Pivotal Software S-1 • Hacker News Board

Re: Pivotal Software S-1

#131

Post by Huggernaut » Sat, Mar 24, 2018, 4:04 PM UTC

edem wrote: post #118

cbryan wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not Scrum. It's Extreme Programming. It works fantastically well, even when you're __fixing bugs__. The whole idea is that you need to be paired so that two people can understand and problem solve around the bug. You end up with twice the understanding that you had before. It's worth it.

No it __is not working fantastically well__. I speak from experience. There are also numerous studies (I can link to them) which detail why pair programming wastes time if not used for the right problem (mentoring or super-difficult task).

Seems fair to say in some cases it works fantastically well, in others not at all?

Re: Pivotal Software S-1

#132

Post by brobinson » Sat, Mar 24, 2018, 4:14 PM UTC

edem wrote: post #119

mephitix wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a radical thought - maybe Extreme Programming (I still think this is a genius marketing name :) works for some people and doesn't work for others? After trying so many of these methodologies I've come to realize that people just work differently. It's self-defeating to try to push Extreme Programming or whatever on someone who prefers and is efficient at working alone. Maybe adopt some of Scrum/XP/whatever tha…

My thoughts exactly. I just __hate it__. I was super bored, super frustrated, and it was a complete waste of time. I resigned after a year of struggle.

It worked extremely well results-wise for the few months we did it. I went home at the end of the day mentally exhausted, though. You are essentially having a conversation for 9 hours straight, 5 days per week.

Re: Pivotal Software S-1

#133

Post by delias_ » Sat, Mar 24, 2018, 5:46 PM UTC

cavisne wrote: post #96

Does netflix use a lot of pivotal stuff? I always thought of that as a plus as netflix is a pretty strong engineering org.

Spring is probably the only thing. All the rest of the stuff on the tech blog and Netflix OSS is heavily AWS centric, even the container platform Titus.

Spring Cloud includes a lot of the Netflix OSS stuff though like Zuul and Archaius.

Re: Pivotal Software S-1

#134

Post by busterarm » Sat, Mar 24, 2018, 6:08 PM UTC

cryptonector wrote: post #81

taurath wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The optics that they use to get consulting contracts with non-tech big-co's are the exact opposite that you'd want to cultivate to impress HN.

Explain?

Beach-heading, for starters.

Re: Pivotal Software S-1

#135

Post by edem » Sat, Mar 24, 2018, 7:15 PM UTC

brobinson wrote: post #132

edem wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My thoughts exactly. I just __hate it__. I was super bored, super frustrated, and it was a complete waste of time. I resigned after a year of struggle.

It worked extremely well results-wise for the few months we did it. I went home at the end of the day mentally exhausted, though. You are essentially having a conversation for 9 hours straight, 5 days per week.

I could have done 10x work working alone. I speak from experience. In my current company we use Kanban, and I am super productive. We only do things which are useful for us.

Re: Pivotal Software S-1

#136

Post by edem » Sat, Mar 24, 2018, 7:17 PM UTC

Huggernaut wrote: post #131

edem wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it __is not working fantastically well__. I speak from experience. There are also numerous studies (I can link to them) which detail why pair programming wastes time if not used for the right problem (mentoring or super-difficult task).

Seems fair to say in some cases it works fantastically well, in others not at all?

Yes. Pair programming works well if someone is being mentored or you are facing a very hard problem. In other cases it is a waste of time. You can read a lot of studies about this topic.

Re: Pivotal Software S-1

#137

Post by amorphid » Sat, Mar 24, 2018, 7:20 PM UTC

tyingq wrote: post #105

amorphid wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno. Sometimes it's easier to simply stare at a problem & noodle your way through it. That's hard to do when forced to jibber jabber. Is the ol' stare & noodle a pair-friendly activity?

I haven't done pairing myself, but I suspect it's highly variable based on the two specific individuals. Certainly I've noted smart and capable people I work with well, and some that I don't. Not every smart/capable pair is going to mesh. Just because I respect you doesn't mean I can work well with you, especially in such an intimate set up.

Fair enough. I definitely enjoy pairing with some people & not others.

Re: Pivotal Software S-1

#138

Post by zapita » Sun, Mar 25, 2018, 1:06 AM UTC

bigiain wrote: post #109

zapita wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Account size and pricing are two different things. The question is: are the $800k customers getting good value for that subscription, or are they looking at projected costs and thinking "we better switch to a competitor before this gets out of hand".

The YoY growth rates suggest they're at least capable of convincing new business that it's good value. (Though in enterprise sales, even amazingly poor vendors often get to re-bill for several years, until the exec who signed off on the subscription moves on and it becomes politically possible for people internally to admit to each other it was a stupid decision to sign up in the first place... So perhaps 2 years gro…

Right, that's what I've witnessed anecdotally: strong ability to sell, usually as part of a top-down "digital transformation" project with tons of agile development consulting and multi-year sales cycle; then a few years of abysmal results, covered up by the project sponsors, then eventually a purge once the sponsoring exec is replaced.

Re: Pivotal Software S-1

#139

Post by afeezaziz » Sun, Mar 25, 2018, 1:37 AM UTC

taurath wrote: post #60

meddlepal wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know some folks at Pivotal as well. Congrats to them! I'm a bit depressed looking through some of the comments on here. It feels like people don't understand or care what Pivotal has done and is doing and are writing it off because of the tech rather than the idea and implementation.

The optics that they use to get consulting contracts with non-tech big-co's are the exact opposite that you'd want to cultivate to impress HN.

Please do explain this. I would love to understand what is the modus operandi.

Re: Pivotal Software S-1

#140

Post by bigiain » Sun, Mar 25, 2018, 2:59 AM UTC

zapita wrote: post #138

bigiain wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The YoY growth rates suggest they're at least capable of convincing new business that it's good value. (Though in enterprise sales, even amazingly poor vendors often get to re-bill for several years, until the exec who signed off on the subscription moves on and it becomes politically possible for people internally to admit to each other it was a stupid decision to sign up in the first place... So perhaps 2 years gro…

Right, that's what I've witnessed anecdotally: strong ability to sell, usually as part of a top-down "digital transformation" project with tons of agile development consulting and multi-year sales cycle; then a few years of abysmal results, covered up by the project sponsors, then eventually a purge once the sponsoring exec is replaced.

Heh - exactly.

And the other similar version: tightly fought procurement between two opposing vendors with different internal "sponsors". Winning vendor's ability to deliver is stymied at every opportunity by losing sponsor or their internal supporters. Then the few years of abysmal results happens in spite of winning vendors capability and efforts - same outcome plays out.