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-2000 Lines of Code (2007)

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Re: -2000 Lines of Code (2007)

#71

Post by drchickensalad »

threatripper wrote: post #40
solumunus wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How can it be a KPI if it doesn’t measure performance?

If you type faster you get more LOC. If you slack off all day you get zero. It does measure something, not necessary something useful but zero LOC indicates trouble.

That's such a limited view which creates terrible incentives.

If you work insanely hard solving a problem, you often end up with 0 loc + an incredible amount of understanding. If you slack off all day then spend an hour writing a bunch of sloppy code, you have way more loc than someone who worked all day to refine some simple clear performant code (which is then read 500 times before it's changed, hence the time is earned back with interest).

These scenarios don't have to happen for the disincentive to still affect the work people do; there's a continuous problem from the baseline to these extremes.

Re: -2000 Lines of Code (2007)

#72

Post by prettyStandard »

veidelis wrote: post #58
hinkley wrote: post #20

Gave myself RSI deleting On the plus side I replaced an O(n²) algorithm with a faster one in the very next commit. Needed to get rid of the ninety copies of the same bad idiom first.

Not much of an achievement, but I once deleted a 45k line Jest snapshot test for a React component that basically asserted that a div is rendered.

Maybe you are being sarcastic...

Or you've completely missed the point of the article/story. The point is lines of code are almost meaningless. In this story the person saved 2k lines of code by rewriting a rendering engine, and use somehow think that's less than deleting a 45 k line jest snapshot.

Re: -2000 Lines of Code (2007)

#73

Post by mananaysiempre »

Taniwha wrote: post #38

The real story here is that sometimes you start a project and don't really know exactly where you're going, as you get into it you start to understand both the problem and the answer you want much better - and then yes, you can rip a chunk out and replace it with something smaller and better And don't forget, these guys had to fit everything, including those -2000 lines of code (assembler code) into 64kbytes of ROM -…

QuickDraw is mostly written in Pascal with critical loops in assembly[1,2]. I’m also not sure if it’s in actually in ROM or on the boot floppy. (Incidentally, Wikipedia tells me the Lisa’s ROM was 16K.)

[1] https://computerhistory.org/blog/the-lisa-apples-most-influe...

[2] https://computerhistory.org/blog/macpaint-and-quickdraw-sour...

Re: -2000 Lines of Code (2007)

#74

Post by khazhoux »

ResearchCode wrote: post #65
khazhoux wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Standup. Daily meetings where teams talk about their blockers and so forth.

If six months of daily meetings did not lead anywhere then cancel those meetings.

Many teams have short daily gatherings — especially now that so many teams are fully distributed, it’s good for everyone to come together like that.

But while every team member talks about the difficult bugs they’re facing, sometimes the actual code tells a different story and can reveal that a team member is struggling to get working code together in any reasonable amount of time.

Re: -2000 Lines of Code (2007)

#75

Post by eloisant »

quelltext wrote: post #14
chii wrote: post #5

> they stopped asking Bill to fill out the form which is only possible because he's so important. imagine doing this as a stack-ranked IC in an org like AWS. The old days of a software as an artisanal craft is long over imho.

I'm by no means important in my org but when something appears like a shitty idea I will raise that (like other ICs around me) and more often than not it works out fine. I'll agree to give something a shot but if it doesn't work it doesn't work and my managers so far have all realized that a bit into the trial period. Reading comments like yours, I guess I should value my work environment more.

It's not about speaking up on a shitty idea, it's about not playing the game on a tool used to measure employee performance. That's a big difference.

Especially because here we're talking about someone whose performance and contributions were very clear to everyone. Otherwise, he might have been seen like an underperformer by managers.

Re: -2000 Lines of Code (2007)

#77

Post by mangamadaiyan »

richrichie wrote: post #46
bickeringyokel wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotally, I have not found much correlation between age and management style. I have had bad managers of all ages! I have had one good manager though, and it's pretty obvious what made them great. First is they listen to what problems you have and actually help you do your best work. Secondly, they protect you from the other bad leaders at the company. Thirdly, they work too hard.

Work too hard?

GP probably meant to type "they too work hard", I guess?

Re: -2000 Lines of Code (2007)

#78

Post by pooper »

richrichie wrote: post #46
bickeringyokel wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotally, I have not found much correlation between age and management style. I have had bad managers of all ages! I have had one good manager though, and it's pretty obvious what made them great. First is they listen to what problems you have and actually help you do your best work. Secondly, they protect you from the other bad leaders at the company. Thirdly, they work too hard.

Work too hard?

Maybe that is a relative thing? As in the norm is bad managers delegating everything to a fault, so a good manager by comparison works too hard?

Or maybe it is an availability thing? My personal experience is I'm much more motivated to work If my manager is highly available from early morning to late evening.

Re: -2000 Lines of Code (2007)

#79

Post by [deleted] »

chii wrote: post #5

> they stopped asking Bill to fill out the form which is only possible because he's so important. imagine doing this as a stack-ranked IC in an org like AWS. The old days of a software as an artisanal craft is long over imho.

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