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CTOs Agree: Cognitive Debt Is the New Technical Debt

shiftmag.dev

31–40 of 76 posts

Re: CTOs Agree: Cognitive Debt Is the New Technical Debt

#31
post #25

Allowing non-technical PMs to ship code is fine if they’re the one getting called up in the evenings and weekends when it breaks. Maybe it’s a good exercise to show how much has effort must be applied to each commit.

Interesting comment because there are some companies that have a different model where SREs take on call for code that SWEs write. How do they work?

Re: CTOs Agree: Cognitive Debt Is the New Technical Debt

#32
post #10

Copyright issues don't seem to be addressed by any large language model provider. If an LLM is trained on GPL code then that code has become an intrinsic part of the model (because if it hasn't then what was the value of training on it). So shouldn't that model now also be licensed GPL? And how do I know the LLM output is not reproducing substantial chunks of GPL'd code, making my code GPL?

Github copilot has filters for enterprise that remove the GPL code before it gets returned. At least that’s how my company has been covering itself.

Re: CTOs Agree: Cognitive Debt Is the New Technical Debt

#33

There were some good insights in there. I like the idea of changing the hiring interview process to focus on testing code review ability. I feel like this would have been useful even before AI. A candidate who can identify tradeoffs present in some code and make insightful comments is likely good at systems thinking. It's a highly effective way to test someone's knowledge, intelligence and taste. It's actually brilli…

Counterpoint: you're doing a 15k line concrete implementation of a spec, or a module with fixed integration points.

There could still be a lot subtly wrong, but there are going to be stress points and high leverage validation methods you can use to avoid reading the whole 15k.

Re: CTOs Agree: Cognitive Debt Is the New Technical Debt

#34
post #25

Allowing non-technical PMs to ship code is fine if they’re the one getting called up in the evenings and weekends when it breaks. Maybe it’s a good exercise to show how much has effort must be applied to each commit.

Interesting comment because there are some companies that have a different model where SREs take on call for code that SWEs write. How do they work?

The SWEs get called too, particularly if SRE isn't able to untangle timely.

Don't want to be called? Don't make incidents. Healthy orgs, as a peer comment points out, avoid too much separation between the positions. Things like change review are supposed to avoid this, but often gets rubber-stamped for 'velocity' (into a wall).

Re: CTOs Agree: Cognitive Debt Is the New Technical Debt

#35
post #25

Allowing non-technical PMs to ship code is fine if they’re the one getting called up in the evenings and weekends when it breaks. Maybe it’s a good exercise to show how much has effort must be applied to each commit.

Interesting comment because there are some companies that have a different model where SREs take on call for code that SWEs write. How do they work?

When they "work" instead of "make a giant fucking mess" its because SWEs take shifts as SREs and the distinction is more about time in the mines and less about distinct job functions.

Re: CTOs Agree: Cognitive Debt Is the New Technical Debt

#36
post #14

As a former CTO, nothing is less likely to make me believe a claim than prefixing it with "CTOs agree..."

Nine of out of ten CTOs recommend Agentic™. Use it or your company will be left behind! Side effects include cognitive atrophy, uncontrollable logorrhea, loss of context and purpose in life, and occasional torment nexus.

Re: CTOs Agree: Cognitive Debt Is the New Technical Debt

#37

There were some good insights in there. I like the idea of changing the hiring interview process to focus on testing code review ability. I feel like this would have been useful even before AI. A candidate who can identify tradeoffs present in some code and make insightful comments is likely good at systems thinking. It's a highly effective way to test someone's knowledge, intelligence and taste. It's actually brilli…

Yeah, that didn’t make any sense. If it’s functional, it impacts the system. 15k lines sure sounds like a lot of bloat.

Re: CTOs Agree: Cognitive Debt Is the New Technical Debt

#39

They should think about what happens when expectations are so high that a single dev must deliver and maintain multiple products. What stops that single dev from leaving and offering the same product on his own.

The engineer might not be good at sales or at raising money or at doing taxes or doesn’t have the appetite for risk.

Re: CTOs Agree: Cognitive Debt Is the New Technical Debt

#40
post #15

> Two years ago, the mandate was simple: spend on AI, no questions asked. That era is over. 2 years is an era now?

When it comes to AI, it really does seem so.

No it doesn't. Time still flows linearly. It's just bad writing.
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