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On Craft

drcathicks.com

31–34 of 34 posts

Re: On Craft

#31
While this is a touching story, the moral lesson from her grandpa fixing the restaurant table deserves some introspection.

I have been in engineering situations where it is tempting to fix the loose table leg. The problem is that unless I go in every month and fix it I might be making things worse. What we need instead is a process that solves the problem permanently.

Moreover, it is likely the sitaution is much worse than it appears on the surface. The loose leg is a symptom of deeper malaise. It is likely the kitchen is dirty as well. The leg might be the canary in the mine. In fact the whole organization might be rotten to the core.

The real solution is to buy out the restaurant, fire the management, institute better processes, and then to create a culture that values the longer-term view.

The other approach is to do nothing. Leave the table wobbly to signal to other patrons to take their business elsewhere. The restaurant is on its last legs as a viable enterprise. Best to let economic forces shut it down quickly and without ceremony. Then it can be replaced by something with more solid foundations and firmer legs.

Re: On Craft

#32

While this is a touching story, the moral lesson from her grandpa fixing the restaurant table deserves some introspection. I have been in engineering situations where it is tempting to fix the loose table leg. The problem is that unless I go in every month and fix it I might be making things worse. What we need instead is a process that solves the problem permanently. Moreover, it is likely the sitaution is much wors…

Did the part about not weaponizing craft just, like, not render in your browser, or something?

Re: On Craft

#33
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> routinely treated with scorn for my approach Seriously? I feel for you. In my experience many companies do recognize tech debt now, and the value in fixing it or implementing it the right way, although that was not so much the case in early 2000s. That said, many times we do still have to argue for time to refactor vs adding new features. I think that the best software craftsman is the one that can quickly add feat…

Yeah, I'm not a subscriber to the "YOLO/MVP" school of software development, which basically makes me persona non grata in many tech crowds. When I write software, I use what I call "Constant Beta." Basically, my software is at a release level of Quality, from the very start. It may be incomplete (thus, unshippable), but what's there, is ready for its closeup (Mr. DeMille). Basically, before moving to the next featur…

This sort of approach seems common in the Rust community, it's so much more professional/humane/sustainable/performant than any other corner of the industry that I've come across.

Re: On Craft

#34

Great article! > I have read a lot of long spiels about craft that frequently end in something like, software work isn’t like other work, and we shouldn’t be judged the same way. We are entirely unique. We are the special ones. It might comfort the author to know that even within the realm of software engineering, there are insiders and outsiders. Some of the most important engineering work was made by these outsider…

As a self-taught programmer and resident of a town well under 20k pop (most of whom are well out of my age group), i really identify with this. it's helped a bit to learn deeply and engage with others who have done so, and in some ways is an extension of a broader void in my network (or lack there-of). it't influenced the tochnologies i've chosen and hence made me who i am today, but i hope the "zoom-native" generati…

There are dozens of us!!

Where do you typically hang online? Maybe we should think about how we could contribute specifically to young rural programmers in similar situations.

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