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Ship Something Every Day

maxleiter.com

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Re: Ship Something Every Day

#61

Post by karmarepellent »

userbinator wrote: post #5

IMHO "every day" is far too frequent, and this ADHD-ish attitude is one of the reasons why the quality of average software has gone down the drain. Developers need to step back, think more deeply, and not worry about being pressured into "shipping code" that barely works. The dopamine rush of your code being shipped This frequent overstimulation leads to less ability for long-term attention. When I taught programming…

Actually I first thought this person was joking in their blog post. As you already mentioned almost every piece of advice in there is related to how to look good in others eyes.

I would not dare interpreting too much into it but I do not think this is how you achieve satisfaction in your job. In fact I get anxious just thinking about me sitting there and being "oh my, I have not committed in an hour, people must be thinking I'm slacking".

On another note I also think much more goes into what makes a good commit than frequency. It's a topic that has already been widely discussed a lot and will continue to be discussed in the future.

Edit: I suppose this sentiment may also be one of the reasons why I'm increasingly reluctant to work with Gitlab. Their UI changes multiple times per year and I have yet to encounter a UI change that I would actually call an improvement. I value some level of stability in software that is being used by all our developers throughout the day. But someone seems to think their customers need to "see things changing" or they will stop paying for licences.

Re: Ship Something Every Day

#62

Post by dailykoder »

MaxLeiter wrote: post #60
dailykoder wrote: post #53

>Your git commit streak looks good Do people unironically care about this shit? What the fuck man. Stop it. Now.

Do I care? No Does my manager? No, but what if they leave and I have a new manager right before performance reviews? I’d hope they don’t care about it, but I assume they’ll see it. May as well make it look nice. Does the random recruiter looking at your resume care? At some point in your career you might be able to afford to not care about this. Most people don’t have that luxury.

I wouldn't want to work for a company where the manager cares about green pixels tbh. But maybe I have that luxury you are talking about, I don't know

Re: Ship Something Every Day

#63

Post by MaxLeiter »

dailykoder wrote: post #62
MaxLeiter wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do I care? No Does my manager? No, but what if they leave and I have a new manager right before performance reviews? I’d hope they don’t care about it, but I assume they’ll see it. May as well make it look nice. Does the random recruiter looking at your resume care? At some point in your career you might be able to afford to not care about this. Most people don’t have that luxury.

I wouldn't want to work for a company where the manager cares about green pixels tbh. But maybe I have that luxury you are talking about, I don't know

Me neither. But companies (and people) aren’t perfect. Your situation can change any day.

Re: Ship Something Every Day

#64

Post by moring »

chipdart wrote: post #57
userbinator wrote: post #5

IMHO "every day" is far too frequent, and this ADHD-ish attitude is one of the reasons why the quality of average software has gone down the drain. Developers need to step back, think more deeply, and not worry about being pressured into "shipping code" that barely works. The dopamine rush of your code being shipped This frequent overstimulation leads to less ability for long-term attention. When I taught programming…

> IMHO "every day" is far too frequent, and this ADHD-ish attitude is one of the reasons why the quality of average software has gone down the drain. I think you are too quick to try to claim someone is incompetent or unsuited for a job just because you can't or won't understand a point they make over how many commits they make. I disagree with you: I think that posting at least one commit per day is an incredible lo…

> This has nothing to do with streaks or dopamine rushes or pleasing managers. This is about getting stuff done. To me, a developer who can't figure out ways to be productive by contributing tiny commits spread over time is a developer who is wasting space in a team.

This totally discounts any work that does not result in commits, such as requirements analysis, legacy code analysis, or code that results in insights but won't be merged.

But then, anyone who knows how incredibly valuable such work is will likely not want to argue whether they are "wasting space in a team" either, and leave on their part when confronted with such claims.

Re: Ship Something Every Day

#65

Post by Tade0 »

__0x01 wrote: post #56

My final draft is often completely different to my first draft, which I wouldn’t want to ship. Most of the time I only start to see the real shape of the solution after a few days of work. Those iterations each day have value as they propel me toward a solution. But it’s more of an internal type of shipping. I’m shipping to myself.

Same here. Every damn time it's only my third idea that is sufficiently correct and maintainable. Unfortunately that means I need to sit and wait before it comes to me.

I could go the analytical road and write down all the requirements, edge cases and just tick them off one bu one but that's throughly exhausting.

At work more often than not I settle on the second iteration, but that is still slow by some people's standards and incurs tech debt.

Re: Ship Something Every Day

#66

Post by BoorishBears »

moring wrote: post #64
chipdart wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> IMHO "every day" is far too frequent, and this ADHD-ish attitude is one of the reasons why the quality of average software has gone down the drain. I think you are too quick to try to claim someone is incompetent or unsuited for a job just because you can't or won't understand a point they make over how many commits they make. I disagree with you: I think that posting at least one commit per day is an incredible lo…

> This has nothing to do with streaks or dopamine rushes or pleasing managers. This is about getting stuff done. To me, a developer who can't figure out ways to be productive by contributing tiny commits spread over time is a developer who is wasting space in a team. This totally discounts any work that does not result in commits, such as requirements analysis, legacy code analysis, or code that results in insights b…

If you're regularly unable to make even a single line change as an IC, your team will probably not be at a loss.

