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You've only added two lines – why did that take two days?

mrlacey.com

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Re: You've only added two lines – why did that take two days?

#291

Post by CGamesPlay »

pkilgore wrote: post #140
mring33621 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, very much like the time I replaced a getfakedata() method with a getrealdata() method and then management complained that it was much slower now.

After this (and a few emergent race bugs), I started burying the equivalent of setTimeout(() => getFakeData(), 1500) in my similar code. Best part is, I'm almost certain to beat 1500, so I've gotten compliments that it "feels snappier".

This is sound advice from both technical and nontechnical perspectives. I like to use this middleware in node to inject semi-realistic delays in my mock data: https://github.com/boo1ean/express-delay

Re: You've only added two lines – why did that take two days?

#293

Post by aahhahahaaa »

caymanjim wrote: post #31

A variant of this that has driven me to quit more than one job is having a non-technical manager look at a UI prototype and consider that 90% of the solution. "The UI guys had this page ready two months ago! Why doesn't this work yet?" It's even worse when you present a working prototype. They simply don't understand that the backend functionality is what's doing the bulk of the work, and just because you can see som…

Yes! I stopped building working prototypes because of this misconception.

Re: You've only added two lines – why did that take two days?

#294

Post by dorkwood »

Jtsummers wrote: post #244
tardismechanic wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that's on them and you are absolutely 100% free to leave. Not if you are on an H1B visa ;-)

Well, that gets to my other lesson: Save money aggressively so I'm not beholden to any employer. It's harder when you're taking care of a family on one income (and not making FAANG money), but I saved aggressively when I was young and single. I never actually had to use that option, but I was in a position where I could have lived (as a single healthy guy with no debt) for 4-5 years without needing a paycheck. I woul…

> My main mistake was putting too much in my 401k

Can you expand on this? I recently moved to the US and people keep telling me to get a 401k, but I haven't yet.

Re: You've only added two lines – why did that take two days?

#295

Post by thayne »

ftio wrote: post #89
caymanjim wrote: post #31

A variant of this that has driven me to quit more than one job is having a non-technical manager look at a UI prototype and consider that 90% of the solution. "The UI guys had this page ready two months ago! Why doesn't this work yet?" It's even worse when you present a working prototype. They simply don't understand that the backend functionality is what's doing the bulk of the work, and just because you can see som…

Early in my career, I learned a simple 'demo day' rule: never demo things that aren't end-to-end done. When you do, it can easily confuse folks who aren't deeply involved in your project ("haven't I seen this already?") and can hurt team morale because they never get a "shipped it" moment that feels good. More to the point: enforcing this rule incentivizes teams to build things in small, shippable components. Nobody…

Or intentionally show them the rough edges. "Oh, oops it can't handle that input yet, let me try with something that does work."

Re: You've only added two lines – why did that take two days?

#297

Post by Izkata »

dorkwood wrote: post #294
Jtsummers wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, that gets to my other lesson: Save money aggressively so I'm not beholden to any employer. It's harder when you're taking care of a family on one income (and not making FAANG money), but I saved aggressively when I was young and single. I never actually had to use that option, but I was in a position where I could have lived (as a single healthy guy with no debt) for 4-5 years without needing a paycheck. I woul…

> My main mistake was putting too much in my 401k Can you expand on this? I recently moved to the US and people keep telling me to get a 401k, but I haven't yet.

A 401k is specifically a retirement account - you pay an extra 10% for withdrawing from it before age 59.5, which should add context to the rest of their paragraph.

Re: You've only added two lines – why did that take two days?

#298

Post by ianamartin »

caymanjim wrote: post #31

A variant of this that has driven me to quit more than one job is having a non-technical manager look at a UI prototype and consider that 90% of the solution. "The UI guys had this page ready two months ago! Why doesn't this work yet?" It's even worse when you present a working prototype. They simply don't understand that the backend functionality is what's doing the bulk of the work, and just because you can see som…

Best policy I've figured out as a developer dealing with product teams is demo everything in a command line until the backend actually works.

No chance for suckass product guys to push if they can't understand what's going on.

Re: You've only added two lines – why did that take two days?

#300

Post by Izkata »

MBCook wrote: post #231
caymanjim wrote: post #31

A variant of this that has driven me to quit more than one job is having a non-technical manager look at a UI prototype and consider that 90% of the solution. "The UI guys had this page ready two months ago! Why doesn't this work yet?" It's even worse when you present a working prototype. They simply don't understand that the backend functionality is what's doing the bulk of the work, and just because you can see som…

We had a hard and fast rule at my last job. ALL demos were either 100% real, or were mock-ups from Balsamiq. If it looked like someone doodled it on paper we didn’t have to worry it would be taken as working. We came to this rule after far too many incidents where some sort of mock up (Photoshop, HTML, whatever) was shown and taken as done. Then we got the questions (possibly unhappily) about where it was and when it…

Our non-technical stakeholders are almost guaranteed to have some minor design thing they jump on, so our equivalent was to show them only things that were functionally done, no matter how un-polished. That way they were the ones blocking any release.
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