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Software development topics I've changed my mind on

chriskiehl.com

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Re: Software development topics I've changed my mind on

#161

Post by VyseofArcadia »

ZaoLahma wrote: post #82

> Most programming should be done long before a single line of code is written Nah. I (16+ years developer) prefer to iteratively go between coding and designing. It happens way too often that when you're coding, you stumble across something that makes you go "oh f me, that would NEVER work", which forces you to approach a problem entirely differently. Quite often you also have eureka moments with better solutions th…

Iterative work is THE way to work in large legacy codebases. The minute you wade into the code, all of your planning is moot. You don't know what's lurking below the surface. No one knows what's lurking under the surface. Except maybe Dave, because he vaguely remembers about 15 years back talking to some guy who wrote some code 30 years back about it.

Greenfield, absolutely design up front you lucky devils, but iterative is the way otherwise.

Re: Software development topics I've changed my mind on

#162

Post by koonsolo »

vladde wrote: post #65

> Good management is invaluable. (I went most of my career before seeing it done well) I don't think I've ever seen good management. Anyone care to explain what that would look like?

Here's the problem with good management: you will not notice it, you only notice bad management.

A good manager is at the service of their team. That means they will do anything to keep the team productive. In most cases this means shielding them from corporate bullshit. In practice this also means that you will barely notice them.

So when you notice your management being intervening and bad, it's probably bad. When you barely notice your management and can't see what value they are adding, it's most likely excellent management.

Re: Software development topics I've changed my mind on

#163

Post by ozim »

latexr wrote: post #22

> Most won't care about the craft. Cherish the ones that do, meet the rest where they are > (…) > People who stress over code style, linting rules, or other minutia remain insane weirdos to me. Focus on more important things. What you call “stressing over minutiae” others might call “caring for the craft”. Revered artisans are precisely the ones who care for the details. “Stressing” is your value judgement, not neces…

If you want to compare to artisans - they were stressing about details that customers see, details that customers don’t see were to cut corners on.

Making fuss about indentation in code file is not artisanal. It is insane weirdo if we are charitable and if not clueless and childish.

Re: Software development topics I've changed my mind on

#164

Post by Twirrim »

andyish wrote: post #83

> People who stress over code style, lining You can do it whatever way you want but match the style of the project. I've worked on too many projects where someone decides their way is best and you end up with a mix of everything. If you want to change the code style, okay, but change it everywhere and don't forget to test everything you've changed. > Frontend development is a nightmare But is it weird I kind of enjoy…

I've grown to be a big fan of opinionated linters like gofmt, rustfmt, black etc. They avoid so much time spent disagreeing about code formatting and personal preferences. Instead engineers can do mutual grumbling sessions about weird formatting choices they see it do, and move on.

Re: Software development topics I've changed my mind on

#165

Post by tines »

How does

> There is no pride in managing or understanding complexity

interact with

> If I think something is easy, that's a sure sign I don't understand it.

? Is it implying that you must understand the irreducible complexity, but mustn't take pride in that understanding? Or is "difficult" the opposite of "easy" here, rather than "complex?"

Re: Software development topics I've changed my mind on

#167

Post by jonhohle »

alexfromapex wrote: post #138

> Code coverage has absolutely nothing to do with code quality Ehhh..lots of nuance to this one

And the inverse is almost always true: lack of code coverage is a strong indicator of lack of both code quality and developer experience.

Re: Software development topics I've changed my mind on

#168

Post by dtquad »

>Frontend development is a nightmare world of Kafkaesque awfulness I no longer enjoy

As a backend/systems engineer I recently had to look at a React + Typescript + MobX app from 2019/2020. It is true that that some things, especially the webpack config and Typescript loading, were outdated but the overall design and architecture of the app was still understandable and modern. With some help from ChatGPT it took very little time to migrate to Vite and update dependencies. By 2019/2020 React Hooks had already been out for some time but there were still some class components in the app. They were easily migrated to functional components + Hooks using ChatGPT.

Re: Software development topics I've changed my mind on

#169

Post by hackflip »

latexr wrote: post #22

> Most won't care about the craft. Cherish the ones that do, meet the rest where they are > (…) > People who stress over code style, linting rules, or other minutia remain insane weirdos to me. Focus on more important things. What you call “stressing over minutiae” others might call “caring for the craft”. Revered artisans are precisely the ones who care for the details. “Stressing” is your value judgement, not neces…

Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?

Re: Software development topics I've changed my mind on

#170

Post by Cthulhu_ »

latexr wrote: post #22

> Most won't care about the craft. Cherish the ones that do, meet the rest where they are > (…) > People who stress over code style, linting rules, or other minutia remain insane weirdos to me. Focus on more important things. What you call “stressing over minutiae” others might call “caring for the craft”. Revered artisans are precisely the ones who care for the details. “Stressing” is your value judgement, not neces…

Thing is, you can care for the craft, but let the code style and linting tools do what they do best and don't stress over them. Code reviews are better now that there's tooling that automatically checks for, fixes, or marks common issues like code style so the reviewer doesn't have to do anything with them.

That is, I'd argue the "stressing" is not about what these tools check, but about the tools and their configuration itself. Just go with all the defaults and focus on bigger issues.

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