Live data from Hacker News

Professional Corner-Cutting (2016)

blog.ometer.com

91–100 of 142 posts

Re: Professional Corner-Cutting (2016)

#91
Craftsmen work alone and are responsible for the entire product. Most software deve work in teams, sometimes large teams.

The entire Craftsman movement under Raskin, Morris etc. started up because of the move of craftsmen into factories, where they worked on parts of the whole and could therefore not be craftsmen anymore.

Re: Professional Corner-Cutting (2016)

#92
Articles in this spirit pisses me off so much, and they’re increasingly becoming trendy. I hate it because they promote the wrong ideas. Downscaling and re-scoping a project is NOT the same as corner cutting. You can almost always come up with an execution strategy for doing a good job while utilizing the available resources to perfectly fulfill the agreed upon requirements. The notion of what’s perfect is always relative. I’ve seen and experienced first hand, over and over, people dismiss basic risk management, due diligence and responsible planning and execution as “perfectionism”. Everyone likes durable, safe and robust products for themselves. Everyone appreciates delightful and frictionless experiences for themselves. But somehow, it’s only a minority that actually cares of pursuing such qualities for others. I’ll repeat what I’ve said in another comment: denouncing “perfectionism” has become shield and shelter for the lazy and mediocre, and poorly worded articles like these just serves to validate and excuse poor craftsmanship. So before trying to weaponize “perfectionism” towards those who actually care about results, people need first to identify their own shortcomings and biases.

Re: Professional Corner-Cutting (2016)

#93
post #18

Oftentimes managers will make demands that interfere with ownership of the code. Such as requiring something to be finished in half the time it would take to do it without technical debt. Over and over and over again. I have had a lot of clients like this. It's very common especially for lower budget projects. You can literally cut corners you don't really want to or just get replaced by someone who does. They will o…

Advise them of the issue. If they still want it, their funeral. Anytime I move away from this frame it's not worked out for me.

Exactly. If you choose the approach with no tech debt but takes twice as long, how are you going to hide that from your manager?

Re: Professional Corner-Cutting (2016)

#94
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A cabinetmaker creates the polished front and the unfinished rear. A software/hardware company needs everyone being part of the polished front at least in spirit. I liken it to people dressing for their job.

I haven't used an Apple product in some time, but to me it always felt like their software was the unfinished rear.

lol it's true but every single tech company does it. Most DIY PC "gaming" computer hardware companies do it with their motherboard firmware/software. Microsoft does it with practically everything because their customer isn't the end user, it's the business. Apple also does it in their firmware/low end software (sometimes making laughably goofy bugs/oversights where the edge case is "you did something apple doesn't do by default").

You see it an awful lot with internet routers lol.

Re: Professional Corner-Cutting (2016)

#95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's two very different things - a complete set of features done poorly vs. an incomplete set of features done well. In general it's best to err on the side of the latter, it's going to give the customer a better UX. What exactly was the original iPhone missing? The only thing in the OS I recall was copy/paste. The other things we'd take for granted today likely weren't conceived then, including the App Sto…

> The other things we'd take for granted today likely weren't conceived then, including the App Store. IIRC, one could get apps on other platforms like Blackberry, even over the web. Apple's anti-innovation was a closed-garden storefront.

Better yet, you could download apps and transfer them to your phone manually, or download them from a webpage even - straight onto the phone. It's really sad how something so easy and straightforward was eliminated in the name of "security" lol.

Re: Professional Corner-Cutting (2016)

#97
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not about the backs of cabinets. It is about telling your customers how big of a deal the backs of cabinets really are.

The back of Apple cabinets are are actually pretty good even in the Tim Cook era. [1]: https://www.cultofmac.com/320883/why-samsungs-design-sucks-i... [2]: https://ioshacker.com/iphone/image-compares-ugly-samsung-bea...

I don't understand why someone would even want the ports to all be on the center line.

Re: Professional Corner-Cutting (2016)

#98

> 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…

That's all well and good until you have to explain that the reason building something they think should take a week will take 6 months because you have to fix tech debt, or avoid adding new tech debt.

Re: Professional Corner-Cutting (2016)

#99
post #81
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm sure these managers exist, but there's plenty of places where they don't. My recent experience has been that the managers I work with, when asked, almost always say yes to extending technical work to do a better job and that it's inexperienced developers who either assume they can't have more time or don't know how to ask in an effective way; these are professional skills after all.

This doesn't mean that there's never a need to hurry, external deadlines exist, but these are the minority in a healthy organization.

Re: Professional Corner-Cutting (2016)

#100
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The back of Apple cabinets are are actually pretty good even in the Tim Cook era. [1]: https://www.cultofmac.com/320883/why-samsungs-design-sucks-i... [2]: https://ioshacker.com/iphone/image-compares-ugly-samsung-bea...

I don't understand why someone would even want the ports to all be on the center line.

It's aesthetically pleasing.
Post reply on HN