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The worst programmer I know

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Re: The worst programmer I know

#71

Post by tempodox »

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…

The saddest thing is that some bosses want throwaway code. I had a short stint once in a company where the owner wanted the web service rewritten from scratch every 6 months so they could use the newest web framework and follow the current fashion. He would hire a 5000 LoC per week hero on the spot.

Re: The worst programmer I know

#72

Post by convolvatron »

yabbs wrote: post #60
ww520 wrote: post #34

Stories like this happened is because managers want to treat software development as a manufacturing process.

Stories like this happened is because managers

ok. most managers suck. but ultimately you have to have at least one adult in the room.

Re: The worst programmer I know

#73

Post by pc86 »

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'm honestly not familiar with this "I had no choice but to approve" mindset. In the greenfield projects I've worked on there was always at least one person, sometimes several, who had the authority to just say "no, this is far too complex, scratch it all and we'll meet tomorrow to discuss next steps." Sometimes it ended up with breaking the PR into several more manageable pieces, sometimes it ended up with a wholesale rewrite / refactor of that component.

Re: The worst programmer I know

#74

Post by owenmarshall »

_gabe_ wrote: post #62

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.

Annoyed? I’d love it: it would be an incredible door opener anywhere you went.

Re: The worst programmer I know

#75

Post by _boffin_ »

chasing wrote: post #70

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…

Maybe Tim could have also added his name to the tickets as he was pairing and helping the others complete them...

Re: The worst programmer I know

#76

Post by 3np »

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…

On an individual level: So what? I stopped giving a f. I'd rather do what I believe is right than earn another $100k a year at a certain point. If it gets to the point of being laid off, hey, maybe it's the nudge you needed to find a better place anyway. Meanwhile, you could play the game all you want and still have your entire business unit shuffled away next year.

I'm not going to drive off a cliff just because the OKR tells me there's actually a road there but I wonder about some people...

Re: The worst programmer I know

#77

Post by jongjong »

dharmab wrote: post #68
jongjong wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I can relate though I wish I could get into a position that I could say such things and not get fired. In some circles "This change is hard to me to read and understand" would be interpreted as "I'm an aging dinosaur who doesn't understand this new tech; you youngsters are too clever for me." (though I realize how completely wrong it is).

I'm 33 but I feel like I already have to make an effort to avoid the dinosaur label. I disagree with a lot of modern tech trends but I simply cannot express my view about them even though I could explain the problems very clearly and logically and can provide far better and simpler alternatives. Unfortunately, hype does not yield to reasoning... And sometimes, you're too far into the tech debt and it doesn't make financial sense to rewrite.

Re: The worst programmer I know

#78

Post by nine_zeros »

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…

> It sucks being that person today because everything is about optics and that person will get purged. I know from experience.

This is my company. Engineer skills, tech-debt, teamwork, camaraderie don't matter. Do as the management says, in the time they've promised to others or else....

Re: The worst programmer I know

#79

Post by nevertoolate »

Fluorescence wrote: post #54
kstrauser wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd expect exceptional programmers to do unusually well on most metrics. ...when they're actually hands-on-keyboard writing software. The best programmers I know write as little code as possible. Product team: Hmm, we need to do a thing that looks very complex and difficult. Senior dev: I'll start making a project plan and story breakdown. Very senior dev: That sounds like a special case of a thing we already have.…

> Very senior dev: ... that should take about an hour. Red flag!

Why do you say red flag? It is an exaggeration, of course, nothing is purely 1 hour. Rather it is 1 hour work in flow state, which is about 2 pomodoros, which is about 6 bulletpoints, which is about 1/4 of a day’s programming effort. Just about right for a 1 point card by a senior who only sit down to code when they kinda exactly know what to write

Re: The worst programmer I know

#80

Post by throwaway92837 »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #43
peter_retief wrote: post #26

I often wondered why s/w development is always a rush at the expense of quality. Well I do know why just don't agree with the principle of seeing how much the company can get out of a developer in x hours.

Having been in the industry since the around 1990, I can tell you that in the first half of my career we had no code reviews, no scrum, no story points, no unit tests. How on earth, you might wonder, did we ship software that worked? I then saw all these things come down the pike one after another during the last half of my career. Clearly to me every one of these benefit management who found themselves apparently un…

I would be interested to know your career history in more depth.

To my understanding even IBM in the 70s had stupid ways of measuring productivity (KLOCs?).

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