bullshit company processes and pointless meetings is the opposite of the above. The one that might be contentious is:

"Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project."

This sounds a lot like meetings, but that's the smallbrained take on it. Here's an easy alternative: Continuous Deployment in a staging area and a Slack/Teams channel for business people to comment on changes they feel are necessary. Not only does the request get recorded (often nothing gets documented in meetings) but the communication is asynchronous and doesn't require booking the entire team for hours. The discussion is also a lot more actionable because it is about something concrete.

Given the above, what do you think about how an author of the manifesto would respond?

Re: Many software companies are a joke

#164

Post by UK-AL »

blowski wrote: post #136
sirwhinesalot wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've figured out 20 years ago that writing code, showing the resulting program to customers and getting feedback was the most effective way to find out if you're actually solving customer problems. Some group of people wrote about it in something called the "Agile Manifesto" or some such.

How do you think an author of the Agile Manifesto would respond to the original article?

Pretty well since he at VFX company he seems to working closely as a team and with his customers.

Re: Many software companies are a joke

#165

Post by xpe »

batiudrami wrote: post #7

Astonishing to me that someone with 20 years' experience in any industry could have so little perspective. Obviously there are inefficiencies with big companies, but complaining about needing to do documentation, or basic project management? The writing is smug and shows no self awareness - it seems to me that the author cannot recognise that there may be other priorities than exactly what is in front of them and the…

^ wrote:

> but complaining about needing to do documentation

Here is what the blog post writes:

> You will be asked to write a 50-page documentation for some little code you wrote.

The parent post (^) misread and mischaracterized the blog post. It is notable that the ^ called the other author 'smug' and then proceeded to respond to the least charitable interpretation.

Re: Many software companies are a joke

#166

Post by UK-AL »

onion2k wrote: post #55
rxhernandez wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think that sw engineers at startups aren't largely writing code for most of their job?

I think sw engineers at startups very often write way too much code rather than spending time thinking about, and talking about, what to write. As the old saying goes, "you can save hours of planning by doing weeks of coding."

Most discussions at large corporations are bikeshedding. Huge issues are ignored, but some minor detail which can be changed easily later gets talked about for weeks. It's often because its a detail middle management can understand, but the huge issue isn't.

You then have to spend a significant amount of time trying to guide people to focus on the right things. And that is draining.

Re: Many software companies are a joke

#167

Post by lupire »

reallscoliosoi wrote: post #45

Every company I have worked at has been the same - very depressed people who have no enthusiasm for anything slowly dying as they sit there staring at the computer. It is in stark contrast to the physical labour jobs I have had, which have been very lively and happy places to work. I think the assumption that these people want to program for more than 2 hours per day is probably wrong, and you will just burn yourself…

People burn out on programming for two reasons:

1. For whatever external or internal reason, they fail at writing good software for a long time

2. The job takes a terrible physical toll (lack of exercise)

Neither of these are improved by larping at corporate business stuff around the office.

Maybe line cooks at slow restaurants have fun getting high and chatting while they cook, but many many jobs are physically painful, intensive and low-rest, and/or high stress and bad hours service work.

Re: Many software companies are a joke

#168

Post by xpe »

ethbr0 wrote: post #38
batiudrami wrote: post #7

Astonishing to me that someone with 20 years' experience in any industry could have so little perspective. Obviously there are inefficiencies with big companies, but complaining about needing to do documentation, or basic project management? The writing is smug and shows no self awareness - it seems to me that the author cannot recognise that there may be other priorities than exactly what is in front of them and the…

Author is every software engineer I hate to work with. One who thinks that code is the only truly important part of a project. It's not. "Delivering a product that solves end user needs and is as maintainable and reliable as possible" is the only truly important thing, and only some of that is code. Meetings generally aren't for developers. They're to keep everyone else involved with the project sync'd up. Do I and e…

> Author is every software engineer I hate to work with.

Wow. This looks like a quick and harsh over-generalization. This sounds like a pretty deep-seated lack of understanding.

Re: Many software companies are a joke

#169

Post by Jensson »

ethbr0 wrote: post #158
Jensson wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But developers are much better at describing what they need so there is much less need for meetings in those scenarios, instead they just send emails or open bug reports that gets resolved without the meetings.

Generally, I'd agree, but I've also worked with developers who are as egotistical, shortsighted, and/or stupid as the worst person with any other title. Being a logical, cooperative, well-communicating human being is not a requirement to be a developer.

> Being a logical, cooperative, well-communicating human being is not a requirement to be a developer.

If your company is fine with them being unable to communicate then your company obviously is fine with you not being able to communicate as well, so why try? And if your company hires people who are good at communicating then there is little need for meetings between developers except politics, and most developers shouldn't have to deal directly with company politics.

Re: Many software companies are a joke

#170

Post by Joel_Mckay »

mattmanser wrote: post #138
Joel_Mckay wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"maintainable and reliable" are overrated That is popular opinion among the unemployed, as hoisting that BS on your project lead has real world consequences after your code audit. =)

It was Facebook's philosophy and also Twitter used to go down a lot in the early days. So I'm not sure I'd agree with your statement. It depends on your company culture.

In general, a well planned API allowed Facebook to integrate a lot of 3rd party features to attract more users. Simply put, a messy standard is still a standard.
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