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The worst programmer I know

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Re: The worst programmer I know

#421

Post by krmboya »

tengwar2 wrote: post #238
marcosdumay wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sucked being that person back then too. The idea of measuring everything and acting on the numbers you can get is from the 19th century. Managers have been doing that same kind of practice since then, with the same kind of result (it's a very reliable result), without a change.

Acting on the numbers you get is not intrinsically a problem: it's what the action is. Looking at how fast stories, function points or whatever get closed is important for planning what you can get done in a given time, and that can be crucial for project management and managing customer expectations. It's not acquiring the information which is a problem; it's not using the metrics which is the problem. The problem i…

It may be useful to collect metrics to get insights, but if they are publicized as a measure of performance, it's likely they'll be gamed, making them less useful.

Re: The worst programmer I know

#422

Post by fragmede »

ChrisLTD wrote: post #420
voytec wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> supposedly a tool to manage agile teams, is how every ticket has one person assigned to it. It's whoever owns the issue. You can make it an epic and assign particular sub-tasks to team members if it's a teamwork.

Not sure how that solves the pair programming issue. What you’d need is a way to split the points for a single task among 2+ people without the overhead of duplicating the ticket.

It's, what, two clicks to duplicate a ticket, and another to assign one to other person? Sure a "this person paired" button would be easier, but sometimes you just gotta do jira chores.

Re: The worst programmer I know

#423

Post by 3np »

onion2k wrote: post #377
whstl wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tech Lead is a very difficult role. :/ If you are immature or competitive, you cease being a force multiplier to be a morale destroyer. If you are more of a domain expert than your Product Managers, you will spend your time fighting and refining tasks to build features the right way. If you don't have enough time to code, you'll go obsolete.

I'm the frontend lead in a company of about 200 people (mostly devs) these days, and the idea of being a force multiplier is spot on. I'm not there to be the best dev or the most knowledgable; I'm there to lead the conversation and amplify people who are saying good things. Having a pretty deep understanding of the tech is useful so I can tell what those good things are. I am absolutely not in the company to show off…

Domain expert, not tech expert

Re: The worst programmer I know

#424

Post by ChrisLTD »

fragmede wrote: post #422
ChrisLTD wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure how that solves the pair programming issue. What you’d need is a way to split the points for a single task among 2+ people without the overhead of duplicating the ticket.

It's, what, two clicks to duplicate a ticket, and another to assign one to other person? Sure a "this person paired" button would be easier, but sometimes you just gotta do jira chores.

Then the status has to be tracked in two places. It’s certainly not impossible, but as a programmer I’m allergic to unnecessary busywork.

Re: The worst programmer I know

#425

Post by ckarmann »

_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.

Interesting way to prevent your awesome colleague from being poached by competitors.

Re: The worst programmer I know

#426

Post by thelastgallon »

I've never seen these kind of people (Tim). Almost always, it is someone who knows absolutely nothing, meanders from desk to desk, wasting productive people's time, picking their brains. They are usually never given any work, because someone else has to undo the damage and do the work!

Then then socialize with managers outside of the team, bragging about how much 'value' they're adding and they can talk as if they helped others. They move around a lot, getting promoted each, adding no value other than just talk with no clue on how to do things.

Re: The worst programmer I know

#427

Post by bratbag »

wonderwonder wrote: post #104

I worked at a company for a couple years where you had to produce 10 points a week or you got pipped. Didn't matter if you were a jr or sr. I worked on a few teams there and you could immediately tell how the teams measured points by the stress level of the developers. Teams that attempted to measure the points in good faith were stessed and most of them showed signs of burn out. They regularly worked 60 hours a week…

Points are a relative value.

If its 10 points a week then you estimate based on the assumption that 2 pts is a days worth of work.

That, coincidentaly, is what ours roughly shakes out to be.

Sounds like the stressed teams were lacking in common sense.

Re: The worst programmer I know

#428

Post by lolinder »

BirdieNZ wrote: post #418
raincom wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In almost all companies, even seeking help is frowned upon. One ex-Microsoft manager, now a senior Manager at Atlassian, called that 'hand holding'. Some actively don't want to help out others, due to PIP/bonus culture. At Amazon, some team members explicitly give bad advice when asked for help. That's why we have this culture of "lone rockstars", who spend a lot of time to learn without being mentored.

> One ex-Microsoft manager, now a senior Manager at Atlassian, called that 'hand holding'. Which senior manager is this, out of interest?

Name-and-shame culture on the internet is toxic and ruins innocent people's lives. When someone conscientiously keeps a person anonymous while describing one or more of their flaws, there's no need to ask them to name the guilty. There's enough unnecessary permanent reputational damage going around on the internet already.

Re: The worst programmer I know

#429

Post by Nifty3929 »

redbell wrote: post #381
paulcole wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was Tommy upset?

Absolutely! But after a while he knew why there was no kind of reward whether in the form of a financial compensation, a promotion or even additional days of vacation. Simply because the law of work does not have a section for exceptional performance/achievement.

"fully-owned and operated by the government" - This is the most important reason. For better or worse, gov't jobs are basically not allowed to meaningfully reward exceptional performance. There's just no mechanism for it.

Not to say things like this don't happen in private industry too - it certainly does. But at least you've got a chance. In most companies there is room to meaningfully bonus or promote or otherwise reward exceptional performance. You may or may not get something, but at least you can ask or push for it, and if they want to do it they can.

Re: The worst programmer I know

#430

Post by no_wizard »

Stratoscope wrote: post #304

Some 20 years ago, I worked at a moderately large software company that sold a desktop application for Mac and Windows. The team had mostly Mac experience and they were just getting their feet wet with Windows. So naturally the Windows version had some problems. At the time, I was known as a "Windows expert", so they hired me to help improve that version and help the team get more familiar with Windows programming. I…

Much can be done with self advocacy

I was hired at a company to help scale their development because their app was growing fast but they needed a leap forward in architecture and approach or they couldn’t keep up with growth.

I documented everything I did from day 1, from what I was doing as well as why.

When it came review time, everything ended up reflecting really well, for I may have closed less tickets than my peers, my peers where closing more tickets than ever, and there was a direct line from my work with them to that productivity increase.

Once upper management wrapped their heads around this they completely understood why I was effective at helping shift features: the A -> B wasn’t possible without me spending lots of time with others and helping with their projects, and we would have needed more headcount to achieve what we did by having me work with the org the way I was vs trying to juggle feature work with it

It’s all about the metrics at the end of the day, in some ways. If you can demonstrate your impact across the board it’s hard to dismiss

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