Some of my biggest breakthroughs have been far away from a computer, but I can easily understand where the OP is coming from: give yourself a chance to make tangible contribution each day, and maybe it snowballs into something more.

Maybe it doesn't and that's ok, but at least give yourself the chance for it to.

(It also says something to read the OP and not be able to imagine any interpretation other than "they just don't understand how work is done")

Re: Ship Something Every Day

#67

Post by sibeliuss »

chipdart wrote: post #57
userbinator wrote: post #5

IMHO "every day" is far too frequent, and this ADHD-ish attitude is one of the reasons why the quality of average software has gone down the drain. Developers need to step back, think more deeply, and not worry about being pressured into "shipping code" that barely works. The dopamine rush of your code being shipped This frequent overstimulation leads to less ability for long-term attention. When I taught programming…

> IMHO "every day" is far too frequent, and this ADHD-ish attitude is one of the reasons why the quality of average software has gone down the drain. I think you are too quick to try to claim someone is incompetent or unsuited for a job just because you can't or won't understand a point they make over how many commits they make. I disagree with you: I think that posting at least one commit per day is an incredible lo…

This right here is the truth. Yes, there's all the of the other stuff -- "requirements", etc -- but in reality, as an IC, we're here to push code and review code. All of the requirements stuff comes on top of that. (In my experience, the people who aren't pushing or reviewing code are _also_ not doing the other stuff either.)

Remember, commenting on PRs counts as activity. That's PR review -- that's doing something, and potentially a _lot_ of something. Big long stretches of empty space on Github is absolutely a red flag, until you get into the highest levels of IC seniority and are mostly in meetings all day.

It is extremely easy to do nothing at all as a software engineer, when there is so much stuff to do any given day. It's easy to get defensive when faced with such privilege.

Re: Ship Something Every Day

#68

Post by Tade0 »

MaxLeiter wrote: post #60
dailykoder wrote: post #53

>Your git commit streak looks good Do people unironically care about this shit? What the fuck man. Stop it. Now.

Do I care? No Does my manager? No, but what if they leave and I have a new manager right before performance reviews? I’d hope they don’t care about it, but I assume they’ll see it. May as well make it look nice. Does the random recruiter looking at your resume care? At some point in your career you might be able to afford to not care about this. Most people don’t have that luxury.

Pretty sure the first thing that random recruiter is going to do is go "wow, this guy worked at Vercel. Can we even afford him?"

I get that the market is pretty tight at the moment but strong CV positions have always trumped proverbial internet points.

Re: Ship Something Every Day

#69

Post by auggierose »

chipdart wrote: post #57
userbinator wrote: post #5

IMHO "every day" is far too frequent, and this ADHD-ish attitude is one of the reasons why the quality of average software has gone down the drain. Developers need to step back, think more deeply, and not worry about being pressured into "shipping code" that barely works. The dopamine rush of your code being shipped This frequent overstimulation leads to less ability for long-term attention. When I taught programming…

> IMHO "every day" is far too frequent, and this ADHD-ish attitude is one of the reasons why the quality of average software has gone down the drain. I think you are too quick to try to claim someone is incompetent or unsuited for a job just because you can't or won't understand a point they make over how many commits they make. I disagree with you: I think that posting at least one commit per day is an incredible lo…

That almost sounds reasonable!

Except it isn't. This is the reason why software is shitty, and most teams are shitty, too.

I write software because I have a vision in my mind, which I want to achieve. Coding up stuff and trying it out helps a lot, but so do phases of quiet introspection and reflection.

Re: Ship Something Every Day

#70

Post by chipdart »

moring wrote: post #64
chipdart wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> IMHO "every day" is far too frequent, and this ADHD-ish attitude is one of the reasons why the quality of average software has gone down the drain. I think you are too quick to try to claim someone is incompetent or unsuited for a job just because you can't or won't understand a point they make over how many commits they make. I disagree with you: I think that posting at least one commit per day is an incredible lo…

> This has nothing to do with streaks or dopamine rushes or pleasing managers. This is about getting stuff done. To me, a developer who can't figure out ways to be productive by contributing tiny commits spread over time is a developer who is wasting space in a team. This totally discounts any work that does not result in commits, such as requirements analysis, legacy code analysis, or code that results in insights b…

> This totally discounts any work that does not result in commits, such as requirements analysis, legacy code analysis, or code that results in insights but won't be merged.

I don't think it does. My point was not "do this OR that". My point is that posting a commit a day is a goal that's easily achieved if you do professional work. The work it takes you to fix a typo or add a commit is not something you need to plan around, or have to choose in place of doing requirements analysis.

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