At what point we, as an industry, failed to mandate a level of technical education for being a manager? Almost always the non technical people who can't think beyond quarterly profits and their resumes are the biggest problem of this industry.
You've only added two lines – why did that take two days?
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Re: You've only added two lines – why did that take two days?
#412At what point we, as an industry, failed to mandate a level of technical education for being a manager? Almost always the non technical people who can't think beyond quarterly profits and their resumes are the biggest problem of this industry.
What industry requires a relevant 'practitioner' education for being a manager?
Re: You've only added two lines – why did that take two days?
#413Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 reminds me of the infamous Speed-Up Loop. https://thedailywtf.com/articles/The-Speedup-Loop
And this reminds me about another story, I can't find the link but it was something like this:
A game developer was making a game for PlayStation and they were over their memory limit. They were approaching a deadline but couldn't remove anything else from the game to fit it in memory (or disk, I can't remember). So a senior dev came by, changes the code in 1 minute and everything could fit into memory now.
The thing was that at the start of each project, he had declared a variable of 2mb that does nothing, so when every optimisation has been done and it still doesn't fit, he could just remove that variable and free up some more space.
It was also his way of insurance.
Re: You've only added two lines – why did that take two days?
#414> You've only added two lines – why did that take two days?
If this is hard for them to understand, the confused look when you reveal a change was a net removal of lines/statements must be amusing!
> Because the issue was reported with a vague description of how to recreate it
This is something my current management fully understands, but I wish we could get through to our clients. Short of being actively rude about bad requests I've run out of ideas over the years. Luckily these days we are big enough that I usually have a bit of a shield (provided first line support people and BAs who I trust) between me and direct client contact.
I'm quick to put tickets on hold as "needs more information", and been around long enough that I've developed the confidence to respond to "this is urgent, there is an SLA" with "and that service level agreement covers a minimum level of reporting from you before even an urgent matter can be progressed" or more facetiously "then it is urgent that you furnish me with the information requested", but while they accept it each time they never learn to give better details up-front next time - we still get reports of "an error" or something "not working" or, even worse, the open-ended question "is there a problem with...?".
Obviously this can't be applied to truly urgent issues, but they are usually massive problems that we are already aware of and working on before the client contacts us because, for instance, we've had an alert that something is down (sometimes we tell the client about an issue and resolution ETA before they notice, which they seem pleasantly surprised by and thankful of).
Re: You've only added two lines – why did that take two days?
#415"My point today is that, if we wish to count lines of code, we should not regard them as “lines produced” but as “lines spent”: the current conventional wisdom is so foolish as to book that count on the wrong side of the ledger." ~ Edsger Dijkstra
I'm sure Dijkstra could get away with saying that, but how would you phrase something equivalent to someone above you in the food chain without getting nuked from orbit in response? I can just see how the conversation would go: PHB: You've only added two lines - why did that take two days! Dev: Because it took that long to understand the requirements, understand the code, find the root cause, write a test to verify t…
Yea, but then you see two idiots spend countless weeks “perfecting” things that don’t matter. Shipping matters. Customers don’t care about the fires behind the scenes, they care about bouncy pixels. The PHB meme has to die.
Re: You've only added two lines – why did that take two days?
#416Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. The industry moves at a snail's pace, and is very different from what you'd read on HN. A huge % of dev jobs are still using old software/processes, with managers that haven't written software in 20 years, if at all. In 2014 I worked at a company that switched to Git and then started measuring LoC to assess performance/involvement. Engineers took to committing/removing things like node_modules directories to mak…
This reminds me of a story from my first job. The business I worked at was a typical office, like the one you saw in Office Space. Departments had their own TV screens on the wall that showed performance of individuals in a department; the sales department had a screen that showed who was making the most sales that day. After we'd pretty much finished working on the web apps that supported these TV screens, the CEO m…
Why do you submit? Can't stand your ground?
Re: You've only added two lines – why did that take two days?
#417A 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…
I was on a call and the client said they wanted something added to a UI. So I very quickly used MS Paint to mock it up... Just so I could clarify that is what they wanted.I shared my screen and someone said "great, you've done it!". Even though I was clearly showing a screen that showed me editing a screenshot of the UI, in MS paint... MS Paint. sigh , they don't tell you in University that the biggest skill you will…
You could have said: yes, button is done; but do you also need functionality if it gets pressed?
Re: You've only added two lines – why did that take two days?
#418Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. The industry moves at a snail's pace, and is very different from what you'd read on HN. A huge % of dev jobs are still using old software/processes, with managers that haven't written software in 20 years, if at all. In 2014 I worked at a company that switched to Git and then started measuring LoC to assess performance/involvement. Engineers took to committing/removing things like node_modules directories to mak…
> Yes. The industry moves at a snail's pace, and is very different from what you'd read on HN. A huge % of dev jobs are still using old software/processes, with managers that haven't written software in 20 years, if at all. Spot on. Talented engineers can usually be picky and change job if they don't like the environment, but not everyone has this option. There's plenty of developers who are stuck in shitty companies…
15 years of experience isn’t good when you’ve done the first year 15 times
Re: You've only added two lines – why did that take two days?
#419Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s better to find ways to make more money than to save it. There’s a floor but no ceiling in much of what we do.
If your revenue can grow exponentially, that's probably the right priority. Most companies aren't like that though. Know your company! Also consider if you can run out of money before growth kicks in...
Also know your reporting metrics. Increasing revenue is growth, which capitalism jerks off over. Profits, not so much.
Re: You've only added two lines – why did that take two days?
#420Earlier quoted context omitted.
Today I gave advice to wifes friend friend. Who wants to build something "like ebay or amazon". (but cannot programm and wants to contract) Well, after a while they understood, there is a small difference, between a website - and a virtual market place. Seriously, it is easy to forget, that for most people, all these technical things - is just dark magic in a black box. Which sometimes work and sometimes won't. And I…
I find it useful to tell people around how many engineers that company has. They won't understand why, but they may understand that they don't understand. I also point out when a requested feature actually exists as a whole company.
What do you mean 1 part time IT guy can't run our entire SaaS product? It is just a few clicks on AWS to get it up and running.