+1! I really appreciated this post(s)
The kind of company I want to be a part of
21–30 of 180 posts
Re: The kind of company I want to be a part of
#22This is the Californian Ideology in a blog post. The implication that title and intro mean to imply is working for companies that build products that are not evil and hostile to their users.
But the call to action is to.. embed logic in the programs to pluralize properly (in English).
It's possible to write evil software that pluralizes words. It's possible to write beneficial software that does not pluralize words. This blog post is about the color of the bikeshed next to the torment nexus.
Re: The kind of company I want to be a part of
#23Always thought you kinda have to do this to create a product that can even be translated considering languages like French where plurals take many forms.
Re: The kind of company I want to be a part of
#24I’d say overreaction. The real world is full of tradeoffs and I’ve seen people try to get minutia like this correct in convoluted contexts which actually broke the core application logic. Given the limited time we can spend on things, supporting proper plurality falls below some of my other UI priorities like proper accessibility settings. I don’t think plurality is bad, just low in the stack rank of things that matt…
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Re: The kind of company I want to be a part of
#25I’d say overreaction. The real world is full of tradeoffs and I’ve seen people try to get minutia like this correct in convoluted contexts which actually broke the core application logic. Given the limited time we can spend on things, supporting proper plurality falls below some of my other UI priorities like proper accessibility settings. I don’t think plurality is bad, just low in the stack rank of things that matt…
If pluralisation of a status message in the UI is breaking core application logic then you've got bigger problems than the pluralisation code.
Every code path is an opportunity for a bug that escapes validation. Plus this particular example doesn't work with i18n. It would be more complicated in that case.
Re: The kind of company I want to be a part of
#26This is the brown m&m theory. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/why-did-van-hale... A trivial, superficial fact is assumed to be indicative of a much more substantial concern. For Van Halen, the candy dish indicated adherence to contract terms; here, pluralization indicates the integrity and values of an entire company. It’s a cute idea that suggests an easy way to understand something complex. But there’s…
Van Halen was playing giant stadium shows that were massive logistical and coordination challenges and used this contract language as a canary for more important aspects like the scafolding setup. If they didn't read the catering closely, did they also skim the electrical schematics? Their concerts were perfect scenarios for heavy-weight process, defined procedures and scientific management. A lot of software is punk rock DIY; get something of value out there asap and then iterate. If you don't release until your pluralization is perfect you've waited too long.
I think we're in agreement, just highlighting these are very different approaches to essentially management at different phases of the project lifecycle. Van Halen probably didn't have that rider in their contract at their first show.
Re: The kind of company I want to be a part of
#27Not for me. Exccessive customer obsession puts me off as customer. Don't try to read too much into me. Don't try to sell too much. Don't try to please me too much. Don't think about me too much. Instead, think about the stuff you are offering. Treat it as if you are building it for yourself, and not for selling. Build it the way your like most. Sound as if you don't care about selling. Be proud of it. Get off of the…
> Instead, think about the stuff you are offering.
This is exactly what the author is doing. Paying attention to detail. Not upselling you anything. He is not getting any direct ROI for doing that.
I recently hired a contractor to clean ducts in my house. He was really nice guy, while his partner was working, he chatted with me about how their carpet cleaning service could make my carpets look like new, and even pointed out a few spots in the kitchen where grout cleaning might help. He was a great salesperson and very personable but when they finished the duct cleaning, they left a bit of debris behind. It wasn’t a big deal, but was enough to make me forget all the upselling he did before. Just goes to show that a little attention to detail can make a big difference. Next time I might shop around or may hire them again only if they give me a much better price.
Re: The kind of company I want to be a part of
#28> a cold, hard reminder that this is clunky, soulless machinery
This is where my view differs fundamentally. If I get another "let's set up your account!" text in a soulless, cold software, I am throwing my laptop out the next window.
It's a machine. It needs to communicate information to me. A large part of the AI boom is that we can now pretend that it's not a machine by using enough compute power to probably solve every problem ever, just to say "Of course -- you're so right!".
We made sure to write software so inefficiently and badly that you can barely tell how powerful modern computers are.
Just another little layer, one more branch, one more step between the user and the hardware -- just buy more ram. Buy a better CPU. They now have double the cores, you hear?
Re: The kind of company I want to be a part of
#29There's so, so many different reasons in the real world as to why/how details like that end up in front of the customer. Is OP happy to work for Satan as long as he appears grammatically accurate, polite and concise? Alternatively, OP is a nightmare to work with because every single other role in the company has to do things in exactly the way the engineers want, otherwise they're careless morons.
OP is not being literal. Satire and the interpretation of it are important for a healthy and nuanced world view and discourse.
Sorry, I'm being dumb then. Could you please spell out what I'm supposed to take away from the article? I really can't see any satire in here.
Re: The kind of company I want to be a part of
#30Number "two" in Polish (depending on context): dwa, dwoje, dwie, dwóch, dwiema, dwom, dwojga, dwojgu, dwójka, dwójki, dwójkę, dwójką, dwójce, dwójko So that's just my mother tongue. It think your problem is a bit more complex than (s).
Same argument applies. You, as the developer, always know in what context the text appears. Whether it's "dwa zdjęcia przesłane" or "dodano tagi do dwóch zdjęć".
> You, as the developer, always know
Definetely not "always".