Some users are not using a system because they like it but because their company bought it. In those situations biz > user by definition and the developers end up having to cater to the needs of the middle managment of their customers rather than the needs of the actual users. The price of not doing this is failing to win the contract. Users then get locked in to whatever crap you have time to provide for them while…
Code is run more than read
311–320 of 325 posts
Re: Code is run more than read
#312The full inequality seems to be:
biz > user > ops > maintainer > author
That feels roughly right.Re: Code is run more than read
#313If you work for organizations where most of the software built is never used, you have two options: influence your organization to greatly improve their efficiency, or look for a better place to work.
Re: Code is run more than read
#314Businesses don’t really exist, they are an imaginary construct that we’ve come up with to help organize resources, ultimately in the interests of working together. Business isn’t more important than anything. There are multiple users, sometimes with competing interests; you can’t be everywhere and everything, so you have to prioritize. Going after more profitable users or users that align with some long-term strategy…
Businesses don’t really exist? That's like saying feelings don't exist: they're just constructs that we come up with to explain our reactions to situations. I suppose that's true to a degree, but something doesn't need to be made of atoms to be "real". Businesses exist in as much as they are the primary determinant of most people's lives. They shape our cities, our media, laws, politics, foreign policy and have a hug…
By this standard, ancient religious figures (now mostly regarded as mythological) exist. Thor, or Zeus (if anyone is a pagan here, I don’t mean any disrespect to your beliefs, but let’s think about whichever one you don’t believe in).
> Real or not, it has _real_ impacts all around us.
Sure. But people were much more devoted to these figures than any business! Religious wars were fought, people lived and died for these gods. But some of these figures still were imaginary. Being imaginary doesn’t mean they aren’t important. But it means they don’t have interests. In reality, these organizations (religions, businesses) have members, users, and leaders/owners, and the business is an abstract representation of those people.
That’s why it doesn’t make sense to ask whether “the business,” which exists entirely as an abstraction for some of their interests, ought to be prioritized above or below them.
Re: Code is run more than read
#315Businesses don’t really exist, they are an imaginary construct that we’ve come up with to help organize resources, ultimately in the interests of working together. Business isn’t more important than anything. There are multiple users, sometimes with competing interests; you can’t be everywhere and everything, so you have to prioritize. Going after more profitable users or users that align with some long-term strategy…
This is simply not true. Business exist as legal constructs and there are many things that are good for the business but bad for almost everyone else. Business also do not exist to serve users, whatever definition of user you might have. Business, unfortunately, exist to serve their owners. In most cases (I'm talking primarily about larger companies, not Employees won't leave, because the company will make sure they'…
> This is simply not true. Business exist as legal constructs and there are many things that are good for the business but bad for almost everyone else.
It “exists” as an imaginary construct. The imagining of it exists.
Imaginary constructs have been hugely influential through history. Just think of the mythical figures in whatever religion you don’t believe in. People live and die for these figures. But the figures themselves don’t have any interests because only the belief in them exists, not the actual figures.
> Business, unfortunately, exist to serve their owners. In most cases (I'm talking primarily about larger companies, not I sort of disagree here. From the worker’s point of view, the business exists to sign their paychecks. Why is this not just as valid as the owners’ point of view?
Realistically, lots of work-politics are driven by the interest of individuals to keep those paychecks coming in. For example, people will make it look like they are working harder than they actually are. Managers will inflate their headcount to appear more important. Etc etc. All of these things happen inside businesses, and if you look at the man-hours spent on them, I don’t think it is obvious that the interest of the owners is a bigger focus of energy. Particularly if we treat “the interest of the owners” as some distinct thing, separate from customer happiness or writing artful code. I think people don’t actually “think of the shareholders” much while doing their jobs, day-to-day. How else can we think of the priorities of a non-sentient thing, other than the aggregate priorities of its sentient, priority-having members?
> Employees won't leave, because the company will make sure they're happy enough. […]
> This is not a sign of any kind of decline, but of a mature and healthy business that can keep going for decades.
For these two points, in retrospect I was terribly vague to the point of just being either wrong or so open to misinterpretation as to be indistinguishable from wrong, so sorry for that. By “good people,” I meant people who were not interested in doing the things you listed. For “zombie state,” I meant shambling on profitably, but not doing anything interesting anymore. See IBM for most of our lives. I accept blame for this one! In particular, I regret writing “good people” because of course “good” is wildly open to interpretation.
> Execs change, products change, even owners change, but the business remains.
I mean, this is sort of a “business of Theseus.” It is really a matter of perspective if, having replaced every component, it is really the same business. Except, in this case, there isn’t even a physical ship in the end to point at.
