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Professional Corner-Cutting (2016)

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Re: Professional Corner-Cutting (2016)

#81

Post by Aeolun »

jbmsf wrote: post #35
justin_oaks wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A cabinet maker has the option to say no because they're the one in charge of accepting the job AND implementing it. At least that's the way the article made it sound. Most of us are cogs in the machine and are given much less autonomy. So what is the "professional" to do if given a job and insufficient time to do it?

Our profession doesn't always work the way you describe. Some companies want cogs, some want professionals. I can't give you advice beyond that, there are too many different circumstances. But in most of the places I've worked, it's been developers, not managers, cutting corners. Sometimes these are good choices, informed by product context and trade-offs. Sometimes it's a perceived urgency that doesn't actually exis…

> But it's almost never a micromanaging boss asking for something specific.

They don’t ask people to cut corners specifically, they just create a culture where speed is paramount above all else. Where the only metric of success is tickets completed per day.

Re: Professional Corner-Cutting (2016)

#82

Post by Aeolun »

arnorhs wrote: post #68
maerF0x0 wrote: post #52

> A professional developer does thorough work when it matters, and cuts irrelevant corners that aren’t worth wasting time on. Extremely productive developers don’t have supernatural coding skills; their secret is to write only the code that matters. IMO the true mark of a professional, a truly talented, engineer is knowing which corners to round off before they cut you. Anyone can cut corners and leave the world full…

This is ambiguously stepping into "overly general / building for the future" territory. Perhaps that is not what you meant. There is a fine line where I do agree with you. Cases such as creating a relation table for categories, when you could have made a string array field instead. Or structuring a code in a way where you are not preparing for the future, but also not painting yourself into a corner. Examples such as…

It’s much easier in biz software, where what the customer wants is very likely the same as what everyone before them wanted, even if they haven’t come up with all the requirements yet.

Re: Professional Corner-Cutting (2016)

#83

Post by strken »

arnorhs wrote: post #68
maerF0x0 wrote: post #52

> A professional developer does thorough work when it matters, and cuts irrelevant corners that aren’t worth wasting time on. Extremely productive developers don’t have supernatural coding skills; their secret is to write only the code that matters. IMO the true mark of a professional, a truly talented, engineer is knowing which corners to round off before they cut you. Anyone can cut corners and leave the world full…

This is ambiguously stepping into "overly general / building for the future" territory. Perhaps that is not what you meant. There is a fine line where I do agree with you. Cases such as creating a relation table for categories, when you could have made a string array field instead. Or structuring a code in a way where you are not preparing for the future, but also not painting yourself into a corner. Examples such as…

The given examples of utf-8 support and reading headers from CSVs are things that (depending on stack etc.) can be nearly or actually free if you build that way from the start. I read the original post as saying something like "good engineers don't shoot themselves in the foot as much".

Re: Professional Corner-Cutting (2016)

#84

Post by plufz »

gofreddygo wrote: post #60
dkarl wrote: post #32

The hook of the article leaves unanswered the question of why Steve Jobs made a big deal out of the backs of cabinets. The answer is that Steve Jobs knew how to sell luxury items to people who identified themselves with the quality of their work, whether they were accomplished creative professionals or cube-dwelling (now coworking) "knowledge workers" or MBAs who take sommelier classes or aspiring writers grinding on…

Article is spot about its topic - tradeoffs. The professionalism is in picking the right corners to cut. Steve's marketing was IMO a whole load of bollocks, like all other marketing. it gets attention now when Apple is a trillion $$$ company, and superficial minds wanting a simple answer attribute it to the most visible thing - Apple's marketing. no one bought Apple products for Apple's marketing or advertising. Its…

> no one bought Apple products for Apple's marketing or advertising.

That statement would require quite a source. Of course a lot of people bought Apple products because of the ads, like for any company that is a serious advertiser.

Re: Professional Corner-Cutting (2016)

#85

Post by bee_rider »

YZF wrote: post #70
speed_spread wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its up to the engineers to factor in maintenance work as part of their estimates. Business people assume perfect software and react badly when confronted with the messiness of software development. Also, Facebook being a real business is questionable.

