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The worst programmer I know

dannorth.net

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Re: The worst programmer I know

#61

Post by 38 »

> He would not crowd them or railroad them, but let them take the time to learn whilst carefully crafting moments of insight and learning, often as Socratic questions, what ifs, how elses.

I do not like people who do this. just tell me the answer. this is such a gigantic waste of everyone's time. you figured something out months/years ago, great for you. give it to me NOW, so I can get on with my day. if we BOTH run into something unknown, we can tackle it together. but dont force me to go through the same painful learning process you went through. YOU suffered, because at the time no one knew how to do whatever it was. now that someone knows (you), your job should be to spread that knowledge across the business as quickly as possible, not hoard it to yourself until someone is deemed "worthy" of knowing it.

Re: The worst programmer I know

#62

Post by _gabe_ »

Now when you Google “Tim Mackinnon programmer”, the 5th or 6th result for me is a link titled “The Worst Programmer” and the little descriptive blurb below that says “His name is Tim Mackinnon…”. I know the author was click baiting and flipping the story on its head, but I would be a bit annoyed if Googling my name + programmer surfaced something like that.

Re: The worst programmer I know

#63

Post by datavirtue »

jongjong wrote: post #18

It sucks being that person today because everything is about optics and that person will get purged. I know from experience. Team players, mentors, software architects; they tend to be tossed aside to make room for coders who can churn out large amounts of code, even as the company's capacity to deliver and maintain features declines over time due to tech debt. Managers always love a developer who can consistently wr…

Yeah, you have to do it all. Churn out stories AND mentor AND knock down "desk-side" work (random infra bullshit). I have been at big companies where no one lasts very long. Thier mental health suffers to a point where they have to leave so that they can go work at some other sweatshop for a while. The lull between giving their notice and the honeymoon at the new company is their only break.

Re: The worst programmer I know

#64

Post by jongjong »

dharmab wrote: post #36
jongjong wrote: post #18

It sucks being that person today because everything is about optics and that person will get purged. I know from experience. Team players, mentors, software architects; they tend to be tossed aside to make room for coders who can churn out large amounts of code, even as the company's capacity to deliver and maintain features declines over time due to tech debt. Managers always love a developer who can consistently wr…

I've written several 100ks LOC/year at points in my career- but exclusively when working on new projects. When maintaining projects I might go a week at a time without writing any code solo, or I might spend a week trying to _reduce_ LOC.

My problem in my last role when I read large Pull Requests is that they tended to be way more complicated than they should have been but because they worked and I couldn't single out a small number of specific problems, I had no choice but to approve. Still, I knew it would slow us down in the medium and long term but this bloat is completely invisible to management.

It has become taboo to say things like "This code is too tightly coupled", "You don't need to add an external dependency for that", "The inputs to those methods are too complicated; your components are micromanaging each others' state", "You're violating separation of concerns", "The cyclomatic complexity of this code is too high; you could simplify all your if-else statements"... When it's not my company, it's impossible to dismiss code when it works right now, even though it is likely to break later.

Re: The worst programmer I know

#65

Post by omoikane »

pydry wrote: post #2

I sometimes wonder if developers should do an end run around all this bullshit and come up with and start measuring management productivity metrics. I dont see a downside to doing this.

Management also have their own metrics, measured by even higher management further up the chain. Even if there is a manager or director that I really liked and would like to keep, they have to answer to the metrics of their VPs and SVPs above. It's metrics all the way up.

People at the top of the hierarchy probably do care about people at the bottom, but it's difficult to care about a large number of people as individuals, so they resort to metrics that probably models what's going on. Unfortunately, the metrics don't always work.

Instead of measuring and gaming numerical metrics, enforcing a particular culture might be a better way to go:

https://apenwarr.ca/log/20190926

Re: The worst programmer I know

#66

Post by mellavora »

closewith wrote: post #22
jongjong wrote: post #18

It sucks being that person today because everything is about optics and that person will get purged. I know from experience. Team players, mentors, software architects; they tend to be tossed aside to make room for coders who can churn out large amounts of code, even as the company's capacity to deliver and maintain features declines over time due to tech debt. Managers always love a developer who can consistently wr…

In a remote world, can that person exist?

Yes.

I assume you mean the thoughtful person whose probing questions unlock and unblock everyone else.

Lunchtime conversation is only one enabler of this.

I suspect the person is Hamming, as he makes reference to this in his book The Art of Doing Science and Engineering.

This aspect of what it takes to be a Hamming is curiosity about what other people are doing; you can track this by reading shipped emails or lurking in slack channels, then reaching out individually to the people/teams involved when you wonder about something.

Hamming was intentional about doing this at lunch. The magic isn't lunch, it is in intentionally seeking the information and then acting on it.

Re: The worst programmer I know

#67

Post by throwaway92837 »

jongjong wrote: post #64
dharmab wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've written several 100ks LOC/year at points in my career- but exclusively when working on new projects. When maintaining projects I might go a week at a time without writing any code solo, or I might spend a week trying to _reduce_ LOC.

My problem in my last role when I read large Pull Requests is that they tended to be way more complicated than they should have been but because they worked and I couldn't single out a small number of specific problems, I had no choice but to approve. Still, I knew it would slow us down in the medium and long term but this bloat is completely invisible to management. It has become taboo to say things like "This code…

Right. This is where you would think the AI assistance could play an important role:

Warning: it looks like you’re trying to pack too much crap into a single PR and your peers are unlikely to understand what they are accepting.

Re: The worst programmer I know

#68

Post by dharmab »

jongjong wrote: post #64
dharmab wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've written several 100ks LOC/year at points in my career- but exclusively when working on new projects. When maintaining projects I might go a week at a time without writing any code solo, or I might spend a week trying to _reduce_ LOC.

My problem in my last role when I read large Pull Requests is that they tended to be way more complicated than they should have been but because they worked and I couldn't single out a small number of specific problems, I had no choice but to approve. Still, I knew it would slow us down in the medium and long term but this bloat is completely invisible to management. It has become taboo to say things like "This code…

I sometimes use my job title as a higher level senior or lead to say vulnerable things like:

"This change is hard for me to read and understand"

or

"This is a large PR, and it may be difficult for me to schedule time to review it. Can it be split up into a series?"

I also configure linters and code quality tools to automatically flag some of the more egregious problems.

Re: The worst programmer I know

#69

Post by commonlisp94 »

rexpop wrote: post #28
commonlisp94 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

unions don't measure productivity. They group people based on credentials + experience, and treat everyone as interchangeable within those buckets.

That's one possible union architecture, sure, but you're missing the forest for the trees. A union offers job security to reduce the risk of "managing up."

> one possible union architecture

It's the one used by all the major ones: airlines, auto manufacturers, and teachers. What institution do you know of that has a greater emphasis on measuring performance?

Re: The worst programmer I know

#70

Post by chasing »

Alternate lesson: If your manager is telling you to complete tickets, don’t go months and months not doing that thing until you’re on the verge of being fired because — despite being a valuable member of the team — your manager is all confused.

Communication skills. Week 1 Tim could’ve brought up the issue of overall developer productivity with his manager and his manager would’ve at least been aware that Tim wasn’t just playing Minecraft all day.

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