You Don’t Need Superstar Developers • Hacker News Board

Re: You Don’t Need Superstar Developers

#11

Post by diggan » Thu, Sep 21, 2017, 3:08 PM UTC

athenot wrote: post #7

DamonHD wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the reason that "the code is self-documenting" is a bad smell is because in 3 months even the 'rock star' who wrote it won't remember without appropriate help (eg comments). I've worked with some pretty smart developers in some pretty interesting roles, and the people cock-sure of themselves are rarely anything other than a poisonous danger to overall performance and deliverables typically. I say this as a lone w…

Besides, code speaks to the compiler/runtime; comments speak to the human. - The machine need to know HOW something should happen. That's code. - The human needs to understand WHY that thing should happen that way. These are two different objectives, and good quality code weaves the two in the appropriate measure. Having said that, I don't believe all code should be reduced to the subset that a junior dev can underst…

> Besides, code speaks to the compiler/runtime; comments speak to the human. > - The machine need to know HOW something should happen. That's code. > - The human needs to understand WHY that thing should happen that way.

While valuable, some people argue that they should be the same (granted, I mostly deal with high-abstraction language). For example most (all?) lisps have homoiconicity which means the computer and you see the code the same.

Re: You Don’t Need Superstar Developers

#12

Post by pyrophane » Thu, Sep 21, 2017, 3:10 PM UTC

twobyfour wrote: post #10

It depends so much on what you're building. If you're doing _groundbreaking_ research in, say, AI or facial recognition or whatever, you may need people who are technical superstars. If you're building the average CRUD-plus-workflow application, the last thing you want are superstars who are going to get bored with routine work. Then they'll go off over-engineering some minor feature or spending weeks at a time inven…

Ah, but if you are doing groundbreaking AI research, you need AI experts. You will also need developers, but those developers may not actually need to be superstars.

Re: You Don’t Need Superstar Developers

#13

Post by ithkuil » Thu, Sep 21, 2017, 3:11 PM UTC

athenot wrote: post #7

DamonHD wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the reason that "the code is self-documenting" is a bad smell is because in 3 months even the 'rock star' who wrote it won't remember without appropriate help (eg comments). I've worked with some pretty smart developers in some pretty interesting roles, and the people cock-sure of themselves are rarely anything other than a poisonous danger to overall performance and deliverables typically. I say this as a lone w…

Besides, code speaks to the compiler/runtime; comments speak to the human. - The machine need to know HOW something should happen. That's code. - The human needs to understand WHY that thing should happen that way. These are two different objectives, and good quality code weaves the two in the appropriate measure. Having said that, I don't believe all code should be reduced to the subset that a junior dev can underst…

yeah. I've seen a lot of comments like:

    // Sleep for 10 minutes
    sleep(15*60)

Unfortunately, the compiler cannot check your comments. Don't put facts that are better looked up in the actual code and that they only risk getting out of sync with the code.

Re: You Don’t Need Superstar Developers

#14

Post by BoorishBears » Thu, Sep 21, 2017, 3:16 PM UTC

ithkuil wrote: post #13

athenot wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Besides, code speaks to the compiler/runtime; comments speak to the human. - The machine need to know HOW something should happen. That's code. - The human needs to understand WHY that thing should happen that way. These are two different objectives, and good quality code weaves the two in the appropriate measure. Having said that, I don't believe all code should be reduced to the subset that a junior dev can underst…

yeah. I've seen a lot of comments like: // Sleep for 10 minutes sleep(15*60) Unfortunately, the compiler cannot check your comments. Don't put facts that are better looked up in the actual code and that they only risk getting out of sync with the code.

And to keep with the theme of self-documenting, the self-documenting version of that would be:

    NAP_LENGTH_MINUTES = 15;
    ...
    sleep(NAP_LENGTH_MINUTES*60);

Re: You Don’t Need Superstar Developers

#15

Post by katastic » Thu, Sep 21, 2017, 3:21 PM UTC

jasonmaydie wrote: post #6

Well that's a broad statement. We don't all need the same thing.

