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Normalization of Deviance (2015)

danluu.com

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Re: Normalization of Deviance (2015)

#101

Post by salawat »

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #67
JackFr wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to push back and say that test is not a valuable automatic test. The phrase "relies on an unreliable system" captures that lack of value.

When the code your testing is a client for some remote API, and the sandbox/development/Testing version of that API doesn't have the same resources and uptime guarantee as production, then what are your options? as far as I can tell they are: Don't test it. Only do unit tests with the connection mocked out. Test against production. Try it a few times with a delay, and if it works then you know your code is good and y…

You're on the right track. It's a perennial favorite of devs to abhor flakyness, whereas after spending enough time as a tester, you come to terms with the fact that you have to take your tests as a statistical probe because most places test systems are simply not that reliable; sometimes, this is even a design feature.

This experience as a tester is in fact a normalization of deviance from the ideal computation model of a developer. Everything should work the first time everytime from their point of view. The tester sees reality as it is. The Emperor won't fund my test systems sufficiently to service all my customers, so we make do ss best we can. Bonus points in that we get to exercise the edge cases.

Re: Normalization of Deviance (2015)

#103

Post by flappyeagle »

jkaptur wrote: post #38
PaulHoule wrote: post #2

I like the bit about Let's look at how the first one of these, “pay attention to weak signals”, interacts with a single example, the “WTF WTF WTF” a new person gives off when the join the company. and kinda wonder if a company that prioritized not getting this reaction from new hires might find it is the most impactful thing they can do in terms of culture.

Just to give a different, concrete, perspective (and push a hot button HN issue), I've spent a fair amount of time working on extremely large web applications, and by far the #1 "WTF WTF WTF" thing that new hires say is "what do you mean you aren't using $TODAYS_HOT_JS_FRAMEWORK??" Once you get away from "should we use version control" and into actually difficult software engineering questions, it's not clear how to…

If "what do you mean you aren't using $TODAYS_HOT_JS_FRAMEWORK" is the first question they ask, then you can end their employment right then and there. Hire people whose "wtf" you take seriously.

Re: Normalization of Deviance (2015)

#105

Post by whats_a_quasar »

RoddaWallPro wrote: post #97
whats_a_quasar wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't think that's what he's saying. You are assuming a great deal of malice, rather than positive intent. What he's saying is that there isn't hard evidence that shorter lines are more readable, so he made the style choice of longer lines. You're claiming that most people prefer shorter line widths, but again present no evidence that most people actually have that preference, other than vague references to…

Yeah, that's probably true. He also at least allows people to set their own reading width by adjusting browser. My frustration stems from the fact that I find the argument "there are no papers with sufficient evidence" to be pedantic bullshit. Like yeah, sure, you aren't even wrong, but absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. I've never seen anyone claim to like 180 char lines, whereas I've seen hordes of peo…

Hmm, yeah I actually agree with that way of putting it. The evidence that does exist are the anecdotes, and he seems to ignore that evidence. Many of his readers, myself included, seem to prefer fixed line lengths. So it is a weird choice.

I was mostly reacting to the assumed malice in the parent comment. Based on his blogging style, I think it's more likely that Dan's just a pedantic guy implementing his personal preferences on his personal blog :)

Re: Normalization of Deviance (2015)

#106

Post by AlbertCory »

RoddaWallPro wrote: post #97
whats_a_quasar wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't think that's what he's saying. You are assuming a great deal of malice, rather than positive intent. What he's saying is that there isn't hard evidence that shorter lines are more readable, so he made the style choice of longer lines. You're claiming that most people prefer shorter line widths, but again present no evidence that most people actually have that preference, other than vague references to…

Yeah, that's probably true. He also at least allows people to set their own reading width by adjusting browser. My frustration stems from the fact that I find the argument "there are no papers with sufficient evidence" to be pedantic bullshit. Like yeah, sure, you aren't even wrong, but absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. I've never seen anyone claim to like 180 char lines, whereas I've seen hordes of peo…

"Not even wrong" FTW. There's even a blog with that title:

https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/

Re: Normalization of Deviance (2015)

#107

Post by aj7 »

“Let's say you notice that your company has a problem that I've heard people at most companies complain about: people get promoted for heroism and putting out fires, not for preventing fires.”

My first day at work at big-laser-company. Manufacturing engineer for a laser (then) so complex, it required a PhD to solve problems to get units out the door. The product was a ring laser. What that means is that the laser beam travels around in a race track pattern inside the laser before getting out, not a back-and-forth bouncing between two mirrors. Now this laser could be tuned to any wavelength by suitable setups and machinations, and once there, would “scan” a small amount about this wavelength, enabling scientists to study tiny spectral features in atoms and molecules with great precision. I knew all this shit. I was a Berkeley-trained physicist that built precision lasers out of scrap metal for my thesis. First day of work. I walk into the final test lab. The big laser was happily scanning away. The bright yellow needle-like output beam was permitted to hit the lab wall. As the laser scanned, the beam was MOVING on the wall. Whereupon, first day of work, I exclaimed the most obscene four words in manufacturing, for all to hear, “You can’t ship that!” (“Beam pointing instability” is detrimental to almost any laser application. It turns out that during scanning, an optical element was rotating, on a shaft, inside this laser. This mechanical motion caused beam motion.”) Well, I got an immediate reputation as a negative guy. (You can tell it’s deserved.) The solution was to retrofit 28 lasers in the field, mostly in Europe, with a component that cancelled the movement, on an expensive junket by a service guy. Who was hailed as a ”hero.”

Re: Normalization of Deviance (2015)

#108

Post by DiggyJohnson »

aliqot wrote: post #77
DiggyJohnson wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this ain't the place to ask Am I double-whooshing here? How is a Hacker News comment thread not the right place to respectfully ask questions in response to interesting comments. I know I'm not entitled to an answer, nor do I intend to start a flame war. Sheesh

It is personal information that risks identifying them more than they already had at the time of posting. It took about two seconds to put everything together. I don't have a dog in this fight politically one way or the other, people don't need to identify themselves IRL here.

Who are you to decide what others are comfortable sharing on here. It is quite literally as simple as the person I replied to choosing not reply to my comment. Why is this issue a concern to you?

> I don't have a dog in this fight politically one way or the other

Neither do I.

> people don't need to identify themselves IRL here

I don't think they do either. Why are you assuming I "needed" this information?

Re: Normalization of Deviance (2015)

#109

Post by dang »

AlbertCory wrote: post #13

This guy needs to organize & format his writing better, since he does have really interesting things to say.

"Please don't complain about tangential annoyances—e.g. article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button breakage. They're too common to be interesting."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Normalization of Deviance (2015)

#110

Post by dang »

Related:

Normalization of Deviance (2015) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22144330 - Jan 2020 (43 comments)

Normalization of deviance in software: broken practices become standard (2015) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15835870 - Dec 2017 (27 comments)

How Completely Messed Up Practices Become Normal - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10811822 - Dec 2015 (252 comments)

What We Can Learn From Aviation, Civil Engineering, Other Safety-critical Fields - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10806063 - Dec 2015 (3 comments)

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