Meta's market cap is 1.2T, it has $60B cash, revenue 143B a quarter... Not a real business? I mean maybe the original team in FB should have made sure they didn't accumulate technical debt and FB having failed would be a better outcome for shareholders. Engineers need to give the business the options. Not unilaterally decide that they're not going to accumulate technical debt. That's my point. And trust me, business…

The IEEE code of ethics

https://www.ieee.org/about/corporate/governance/p7-8.html

Would seem to preclude working on a site, like Facebook

> 1. to hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public, to strive to comply with ethical design and sustainable development practices, to protect the privacy of others, and to disclose promptly factors that might endanger the public or the environment;

Given that sites like Facebook have been used to spread medical conspiracy theories (health of the public), the whole business model is privacy violations, and the site was used to enable the Rohingya massacre (safety/welfare of the public),

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/world/amnesty-report-finds-...

But I mean an ethical engineer wouldn’t get in the way of a place like Facebook because they wouldn’t work there in the first place.

Re: Professional Corner-Cutting (2016)

#86

Post by superice »

strken wrote: post #77
justin_oaks wrote: post #20

> If the technical debt is a problem, 1) we shouldn’t have put it in there, and 2) we should include it in our estimates and address it. Yes. Don't tell your boss that you'll need to take time to address technical debt. The boss will always say "No don't do that, just add the feature". Sometimes they add "We'll fix that later." Later never happens and eliminating related technical debt is part of implementing the fea…

The name "tech debt" has always been a bit of a misnomer. Financial debt does come with interest, but it's structured, proportionate, and you can just go pay it off with sufficient money. Tech debt is unpredictable, needs a lot of context to comprehend, needs even more to fix, is subject to the mythical man month, and taints everything else it touches in your product. It can be worth accepting such a structural flaw…

Tech debt is more like being in debt to violent mobsters, who will show up at your house unannounced at the most inconvenient of times, during which they will hit you with a wrench until you pay whatever is in your wallet right now. They will return soon enough, because whatever payment you just made on the spot is never quite enough to settle the debt.

Re: Professional Corner-Cutting (2016)

#87

Post by jodrellblank »

brandall10 wrote: post #16
doytch wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only would a professional carpenter use plywood, it may be a sounder choice because of its stability/weight ratio.

The point isn't about utility, it's about aesthetics - it's about how the product is finished. What you use in the back should be the same as elsewhere.

On the back of the Mona Lisa should be ... another Mona Lisa?

Re: Professional Corner-Cutting (2016)

#89

Post by pilgrim0 »

Vinnl wrote: post #47

One of my frustrations is how people often seem to drift towards one of the extremes on either side of this argument. Technically, the approach described in this article is called 'pragmatism', but in practice, people have used that term to describe the bad kind of corner cutting. And whenever you're arguing against someone drifting too far to one of the extremes, you'll often get lumped in with those on the other: t…

IME, even the word “perfectionism” is weaponized against us who actually mind risks, results and sustainability of work, beyond of just doing it for the sake of completion and compensation, like the other group. Why is it safe to “denounce” perfectionism in the workplace while the opposite, of calling out a shitty job, is seen as offensive and of bad taste? “Perfectionism” has become shield and shelter for the lazy and mediocre.

Re: Professional Corner-Cutting (2016)

#90

Post by mook »

YZF wrote: post #51
justin_oaks wrote: post #20

> If the technical debt is a problem, 1) we shouldn’t have put it in there, and 2) we should include it in our estimates and address it. Yes. Don't tell your boss that you'll need to take time to address technical debt. The boss will always say "No don't do that, just add the feature". Sometimes they add "We'll fix that later." Later never happens and eliminating related technical debt is part of implementing the fea…

This is not the right answer for a real business. Sometimes we'll fix that later is perfectly acceptable. If that was good enough for Facebook it can certainly be good enough for others.

And sometimes — quite a lot of the time, in fact — never fixing it is the way to go. It sucks, your users will keep complaining about it, and it'll nag you at the back of your mind forever. But if fixing things properly means somebody else ships first and you have no users and you get cancelled, that bug still wouldn't have been fixed.

But sometimes your product is so buggy nobody wants to use it. It's all trade-offs, just like… well, engineering.

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