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Quality is a hard sell in big tech

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Re: Quality is a hard sell in big tech

#61

Post by pooper »

makk wrote: post #42
threatripper wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it is this. Good engineers could solve those problems if they had the time to. I think it's more about the people who make decisions not caring enough about the product quality. And also that most quality issues do not show up in metrics. So solving those issues just isn't a priority at all and if it becomes a low priority then low priority workers get assigned to it. Good people learn to follow the mon…

In my experience, most engineers are bad at advocating for the resources needed to make the changes and most product managers are bad at prioritizing fixes without clear guidance from engineering. Catch-22.

My manager talks the talk about how every developer in the team should be able to do all tasks. Why are we waiting for the database administrator guy to do the SQL part instead of doing it ourselves and yet I have a feeling he is not even a developer at all. At least my skip clearly has some development experience and even some self awareness that what used to be "best practices" then are now known to be bad now but at least I feel like he understands the general process. This whole idea of anyone can work on any ticket but we won't give them any time to review everyone else's changes is what grinds my gears.

I should not have to "manage up". Management should just do its job.

Re: Quality is a hard sell in big tech

#63

Post by bee_rider »

colesantiago wrote: post #3

Great article, on a side note I wish we had a better word than ‘enshittification’. This ‘word’ has no etymological roots and cannot be taught to kids/teenagers or placed in the dictionary/thesaurus (most likely placed under the vulgar section if it has one) or cannot be said on tv or radio (some stations and channels have a policy that prohibits strong language being said over the airwaves) There has to be a better w…

I like it. It correctly and viscerally describes the feeling.

The other suggested phrase I see in this thread is “management decay,” but I don’t like it. Decay is a natural process. Here, the “en” at the front indicates an intentional, active process.

If you want something less crude, maybe we can count a phrase like “platform arson.” But I think people relate to the vulgarity.

Re: Quality is a hard sell in big tech

#65

Post by bee_rider »

satisfice wrote: post #6
colesantiago wrote: post #3

Great article, on a side note I wish we had a better word than ‘enshittification’. This ‘word’ has no etymological roots and cannot be taught to kids/teenagers or placed in the dictionary/thesaurus (most likely placed under the vulgar section if it has one) or cannot be said on tv or radio (some stations and channels have a policy that prohibits strong language being said over the airwaves) There has to be a better w…

The word “shit” is being “deshittified” which I think is… awful.

It is just a word for poop, everybody poops.

Re: Quality is a hard sell in big tech

#67

Post by mason55 »

safety1st wrote: post #44
lmeyerov wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article's stance is those are effects, not causes: As a product succeeds and establishes lockin, management may decide that devoting resources to improving the product's design has less relative ROI than devoting those resources to targeting new users who are not locked in. Those new users may be in an adjacent market that needs new features, which is typical when a product started in an intentionally narrow nich…

It's a weird article because he muses about what the causes might be, and quotes/links Corey Doctorow. If you follow the link Doctorow explains what he thinks the causes of enshittification are. Very broadly they boil down to monopoly/market power and governments either crafting the law to favor big tech or failing to enforce it when it doesn't. Doctorow is right and it basically all comes down to competition. Intern…

Yeah if you look at products that went from good to bad and started getting good again, it’s almost always due to competitors starting to have an impact.

People will disagree with me but Jira is getting a lot better lately and I’m convinced it’s due to competition that popped up because Jira sucked so much.

The challenge is going back to a mode of building a good product again. Not only do you have to notice that you’re losing and be willing to invest again, you have to kick out all the extractors and convince the craftspeople to come work on a product that they all think is a piece of shit.

Re: Quality is a hard sell in big tech

#68

Post by troupo »

asadotzler wrote: post #53
larsrc wrote: post #43

Disclaimer: working for Google, a Big Tech company. While enshittification is certainly real, stock value or company size can't explain it all. Do startups produce shining examples of high-quality code? Not from what I've heard. It's whatever hack gets it working. Google had put a lot of work into cleaning up the messes of the past, and from what I hear from Xooglers has one of the nicest code bases around. Quality c…

Start-ups don't have 100000+ employees to get everything right. Google does. The caliber of comments has deteriorated significantly on this site in the last decade. It's almost as if a new generation of money chasers invaded and displaced the actual hackers.

You ship your org chart. Worse than that, you also ship your org chart changes over time: https://youtu.be/5IUj1EZwpJY?si=AZUq9OIUHjOiT4fx

A company with 100k employees will ship crap just by default. And Google is a shining example of that.

Re: Quality is a hard sell in big tech

#69

Post by stavros »

tome wrote: post #51
colesantiago wrote: post #3

Great article, on a side note I wish we had a better word than ‘enshittification’. This ‘word’ has no etymological roots and cannot be taught to kids/teenagers or placed in the dictionary/thesaurus (most likely placed under the vulgar section if it has one) or cannot be said on tv or radio (some stations and channels have a policy that prohibits strong language being said over the airwaves) There has to be a better w…

"Enshoddification"? (From https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39489675 )

I don't care so much about the "shit" part, for me it's that it's just a very obviously "made up" word that sounds very awkward. I'm loath to even say it because of how cringe it sounds.

Re: Quality is a hard sell in big tech

#70

Post by stavros »

colesantiago wrote: post #21
krapp wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry... I tried to fight that battle when it first became popular and just got snarked on and voted down. Like it or not, the tech community has decided that Cory Doctorow's poop joke is a precise term of art to be taken seriously in technical discussion. People will even gatekeep it, if you use it in the wrong context. It's a very important and necessary word, apparently.

I’m glad i’m not the only one that sees this. Often I read an article and that ‘word’ pops up and the article loses credibility, because of this ‘technobabble’ which is worse with purposefully laced vulgarity. It’s always used in tech circles because it’s ‘funny’ now but we know we cannot say this in a serious discussion in public or context and expecting the other side to take what you’re saying seriously. You are r…

I'm kind of sad to see this reaction, because to me the vulgar part isn't what's objectionable about it, but I can't stand the awkward madeupness of the word. "Shittification" would have been bad enough, but the "en-" just makes it cringe.
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