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Be Aware of the Makefile Effect

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Re: Be Aware of the Makefile Effect

#121

Post by tempodox »

ratmeadow wrote: post #7

At my work I've noticed another contributing factor: tools/systems that devs need to interact with at some point, but otherwise provide little perceived value to learn day-to-day. Example is build system and CI configuration. We absolutely need these but devs don't think they should be expected to deal with them day to day. CI is perceived as a system that should be "set and forget", like yeah we need it but really I…

If you think `make` is “too complex and black-box-like” then you haven't seen `cmake`.

Re: Be Aware of the Makefile Effect

#122

Post by tempodox »

nicoburns wrote: post #20
ratmeadow wrote: post #7

At my work I've noticed another contributing factor: tools/systems that devs need to interact with at some point, but otherwise provide little perceived value to learn day-to-day. Example is build system and CI configuration. We absolutely need these but devs don't think they should be expected to deal with them day to day. CI is perceived as a system that should be "set and forget", like yeah we need it but really I…

For me the big problems with CI setups tend to be: - They're often slow - They're often proprietary - They're often dealing with secrets which limits who can work on them - You generally can't run them locally So the feedback cycle for working on them is incredibly long. And working on them is therefore a massive pain.

> You generally can't run them locally

GitLab CI gives you local runners. You can completely self-host CI.

Re: Be Aware of the Makefile Effect

#123

Post by ori_b »

pdimitar wrote: post #115
kragen wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe switch to less frequently updated dependencies and rewrite the easy ones in-house?

Yes, and I should overrule half the business decisions of the company while I am at it. Oh, and I'll push back on "we need the next feature next week" and I'll calmly respond "we need to do excellent engineering practices in this company". And everybody will clap and will listen to me, and I will get promoted. ...Get real, dude. Your comments come across a bit tone-deaf. I am glad you are in a privileged position but…

Yes, sometimes things are unfixably broken, and it's impossible to build anything good.

For everything else, there's MasterCard.

Re: Be Aware of the Makefile Effect

#125

Post by ajross »

huijzer wrote: post #64
mianos wrote: post #29

I have an alternate theory: about 10% of developers can actually start something from scratch because they truly understand how things work (not that they always do it, but they could if needed). Another 40% can get the daily job done by copying and pasting code from local sources, Stack Overflow, GitHub, or an LLM—while kinda knowing what’s going on. That leaves 50% who don’t really know much beyond a few LeetCode p…

> That leaves 50% who don’t really know much beyond a few LeetCode puzzles and have no real grasp of what they’re copying and pasting. Small nuance: I think people often don’t know because they don’t have the time to figure it out. There are only so many battles you can fight during a day. For example if I’m a C++ programmer working on a ticket, how many layers of the stack should I know? For example, should I know h…

> I completely encourage anyone to learn as much about the tools and stack as possible, but there is only so much time.

That seems like a weird way to think about this. I mean, sure, there's no time today to learn make to complete your C++ ticket or whatever. But yesterday? Last month? Last job?

Basically, I think this matches the upthread contention perfectly. If you're a working C++ programmer who's failed to learn the Normal Stable of Related Tools (make, bash, python, yada yada) across a ~decade of education and experience, you probably never will. You're in that 50% of developers who can't start stuff from scratch. It's not a problem of time, but of curiosity.

Re: Be Aware of the Makefile Effect

#126

Post by teeray »

I see this often on our codebase. It was mostly written by ex-C# developers who were new to writing Go, and there’s many ham-handed C#-isms in there. At some point, someone took a guess at how something should be, then subsequent changes were done by copy-paste. Years down the road, another copy-paste job happens, and when I point out that the patterns within are not good (like, can actually be buggy), I get a confused response, because that is what was there.

There is an implicit assumption that the code written espouses best-practices, but that is far from the truth.

Re: Be Aware of the Makefile Effect

#127

Post by Scubabear68 »

The best term for this is Cargo Cult Development. Cargo Cults arose in the Pacific during World War II, where native islanders would see miraculous planes bringing food, alcohol and goods to the islands and then vanishing into the blue. The islanders copied what they saw the soldiers doing, praying that their bamboo planes and coconut gadgets would impress the gods and restart the flow of cargo to the area.

The issue of course is the islanders did not understand the science behind planes, Wallis talkies, guns, etc.

Likewise, cargo cult devs see what is possible, but do not understand first principles, so they mimic what they see their high priests of technology doing, hoping they can copy their success.

Hence the practice of copying, pasting, trying, fiddling, googling, tugging, pulling and tweaking hoping that this time it will be just right enough to kind of work. Badly, and only with certain data on a Tuesday evening.

Re: Be Aware of the Makefile Effect

#129

Post by Joker_vD »

ajross wrote: post #125
huijzer wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That leaves 50% who don’t really know much beyond a few LeetCode puzzles and have no real grasp of what they’re copying and pasting. Small nuance: I think people often don’t know because they don’t have the time to figure it out. There are only so many battles you can fight during a day. For example if I’m a C++ programmer working on a ticket, how many layers of the stack should I know? For example, should I know h…

> I completely encourage anyone to learn as much about the tools and stack as possible, but there is only so much time. That seems like a weird way to think about this. I mean, sure, there's no time today to learn make to complete your C++ ticket or whatever. But yesterday? Last month? Last job? Basically, I think this matches the upthread contention perfectly. If you're a working C++ programmer who's failed to learn…

> I mean, sure, there's no time today to learn make to complete your C++ ticket or whatever. But yesterday? Last month? Last job?

That seems like a weird way to think about this. Of course there was no time in the past to learn this stuff, if you still haven't learned it by the present moment. And even if there were, trying to figure out whether there perhaps was some free time in the past is largely pointless, as opposed to trying to schedule things in the future: you can't change the past anyhow, but the future is somewhat more malleable.

Re: Be Aware of the Makefile Effect

#130

Post by svilen_dobrev »

Apart of not knowing / unable to start from scratch, this is about frequent, and infrequent use. The latter also means not-that-important-in-overall-landscape, and brings forgetting and perceiving it as less "ROI", so one (hopefuly) finds and copy-pastes that-last-working thing into.. whatever Frankenstein.

https://utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/blog/programming/Frequen...

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