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Professional Corner-Cutting (2016)

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Re: Professional Corner-Cutting (2016)

#71

Post by bee_rider »

I don’t think software is like a cabinet at all. A cabinet is a well-understood thing, the main job of the cabinet craftsman is to implement the existing cabinet idea.

Cabinet makers don’t do sprints because everybody knows what a cabinet is, there isn’t any need to aggressively iterate on the design.

The software equivalent to buying cabinets is buying existing software. You don’t employ a bunch of engineers to install cabinets.

If you went into workshop with a bunch of mechanical engineers and asked “I need you to reinvent the idea of holding plates,” that might take some sprints. It would be a silly thing to do, but it would make the analogy fit.

Re: Professional Corner-Cutting (2016)

#72

Post by afro88 »

skydhash wrote: post #58
afro88 wrote: post #55

> If the technical debt is a problem, 1) we shouldn’t have put it in there I guess it depends on your definition of tech debt, but there are lots of examples of things that aren't tech debt at the time but become tech debt over time. You can make the best decision possible today, but in six months that npm dependency (for example) is still going to be incompatible with that other npm dependency you needed to upgrade,…

> You can make the best decision possible today, but in six months that npm dependency (for example) is still going to be incompatible with that other npm dependency This is a solved problem. You either understand the dependency enough to maintain it yourself, or you firewall it through interfaces. Or you tie yourself to sensible projects that gives you time for upgrade. Or you pay for support. Every decision should…

You do need to understand the pros and cons, and wow there are some incredible time and complexity costs to maintaining all dependencies yourself, or trying to firewall all dependencies through interfaces.

I wasn't talking about blindly doing stuff without understanding consequences and risk managing. I was rebutting the point from the article that you shouldn't ever have tech debt. You will, no matter what choices you make today.

Firewalling all interfaces to dependencies for example can be future tech debt if you need to move fast to stay ahead of competitors, but all the indirection is making development too slow (or causing developers to find other more enjoyable work). Can't imagine working on a React codebase where React is completely abstracted behind our own interfaces to all of it.

Re: Professional Corner-Cutting (2016)

#73

Post by [deleted] »

gofreddygo wrote: post #60
dkarl wrote: post #32

The hook of the article leaves unanswered the question of why Steve Jobs made a big deal out of the backs of cabinets. The answer is that Steve Jobs knew how to sell luxury items to people who identified themselves with the quality of their work, whether they were accomplished creative professionals or cube-dwelling (now coworking) "knowledge workers" or MBAs who take sommelier classes or aspiring writers grinding on…

Article is spot about its topic - tradeoffs. The professionalism is in picking the right corners to cut. Steve's marketing was IMO a whole load of bollocks, like all other marketing. it gets attention now when Apple is a trillion $$$ company, and superficial minds wanting a simple answer attribute it to the most visible thing - Apple's marketing. no one bought Apple products for Apple's marketing or advertising. Its…

[deleted]

Re: Professional Corner-Cutting (2016)

#74

Post by nebula8804 »

matusp wrote: post #61
dkarl wrote: post #32

The hook of the article leaves unanswered the question of why Steve Jobs made a big deal out of the backs of cabinets. The answer is that Steve Jobs knew how to sell luxury items to people who identified themselves with the quality of their work, whether they were accomplished creative professionals or cube-dwelling (now coworking) "knowledge workers" or MBAs who take sommelier classes or aspiring writers grinding on…

It is not about the backs of cabinets. It is about telling your customers how big of a deal the backs of cabinets really are.

The back of Apple cabinets are are actually pretty good even in the Tim Cook era.

[1]: https://www.cultofmac.com/320883/why-samsungs-design-sucks-i...

[2]: https://ioshacker.com/iphone/image-compares-ugly-samsung-bea...

Re: Professional Corner-Cutting (2016)

#75

Post by makeitdouble »

dkarl wrote: post #32

The hook of the article leaves unanswered the question of why Steve Jobs made a big deal out of the backs of cabinets. The answer is that Steve Jobs knew how to sell luxury items to people who identified themselves with the quality of their work, whether they were accomplished creative professionals or cube-dwelling (now coworking) "knowledge workers" or MBAs who take sommelier classes or aspiring writers grinding on…

It's in the link on the relevant bit [0]. TLDR: his dad built stuff, including as a hobby, and he liked overengineering. He liked he dad very much and also got on board with overengineering.

