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If you thought code writing speed was your problem you have bigger problems

andrewmurphy.io

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Re: If you thought code writing speed was your problem you have bigger problems

#5
It’s definitely going to create a lot of problems in orgs that already have an incomplete or understaffed dev pipeline, which happen to often be the ones where executive leadership is already disconnected and not aware of what the true bottlenecks are, which also happen to often be the ones that get hooked by vendor slide decks…

Re: If you thought code writing speed was your problem you have bigger problems

#6
> The bottleneck is understanding the problem. No amount of faster typing fixes that.

Why not? Why can't faster typing help us understand the problem faster?

> When you speed up code output in this environment, you are speeding up the rate at which you build the wrong thing.

Why can't we figure out the right thing faster by building the wrong thing faster? Presumably we were gonna build the wrong thing either way in this example, weren't we?

I often build something to figure out what I want, and that's only become more true the cheaper it is to build a prototype version of a thing.

> You will build the wrong feature faster, ship it, watch it fail, and then do a retro where someone says "we need to talk to users more" and everyone nods solemnly and then absolutely nothing changes.

I guess because we're just cynical.

Re: If you thought code writing speed was your problem you have bigger problems

#7

Seems easy to address with a simple rule. Push one PR; review one PR

Also add a PR reviewer bot. Give it authority to reject the PR, but no authority to merge it. Let the AIs fight until the implementation AI and the reviewer AI come to an agreement. Also limit the number of rounds they're permitted to engage in, to avoid wasting resources. I haven't done this myself, but my naive brain thinks it's probably a good idea.

Re: If you thought code writing speed was your problem you have bigger problems

#9
Companies genuinely don't want good code. Individual teams just get measured by how many things they push around. An employee warning that something might not work very well is going to get reprimanded as "down in the weeds" or "too detail oriented," etc. I didn't understand this for a while, but internal actors inside of companies really just want to claim success.

Re: If you thought code writing speed was your problem you have bigger problems

#10

> The bottleneck is understanding the problem. No amount of faster typing fixes that. Why not? Why can't faster typing help us understand the problem faster? > When you speed up code output in this environment, you are speeding up the rate at which you build the wrong thing. Why can't we figure out the right thing faster by building the wrong thing faster? Presumably we were gonna build the wrong thing either way in…

> Why can't faster typing help us understand the problem faster?

Why can't standing on your head?

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