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Get Shit Done: The Worst Startup Culture

whatspinksthinks.com

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Re: Get Shit Done: The Worst Startup Culture

#91
post #4

Another site reporting "Error establishing a database connection". For anyone posting blog entries telling people that they are doing things wrong, it really destroys your credibility when you can't set up a server that continues to function with a moderate amount of traffic. Mirror: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?output=search&s...

My bad.

My host is working on the issue. Wasn't planning for a HN hit.

Re: Get Shit Done: The Worst Startup Culture

#92

Dear God this was my life at a past employer. The biggest issue is that Get Shit Done usually turns to Get Shit Done exactly how I want even though I won't tell you what it is because I'm "Getting Shit Done!". I know better now. If I see that at an interview now, I'll run, not walk, run away. People bitch about how hard it is to find good developers and yet hire talented developers but put them in shitty positions. T…

"No, you got the wrong shit done! What's wrong with you?!"

"I got the shit done in a very shitty way."

Re: Get Shit Done: The Worst Startup Culture

#93
post #49
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like a Daily WTF, but it's also very common. Its seems most companies don't realise the easiest way to move fast, is a extensible, easy to change/understand code base. And not going through spaghetti code with a fine tooth comb. Odd they recommended research, they only care about one off prototypes. The problem is future employers assume your the problem. Btw, Proper scrum/agile encourages people to refactor a…

Luckily this engagement was so short, and followed after a period of independent consulting, that I was able to be only slightly dishonest and call it a short-term consulting gig. Thing that pissed me off the most was that I was proud of this code. It was elegant asynchronous java.nio-based stuff that used something like 1/100th the RAM and brought the product's response time down from a several hours "we'll get back…

> The founder apparently had such a hard-on for top-ten talent that he wrote about making sure candidates were from "the right schools" repeatedly on his blog, and I got the sense from the get-go that he was skeptical of my hire.

Fuck these people. I have a fancy degree and I work with better programmers who never even went to college.

I work for a client that is very scrumy and I did a huge rewrite/refactor similar to you one week, although probably smaller considering I also delivered the other tasks expected for the sprint. Nobody even cared that the rewrite made the product 10x faster. Nobody cared! But they were ecstatic about other lame changes that were assigned.

I think it's because management didn't ask for it to run faster, but they did ask for the other things.

The next week I got asked to find out what my changes broke because the app is behaving so much quicker. I had to remind them that I rewrote the slow part and there's nothing wrong. Still, nobody was excited... except me, because now it was a lot easier to develop with because it was faster and easier to debug.

Re: Get Shit Done: The Worst Startup Culture

#94
post #3

It's already down (it's the database... why does it always gotta be the database... sigh. Actually, it's probably a blog post so why is it even hitting the database to begin with instead of being served from cache?) I guess someone didn't prioritize "getting shit done" haha

Google Cache:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:whatspi...

Re: Get Shit Done: The Worst Startup Culture

#96

I think the author is missing one of the points of 'get shit done', which is instead of debating whether you should use Go/PHP/node, just fucking do it. Instead of agonizing over a design choice, just make the damn thing and tweak it later. Don't over-engineer things.

That's a fair point and probably a much better use of the mantra. Unfortunately, that's often not how it's applied, in my experience.

Re: Get Shit Done: The Worst Startup Culture

#97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People bitch about how hard it is to find good developers and yet hire talented developers but put them in shitty positions. Notwithstanding the fact that the GSD mentality is often nonsense that comes from folks who don't know what they're doing, I would make the point that a lot of software jobs are "shitty" in the context of what many expect to find when they decide to become a developer. And that's life. Even a…

"That's life" what a load... no, that's a corporate job which doesn't give a shit about you. It's not really life. The only reason people put up with it is because they're told "that's life" or "that's just how it is." when that's meaningless bullshit.

This is a prime example of the attitude the author is warning against. This kind of anti-establishment ignorance comes from people with little clue as to how 99% of software is written...

Re: Get Shit Done: The Worst Startup Culture

#98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People bitch about how hard it is to find good developers and yet hire talented developers but put them in shitty positions. Notwithstanding the fact that the GSD mentality is often nonsense that comes from folks who don't know what they're doing, I would make the point that a lot of software jobs are "shitty" in the context of what many expect to find when they decide to become a developer. And that's life. Even a…

"That's life" what a load... no, that's a corporate job which doesn't give a shit about you. It's not really life. The only reason people put up with it is because they're told "that's life" or "that's just how it is." when that's meaningless bullshit.

This is a prime example of the attitude the author is warning against. This kind of anti-establishment ignorance comes from people with little clue as to how 99% of software is written...

Re: Get Shit Done: The Worst Startup Culture

#99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People bitch about how hard it is to find good developers and yet hire talented developers but put them in shitty positions. Notwithstanding the fact that the GSD mentality is often nonsense that comes from folks who don't know what they're doing, I would make the point that a lot of software jobs are "shitty" in the context of what many expect to find when they decide to become a developer. And that's life. Even a…

"That's life" what a load... no, that's a corporate job which doesn't give a shit about you. It's not really life. The only reason people put up with it is because they're told "that's life" or "that's just how it is." when that's meaningless bullshit.

This is a prime example of the attitude the author is warning against. This kind of anti-establishment ignorance comes from people with little clue as to how 99% of software is written...

Re: Get Shit Done: The Worst Startup Culture

#100
GSD for us is less of a management tactic and more of a trait we find in engineers. Some engineers spend too much time in the design phase, planning out features nobody is going to use. GSD is about finding the fastest route to a solution. The quality of the solution is orthogonal to GSD. Bad GSD results in spaghetti code. Good GSD means providing the minimal solution without painting ourselves into a corner. It means a clean interface and set of behavioral tests with perhaps a hackish library implementation that can be pushed to production. Building out that hack vs taking the time to "do it right" can mean 10s or 100s of thousands of dollars of revenue. Sure it builds up a bit of tech debt (which we resource immediately), but that's often well worth it.
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