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Also, it might be worth noting—the article is about what one ought to do, when weighing interests of different parties (user, dev, ops, “business”). If you disagree with me and think the business exists, maybe you agree that prioritizing it over users is not what we ought to do.
Re: Code is run more than read
#316Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Most software engineers are lazy and lack a true sense of craft, so they usually skip building a great UX when it’s not a requirement. From my observations, it's usually not that devs are lazy or lack a sense of craft, it's that their employers are not willing to spend money building something that isn't actually a requirement.
That doesn’t explain why the functionality that is there is usually buggy and lackluster.
"good, fast, cheap: pick two"
Re: Code is run more than read
#317Earlier quoted context omitted.
\1 is a good question that deserves an answer. \2 is "not always" .. Consider SumOf 1 + 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8 + 1/16 + 1/32 ... an infinite sequence of continuously decreasing numbers, the more you add the smaller the quantity added becomes. It appears to approach but never reach some finite limit. Unless, of course, by "Number" you mean "whole integer" | counting number, etc. It's important to nail down those definitions.
> \1 is a good question that deserves an answer. The same argument I mentioned above, that subtracting 0.99999... from 1 will give you a number that is equal to zero, will also tell you that binary ...11111 or decimal ...999999 is equal to negative one. If you add one to the value, you will get a number that is equal to zero. You might object that there is an infinite carry bit, but in that case you should also objec…
And decimal "...999999" is an infinity, which should immediately set off red flags and tell you that you need to be extra careful when analyzing it.
In computers your series of 1s is not infinite, there's a modulus that steps in. And this analysis depends on the modulus being an exact power of the base. But you could make a system that's decimal but has a modulus of 999853, for example, and then "-1" would be 999852.
Re: Code is run more than read
#318> And while we can’t just go back to ignoring the economic realities of our discipline, perhaps we should take a stronger ethical stand not to harm users. Acknowledging that the user may not always come before the business, but that the business shouldn’t unconditionally come first, either. This is why software engineering needs licensure. Not to check if people understand design patterns, or whether people know the…
Re: Code is run more than read
#319> And while we can’t just go back to ignoring the economic realities of our discipline, perhaps we should take a stronger ethical stand not to harm users. Acknowledging that the user may not always come before the business, but that the business shouldn’t unconditionally come first, either. This is why software engineering needs licensure. Not to check if people understand design patterns, or whether people know the…
That’s really interesting. Barbers need a license (in Australia), lawyers need one, and yet people writing potentially crucial software do not.
Licensing/registration of hairdressers, beauty therapists and barbers is currently not required, legally binding or a symbol of any kind of standard in our industry.
In previous times, there was a hairdresser’s trade license which was abandoned, without consultation with the industry.
Re-establishing such a license would need to be done in conjunction with governments and education partners like TAFE’s and Private Colleges to ensure that the necessary awareness and legal processes are followed.
Simply announcing that you are creating a license/registration for employees, and charging on the spot, simply won’t cut it.
Hair & Beauty Australia Industry (2017): HAIRDRESSER LICENSE NOT NECESSARY AND NOT LEGALhttps://www.askhaba.com.au/hairdresser-license-not-necessary...
Re: Code is run more than read
#320Earlier quoted context omitted.
> \1 is a good question that deserves an answer. The same argument I mentioned above, that subtracting 0.99999... from 1 will give you a number that is equal to zero, will also tell you that binary ...11111 or decimal ...999999 is equal to negative one. If you add one to the value, you will get a number that is equal to zero. You might object that there is an infinite carry bit, but in that case you should also objec…
But if you look at limits you get "0" and "diverges". And decimal "...999999" is an infinity, which should immediately set off red flags and tell you that you need to be extra careful when analyzing it. In computers your series of 1s is not infinite, there's a modulus that steps in. And this analysis depends on the modulus being an exact power of the base. But you could make a system that's decimal but has a modulus…
That isn't quite correct. The series of 1s really is conceptually infinite. That's why we have sign extension. The analysis (of the sum of all natural powers of 2) will work for any modulus that is an integral power of 2, including a modulus where the integer to which 2 is raised is infinitely large. Such an infinite modulus will still be evenly divided by a finite power of 2 -- as well as by itself -- and so it will disappear whenever you're working in any finite modulus that is a power of 2 -- or when you are working modulo 2^ℕ. The modulus of 2^ℕ will prevent any distinct finite integers from falling into the same equivalence class.
This is what enables you to have an infinite series of leading 1s, or leading patterns, without problems.