[0] http://thenextweb.com/apple/2011/10/24/steve-jobs-obsession-...

Re: Professional Corner-Cutting (2016)

#76

Post by [deleted] »

nebula8804 wrote: post #74
matusp wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not about the backs of cabinets. It is about telling your customers how big of a deal the backs of cabinets really are.

The back of Apple cabinets are are actually pretty good even in the Tim Cook era. [1]: https://www.cultofmac.com/320883/why-samsungs-design-sucks-i... [2]: https://ioshacker.com/iphone/image-compares-ugly-samsung-bea...

[deleted]

Re: Professional Corner-Cutting (2016)

#77

Post by strken »

justin_oaks wrote: post #20

> If the technical debt is a problem, 1) we shouldn’t have put it in there, and 2) we should include it in our estimates and address it. Yes. Don't tell your boss that you'll need to take time to address technical debt. The boss will always say "No don't do that, just add the feature". Sometimes they add "We'll fix that later." Later never happens and eliminating related technical debt is part of implementing the fea…

The name "tech debt" has always been a bit of a misnomer. Financial debt does come with interest, but it's structured, proportionate, and you can just go pay it off with sufficient money. Tech debt is unpredictable, needs a lot of context to comprehend, needs even more to fix, is subject to the mythical man month, and taints everything else it touches in your product. It can be worth accepting such a structural flaw into your product, for a time, but it's certainly not like asking for an extension of credit.

It's a struggle to come up with a better name, though.

Re: Professional Corner-Cutting (2016)

#78

Post by Aeolun »

YZF wrote: post #70
speed_spread wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its up to the engineers to factor in maintenance work as part of their estimates. Business people assume perfect software and react badly when confronted with the messiness of software development. Also, Facebook being a real business is questionable.

Meta's market cap is 1.2T, it has $60B cash, revenue 143B a quarter... Not a real business? I mean maybe the original team in FB should have made sure they didn't accumulate technical debt and FB having failed would be a better outcome for shareholders. Engineers need to give the business the options. Not unilaterally decide that they're not going to accumulate technical debt. That's my point. And trust me, business…

I don’t think biz is in any position to decide that. They can tell us when something needs to be delivered by, and we can decide which corners need to be cut to achieve that.

Re: Professional Corner-Cutting (2016)

#79

Post by bee_rider »

nebula8804 wrote: post #74
matusp wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not about the backs of cabinets. It is about telling your customers how big of a deal the backs of cabinets really are.

The back of Apple cabinets are are actually pretty good even in the Tim Cook era. [1]: https://www.cultofmac.com/320883/why-samsungs-design-sucks-i... [2]: https://ioshacker.com/iphone/image-compares-ugly-samsung-bea...

The first is not really the back of the cabinet, it is more like the design on the front.

The second… more like the back of the cabinet maybe. Although the better style there might also be somewhat functional; the internals are clearly quite different, one could imagine that the nice packaging in the Apple case might be a result of only wanting people to use approved parts.

Re: Professional Corner-Cutting (2016)

#80

Post by manmal »

skydhash wrote: post #43
ilaksh wrote: post #18

Oftentimes managers will make demands that interfere with ownership of the code. Such as requiring something to be finished in half the time it would take to do it without technical debt. Over and over and over again. I have had a lot of clients like this. It's very common especially for lower budget projects. You can literally cut corners you don't really want to or just get replaced by someone who does. They will o…

More often than not, you have n > 1 implementation solutions possibles. The article said to factor the constraints into the choice of solutions, not the solution itself. Like if it would take 6 months to implement a backend, but just 1 month with Firebase, and time is a more important than data ownership, you go with Firebase. Then you prepare a plan if you ever need to migrate off Firebase. If you don't have time to…

Absolutely agree. Relevant here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_management_triangle
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