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But nobody wants a “fast-paced environment”

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Re: But nobody wants a “fast-paced environment”

#41

Post by Stormbringer »

sid0 wrote: post #40
Stormbringer wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although normally the Agile evangelists are whacked out wierdos, one of them did say something useful to me recently. He said that "all coding is change". This is simple, trite and deeply profound. All coding is change. Either you're building something new (change) or you're fixing a bug (change) or you're adding a feature (change). The whole rhetoric about programmers who don't like other programmers being 'afraid o…

While it is simple and trite, how is it profound? All human activity is change by that definition.

Because in IT we somehow have tricked ourselves into thinking that change is undesirable.

Re: But nobody wants a “fast-paced environment”

#43

Post by ChuckMcM »

Its like the other phrase I dislike "Rockstar programmers". Now my idea of "rock stars" is that they are temperamental, have low self confidence, and spend 90% of their time complaining. I've met, and occasionally worked with, programmers that fit that particular shoe and frankly I wouldn't try to recruit them.

I am sure the HR/Recruiter is trying to convey a sense of urgency that keeps you at the top of your game, but I agree with most of the comments that companies that create their own urgency by not planning is the more common occurrence.

Re: But nobody wants a “fast-paced environment”

#44

Post by JulianMorrison »

chrisaycock wrote: post #20
JulianMorrison wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, I haven't got a minute. Can I let it sink in for 30 seconds, and get back to you?

The manager was admitting to doing something that he knew was inefficient. He ultimately knew that multitasking was the worst practice, but he chose to do it anyway. There's ignorance, and then there's willfully choosing to do wrong. Edit: This was at an investment bank, in the proprietary trading group. There are no customers or deadlines. So we (should) only work on something we believe will make money.

In such a situation I think all tasks should be globally sorted (according to business-determined weighting) by the metrics:

- how much do we expect to gain if we do it

- how much do we expect to lose if we don't

- how much (black swan worst case) might we lose if we don't

- how easy is it

and then programmers should just pick off the top of list, updating the tasks metrics if they subjectively change.

That way there are multiple tasks queued but only one in play, and context switching happens when a task changes importance.

Re: But nobody wants a “fast-paced environment”

#45

Post by isleyaardvark »

sid0 wrote: post #40
Stormbringer wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although normally the Agile evangelists are whacked out wierdos, one of them did say something useful to me recently. He said that "all coding is change". This is simple, trite and deeply profound. All coding is change. Either you're building something new (change) or you're fixing a bug (change) or you're adding a feature (change). The whole rhetoric about programmers who don't like other programmers being 'afraid o…

While it is simple and trite, how is it profound? All human activity is change by that definition.

I don't know about that. Consider someone working in a sandwich shop. Once you learn how to make the different sandwiches, you just keep making the sandwiches every day. Or a job as a taster at a distillery. You make sure the whiskey doesn't vary in taste. While it may be an enjoyable activity, there's only occasionally something new.

Whereas with coding virtually everything is something new. In coding if you run into the same thing over and over again, you use a reusable component or automate it. You build the equivalent of a sandwich-making machine or whiskey-tasting machine and move on to the next thing.

Re: But nobody wants a “fast-paced environment”

#46

Post by cema »

yannickmahe wrote: post #17

I moved from an extremely fast-paced environment to a well balanced, well managed software shop. I regret that choice a lot. While I do have now work/life balance, sleep longer nights and never do any overtime, I can't help but feel I'm not even close to the productive levels I had before. I loved being pushed to my limit, constantly having to come up with new solutions to new problems, etc. On the plus side, I now h…

Well I guess in a fast paced environment you are pushed and in a balanced environment you pace yourself. We are adults not cogs.

Re: But nobody wants a “fast-paced environment”

#47

Post by praptak »

Stormbringer wrote: post #41
sid0 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While it is simple and trite, how is it profound? All human activity is change by that definition.

Because in IT we somehow have tricked ourselves into thinking that change is undesirable.

Really? I read quite a lot opinions (articles, blog posts, comments) from IT people and haven't really found anyone expressing such a blanket statement.

Even the complaints about spec changes are seldom about changes per se, but rather about the impedance mismatch between the changes and an inflexible process.

Re: But nobody wants a “fast-paced environment”

#49

Post by ern »

cydonian_monk wrote: post #23
PaulHoule wrote: post #2

There is a sort of stress that comes from a "slow-paced environment" where you've got a 50% or less duty cycle of doing real work because you're always waiting for somebody else to do something. Too little work can be just as stressful as too much.

Especially when your employer watches your every move every second you're in their building. Cameras, remote desktops on every PC, services that track what files you open and when, keyloggers, et cetera. Not having enough work in such a paranoid environment where you get griped at for doing anything outside of your responsibilities or for not being in the building exactly eight hours a day can be a living hell. But t…

I'm in a situation like that currently, but in an open plan office, with a manager sitting behind me keeping me in line.

And since our bug tracker is linked to timesheets, things like refactoring don't happen anymore, unless linked to a specific feature/bug (developers can't create these). The nett effect is that things that used to take me 2 hours now take 8 hours, so I can fill the day. Parkinson's law is not a joke.

Re: But nobody wants a “fast-paced environment”

#50

Post by bad_user »

edw519 wrote: post #27

"fast-paced environment" says more about the people than the environment... Let's say, for example, that your environment changes at rate "10". If you normally move at rate "7", this environment would seem fast-paced to you. But if you're accustomed to moving at rate "15", you wouldn't even consider it to be fast-paced. In my experience, what most junior and enterprise programmers would consider "fast-paced" would se…

I work in a fast-paced environment for a project.

You know what fast-paced is - ideas thrown at you that invalidate your previous architecture once every 2 weeks. And I don't know how you can get any more fast-paced than that.

If I hadn't enough experience to make the architecture flexible enough or to do unit-tests or to choose the right moment to start from scratch, I would probably go mad.

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