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What I Hate About Working At Facebook

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Re: What I Hate About Working At Facebook

#171

Post by cbs »

hackinthebochs wrote: post #168
cbs wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But in dealing with language here, there are subtle differences in connotation between the two options. We're not dealing in language, formal symbols exist to remove the ambiguity of language. Plain and simple, the symbols used don't mean what the poster thinks they mean.

The symbols are simply shorthand. Trying to parse it as a mathematical equation was your mistake, not his.

Pies and cactus.

Jackalope.

If you read the above as anything other than a nuanced and well reasoned response thats your mistake, not mine.

Re: What I Hate About Working At Facebook

#172

Post by Evbn »

jrockway wrote: post #62
onan_barbarian wrote: post #55

The funny thing about this list is that a few of the items, while intended as satire, are actually spot-on. Especially item #1: "But the rate of source code commits continues to grow proportionally with the number of engineers. This is in clear violation of the law that Fred Brooks established nearly 40 years ago in The Mythical Man Month." Whoop de do. This might, just maybe, because no particular behavior of FB rea…

It's likely that the code is not coupled. Fred Brooks studied OS/360, which was essentially one big component. Facebook is, presumably, many separate components that don't depend on each other in any way, and so the "teams" are much smaller than "all of Facebook". If you watch velocity on individual components, you'll probably see sub-linear scaling as Brooks predicts.

Or it's because an ever growing fraction of those commits are bugs and fixes.

Re: What I Hate About Working At Facebook

#173

Post by Evbn »

ninh wrote: post #151
petercooper wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except (No Meetings != No Communication) != (Meetings != Communication)

If you define "No meetings" as !meetings, and "No communication" as !communcation, which to me sounds reasonable, then they are in fact equivalent. This becomes apparent when you create a truth table for it: !meetings != !communication meetings | communication | expr F | F | F T | T | F T | F | T F | T | T This is the same truth table one would get with "meetings != communication" so they should be logically equivale…

You can't replace a complex concept with a boolean. This isn't JavaScript.

Re: What I Hate About Working At Facebook

#174

Post by ninh »

petercooper wrote: post #157
ninh wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you define "No meetings" as !meetings, and "No communication" as !communcation, which to me sounds reasonable, then they are in fact equivalent. This becomes apparent when you create a truth table for it: !meetings != !communication meetings | communication | expr F | F | F T | T | F T | F | T F | T | T This is the same truth table one would get with "meetings != communication" so they should be logically equivale…

"No meetings != no communication" is analogous to saying "Without meetings, people may still be communicating." "Meetings != communication" is analogous to saying "At meetings, communication doesn't necessarily occur." In terms you would personally appreciate: (No Patrick Hernandez != No Dancing) similarly is not equivalent to (Patrick Hernandez != Dancing) One says without Patrick Hernandez, there may be dancing. Th…

You're referring to implication then, i.e. P => Q !P || Q and in that case, I definitely agree. ;-) That's also why I started my comment with a propositional "if" on how one could define "no meetings" and "no communication" to show that there is something to be said for the P != Q interpretation.

In short, I believe neilk should have used => instead of !=. Or just plain english. ;-)

Re: What I Hate About Working At Facebook

#175

Post by Evbn »

kimmiller wrote: post #42

Too much code being committed? Too many decisions being made by engineers? Building a great product? Wow, talk about navel gazing. I get the satire point, but... This internally arrogant, externally ignorant attitude is why the stock is where it is. These ideals are not necessarily good for a mature business that needs to pay back the kind people that gave it money in the first place. Enjoy your free lunch, as there…

The stock price is where it is because various players hyped a $40B company into a $100B valuation. If you think that is a failure for anyone working at Facebook (except very recent hires who believed the hype when they evaluated their comp package), you are mistaken.

Re: What I Hate About Working At Facebook

#177

Post by icefox »

jrockway wrote: post #62
onan_barbarian wrote: post #55

The funny thing about this list is that a few of the items, while intended as satire, are actually spot-on. Especially item #1: "But the rate of source code commits continues to grow proportionally with the number of engineers. This is in clear violation of the law that Fred Brooks established nearly 40 years ago in The Mythical Man Month." Whoop de do. This might, just maybe, because no particular behavior of FB rea…

It's likely that the code is not coupled. Fred Brooks studied OS/360, which was essentially one big component. Facebook is, presumably, many separate components that don't depend on each other in any way, and so the "teams" are much smaller than "all of Facebook". If you watch velocity on individual components, you'll probably see sub-linear scaling as Brooks predicts.

"Facebook is, presumably, many separate components that don't depend on each other in any way"

Based upon the public statements about their build system and their revision control system and pain when trying to put it in Git I would be confident in saying that is false and that the source code is one big intertwined ball and no separate components.

Edit: Also based upon the way they treat public API which is always better than internal API even if they had internal separate components one could only imagine the horrors of api design (or lack of) you might find.

Re: What I Hate About Working At Facebook

#178

Post by pbiggar »

mcphilip wrote: post #28
ghshephard wrote: post #8

Good grief people - It's satire. The entire thing is meant to be funny. I didn't even think it was particularly subtle so I'm not sure how others are seeing it any other way.

Pretty obvious only an idiot would write up this rant on his personal blog while still employed at FB. I ignored the content immediately after realizing this. Click bait title. Lame.

Why did you ignore the contents? It's pretty good.

Re: What I Hate About Working At Facebook

#179

Post by Lewton »

jamesbritt wrote: post #159
hisyam wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see a flag button. Is this a feature that's only available after reaching a certain amount of points?

I used to see it, then one day it vanished.

hisyam: Yes, it's something you get after getting 20 points or something like that

jamesbritt: I've heard of people losing their flag priviliges because of 'abuse' whatever that is

Re: What I Hate About Working At Facebook

#180

Post by jamesbritt »

Lewton wrote: post #179
jamesbritt wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to see it, then one day it vanished.

hisyam: Yes, it's something you get after getting 20 points or something like that jamesbritt: I've heard of people losing their flag priviliges because of 'abuse' whatever that is

I suspect I flagged too many posts that ended up as popular so now I cannot flag anymore.

If so then there's a serious flaw in that kind of strategy since it erodes counter-balances.

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