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The Grug Brained Developer

grugbrain.dev

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Re: The Grug Brained Developer

#181

Post by ryanmcbride »

l5ymep wrote: post #118
dack wrote: post #102

As funny as this post is to read, I don't want to see yet another developer say "complexity bad". I want to see a company deliver high-quality products with very few bugs at a fast cadence, and continue to make major changes long into the future without slowing down. _THEN_ I want developers from that company to share their opinions about how they do it. Do such companies/products even exist? Software is so bad these…

Complexity doesn't necessarily slow down feature development. In my experience it reduces the project longevity. At some point it will be too big and complex to rewrite all the while more glaring problems emerge and cannot be dealt with.

If I had a nickel for every time I was hired to rebuild an app from the ground up because it became too complex for anyone to work on, I'd be able to keep up with inflation.

Re: The Grug Brained Developer

#182

Post by eldavido »

zero_shift wrote: post #128
maest wrote: post #87

> sometimes probably best just not tell project manager and do it 80/20 way. easier forgive than permission, project managers mind like butterfly at times overworked and dealing with many grugs. In my experience, I have to fight to keep my devs from over engineering their solutions and just get something going. I'd love to work with a dev who's happy to think about how to most quickly deliver value and who's willing…

It's a question of incentives and accountability. PMs aren't usually accountable when their shortcuts come and bite the team further down the line. Developers feel the pain instead. PMs won't be honest with the business that they sold an undercooked product. Need to suddenly scale up that "pragmatically" designed database? I know in my heart that too many PMs will _never_ manage expectations with their superiors if t…

> _That_ is why developers are cautious. Do you _seriously_ think that you are the only person in your team who understands "commercials" or "cost benefit analyses"?

I realized this attitude is common to all tradespeople, not just developers, but also HVAC techs, roofers, electricians, pretty much anyone who's long-term accountable for supporting a large, complex system.

More of an observation than anything.

Re: The Grug Brained Developer

#183

Post by zero_shift »

throwaway892238 wrote: post #178
zero_shift wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's so bad, you're welcome to write your applications in vanilla JavaScript, with no shims, in flat files without modules calling 1998 era DOM APIs. There's a reason most people don't, however.

developer see javascript think "looks frozen yogurt came out wrong end, but can do job". end up building castle of wrong end frozen yogurt. some say better than no castle. grug say why building with no-no soft serve in first place. (grug know answer: more shiny rock)

Please stop the grugposting, it is impossible to read.

Re: The Grug Brained Developer

#185

Post by idsout »

zero_shift wrote: post #170
lukasb wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry that you've apparently only worked with bad PMs.

Unfortunately, you don't have to work with bad PMs very often, to occasionally experience a year or more of misery due to their ineptitude. Good PMs are a bit of a paradox. They are immensely impactful and bring value to every project they touch. Yet they are also far overqualified for what is often a thankless job. I also have come to the view that even good PMs will rarely allocate the work that is truly impactful.…

What are the downsides to "going rogue" too often? Where do politics come into play here?

Re: The Grug Brained Developer

#186

Post by deltarholamda »

dack wrote: post #102

As funny as this post is to read, I don't want to see yet another developer say "complexity bad". I want to see a company deliver high-quality products with very few bugs at a fast cadence, and continue to make major changes long into the future without slowing down. _THEN_ I want developers from that company to share their opinions about how they do it. Do such companies/products even exist? Software is so bad these…

I wonder if the key word in there is "company." Modern companies tend to be VC funded monstrosities that onboard a lot of programmers to do things to make VC firms find more seed capital.

This selects for complexity, not finished product.

We've seen a lot of one-man or small-team companies do some pretty amazing stuff, because usually they are solving a problem that they have. If you're high on VC cash (or are trying to get high on VC cash), the problems you are trying to solve is more marketing than technical.

Re: The Grug Brained Developer

#187

Post by skolskoly »

koonsolo wrote: post #120
recursive wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

npm, babel, webpack, module compatibility, et al

You are free to develop everything in vanilla JavaScript and run your coded scripts straight in the browser. Very non-complex. But the team that uses npm, babel, webpack etc will crush you both on development speed and stability.

and this is why I have to use nitter or invidious to avoid the wrath of the complexity demon

Re: The Grug Brained Developer

#188

Post by lwansbrough »

> also danger abstraction too high, and big brain code become astral projection of platonic generic turing model of computation into code base. grug confused and agree some level very elegant but also very hard do anything like record number of club inventory for Grug Inc. task at hand

My favourite part.

Re: The Grug Brained Developer

#189

Post by zero_shift »

galaxyLogic wrote: post #144

Nice article but a bit tedious to read improper English. It is fun for paragraph or two but wears out rather quickly. If you got something important to say why not just say it as clearly as possible?

grugspeak imply that message self-evident and that complexity is not really in world but invented by badspeakpeople

but world is complex, and babytalk is denial

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