Tomorrow from Gamesutra: "Developers are dead. Good developers don't have to be your audience!"

Re: You Don’t Need Superstar Developers

#16

Post by corporateslave3 » Thu, Sep 21, 2017, 3:24 PM UTC

twobyfour wrote: post #10

It depends so much on what you're building. If you're doing _groundbreaking_ research in, say, AI or facial recognition or whatever, you may need people who are technical superstars. If you're building the average CRUD-plus-workflow application, the last thing you want are superstars who are going to get bored with routine work. Then they'll go off over-engineering some minor feature or spending weeks at a time inven…

In other words, you want an office drone with minimal intellectual curiosity who is docile, does what they are told, and works well with others.

Re: You Don’t Need Superstar Developers

#17

Post by crdoconnor » Thu, Sep 21, 2017, 3:27 PM UTC

twobyfour wrote: post #10

It depends so much on what you're building. If you're doing _groundbreaking_ research in, say, AI or facial recognition or whatever, you may need people who are technical superstars. If you're building the average CRUD-plus-workflow application, the last thing you want are superstars who are going to get bored with routine work. Then they'll go off over-engineering some minor feature or spending weeks at a time inven…

>If you're building the average CRUD-plus-workflow application, the last thing you want are superstars who are going to get bored with routine work.

Even the average CRUD plus workflow application is only really routine & repetitive if you're using suboptimal tools. If you're good, you're good at choosing the optimal tools and automating all the tedious stuff.

In large companies, managers would rather have a mediocre team of six doing this type of thing than a stellar team of two even though it costs more. This is mainly because they're aiming to optimize their headcount rather than company profit.

In small companies, most managers are simply stingy, and feel affronted by paying over 'average' for something like that.

In both cases, measuring actual software developer productivity is pretty much beyond every manager who cannot code (which is most) so it isn't hard to justify this suboptimal behavior either to themselves or others.

>What you really want are people who are technically not outstanding but quite capable and have very strong soft skills.

No, not really. Soft skills are vital for team lead and product management but being able to write a good email and butter up your superiors isn't too important for other developers.

That is, unless you're using soft skills as a proxy for "writes clear, maintainable, easy to read code".

>people who are good at prioritizing their own work;

This is a product manager's job and if you're pushing that job onto developers then it's almost guaranteed to interfere with their other work and to be done poorly. It's a bad idea to ask them to do your accounts and file lawsuits too.

Re: You Don’t Need Superstar Developers

#18

Post by hathym » Thu, Sep 21, 2017, 3:28 PM UTC

the real question is, can you afford Superstar Developers?

Re: You Don’t Need Superstar Developers

#19

Post by zip1234 » Thu, Sep 21, 2017, 3:30 PM UTC

DamonHD wrote: post #3

kozak wrote: post #2

One of my most useful insights in software development is that no matter how smart you are, if you write code that can't be understood by a junior developer, it means that you didn't do a good job writing that code.

And the reason that "the code is self-documenting" is a bad smell is because in 3 months even the 'rock star' who wrote it won't remember without appropriate help (eg comments). I've worked with some pretty smart developers in some pretty interesting roles, and the people cock-sure of themselves are rarely anything other than a poisonous danger to overall performance and deliverables typically. I say this as a lone w…

And the other side of the coin is that being too focused on documenting all of your code usually ends up with lots of out of date and confusing documentation over time.

Re: You Don’t Need Superstar Developers

#20

Post by bankboross » Thu, Sep 21, 2017, 3:34 PM UTC

corporateslave3 wrote: post #16

twobyfour wrote: post #10

It depends so much on what you're building. If you're doing _groundbreaking_ research in, say, AI or facial recognition or whatever, you may need people who are technical superstars. If you're building the average CRUD-plus-workflow application, the last thing you want are superstars who are going to get bored with routine work. Then they'll go off over-engineering some minor feature or spending weeks at a time inven…

In other words, you want an office drone with minimal intellectual curiosity who is docile, does what they are told, and works well with others.

That doesn't seem to be what they are saying.