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How to write stuff no one else can

thewritetoroam.com

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Re: How to write stuff no one else can

#81

Post by vik0 »

ildjarn wrote: post #80
febeling wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What changed with boot camps?

It’s the shift of perception from technology being “geek stuff” to a lucrative field on par with finance, medicine and law. Before, someone who knew a bit of programming was likely to be passionate and with high potential. Now they may still be, but also they may just a way to get rich quick.

But the vast majority of people who go to programming bootcamps don't get rich quickly, or rich at all. Same with most people in the world who practice medicine or law

Or did you mean to convey that people who go to boot camps think it's a way to get rich quick? Your wording is a bit confusing toward the end there

Re: How to write stuff no one else can

#82

Post by travisjungroth »

tirthvora wrote: post #67

To double down on one of the points a bit, its well observed and accepted that the CEO or senior authorities get all the attention, even in politics; But there's always the less-known team behind it that did most of the work. They don't get the credits because they couldn't take the RISKS, that the senior folks did. Senior positions come with its associated risk and stakes, and not everyone has the guts to tackle tha…

> Senior positions come with its associated risk and stakes

Strong doubt on the risks part. Sure, for founders. But for executives at established companies, the more senior you are the less risk you have. Severances get larger, firing rates get lower, and you probably have more cash in the bank.

Re: How to write stuff no one else can

#83

Post by shakow »

vik0 wrote: post #81
ildjarn wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s the shift of perception from technology being “geek stuff” to a lucrative field on par with finance, medicine and law. Before, someone who knew a bit of programming was likely to be passionate and with high potential. Now they may still be, but also they may just a way to get rich quick.

But the vast majority of people who go to programming bootcamps don't get rich quickly, or rich at all. Same with most people in the world who practice medicine or law Or did you mean to convey that people who go to boot camps think it's a way to get rich quick? Your wording is a bit confusing toward the end there

I think he means that ‶guy who knows to code″ used to be a statistically strong marker of ‶tinkering guys with a potential″, which is less true now that IT is now socially internationally perceived as a high-reward career, hence a one where people may go either because they like it, or just because they want to make stacks.

Re: How to write stuff no one else can

#84

Post by mordae »

tirthvora wrote: post #67

To double down on one of the points a bit, its well observed and accepted that the CEO or senior authorities get all the attention, even in politics; But there's always the less-known team behind it that did most of the work. They don't get the credits because they couldn't take the RISKS, that the senior folks did. Senior positions come with its associated risk and stakes, and not everyone has the guts to tackle tha…

Nobody asks them and I've seen attempts to prevent assistants of members of Parliament running as candidates. They have the know-how and the moat is pretty narrow so the acting politicians felt the need to widen it somewhat.

Re: How to write stuff no one else can

#85

Post by vegetablepotpie »

Aurornis wrote: post #45
austin-cheney wrote: post #44

The article misses something super critical: why? . More specifically why a key few hires can change the trajectory of a company. The answer almost always comes down to one word and applies companies of any size: leadership . Leadership is a concept largely foreign to the software industry for two reasons. * Most software developers are never exposed to strong personalities and have no idea what strong leadership loo…

> Leadership is a concept largely foreign to the software industry Maybe in the companies you’ve worked for, but I haven’t found this to be true at all > An excellent software developer tends to score high in agreeability, but a strong leader knows how to turn that down to 0 for maximum confrontation and/or defiance Hard disagree. “Maximum confrontation and/or defiance” has never been a goal of good leaders who are t…

I can see where you’re coming from and I have some more context to add, which can be helpful.

This phrase:

> a strong leader knows how to turn that down to 0 for maximum confrontation and/or defiance

Feels like something uttered by a cocaine snorting MBA who gets high off creating hostile work environments and enjoys firing people.

I’ve been in environments where everyone is agreeable because they have to be agreeable. They are agreeable to a fault. These environments have a banal toxicity that is hard to pin down, but it shows when there is disagreement. These orgs value agreement above all else, above performance, above achieving goals. They suppress valuable insight because it is uncomfortable to them. FUD is a great rhetorical strategy that I’ve see used to squelch conversation, thinly veiled appeals to authority is another. This breeds complacency and destroys value.

We have a management class in the west that believes that management can be a mechanistic exercise of gathering metrics, assessing performance, and assigning corrective actions. That it can both be systematized and abstracted away from the work is a core assumption of western management. This is a paint by numbers approach, similar to Searle's Chinese room, and works to take the leadership out of management.

You’re right that most of the time the best choice for your business and customers is to choose the boring, stable technology that works. Avoid the rewrite, don’t use the hottest new frameworks, or languages that are in vogue.

Experience shows generally to dismiss developer desires for novelty. But sometimes you do need a novel solution and your developers are the ones who are going to tell you. You will not figure this out by following the rules taught in management school. Metrics like CPI and SPI are only going to tell you that you’ve made the wrong choice on your project when it’s too late. You need to make a decision, which means seeking out information and making the best decision based on the information you can get. This takes leadership.

The best programmers I know have strong opinions. They will tell you that you are wrong. They do this to learn both to test themselves and the people around them. If they are wrong, the withdraw, then more on. It’s the most healthy thing I’ve seen and is actually what builds success.

Disagreement is healthy and good and should be encouraged, when the goal is knowledge gathering. A leader who is turning agreement to zero is a leader who wants to be decisive.

Re: How to write stuff no one else can

#86

Post by austin-cheney »

vegetablepotpie wrote: post #85
Aurornis wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Leadership is a concept largely foreign to the software industry Maybe in the companies you’ve worked for, but I haven’t found this to be true at all > An excellent software developer tends to score high in agreeability, but a strong leader knows how to turn that down to 0 for maximum confrontation and/or defiance Hard disagree. “Maximum confrontation and/or defiance” has never been a goal of good leaders who are t…

I can see where you’re coming from and I have some more context to add, which can be helpful. This phrase: > a strong leader knows how to turn that down to 0 for maximum confrontation and/or defiance Feels like something uttered by a cocaine snorting MBA who gets high off creating hostile work environments and enjoys firing people. I’ve been in environments where everyone is agreeable because they have to be agreeabl…

Feels like

Stop the madness. It does not matter how things feel. It matters how things are measured, which includes employee retention and delivery and product quality. Most of the comments here loudly scream none of these people have been in management.

The one big difference between a leader and a contributor is ownership. Everyone here has danced around the idea of ownership without addressing it. Unless you have owned liability in a managerial capacity it doesn’t matter how things feel, because your perspective is too narrowly construed.

Disagreement, when voiced, is a form of confrontation. It is healthy. Healthy teams are brutally honest. Most of software absolutely abhors confrontation.

Re: How to write stuff no one else can

#87

Post by austin-cheney »

ephemeral-life wrote: post #73
austin-cheney wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Competence at what? Avoiding strong personalities purely for the sake easing hostility sounds a lot like cowardice. A better course of action is conflict resolution.

> Competence at what? There is a class of people who believe leadership is something you can learn on its own. These are the people who join all the useless commitees for resume building purposes. Leadership only has value when paired with significant knowledge in some domain. > Avoiding strong personalities purely for the sake easing hostility sounds a lot like cowardice. Cowardice is when you avoid something, becau…

> Cowardice is when you avoid something, because of fear. GP is talking about avoiding people who will annoy you.

That sounds like autism. Avoidance for what ever imaginary reason your creative mind can conjure is still cowardice. The excuses only fool yourself. Other people will see it as they choose.

Re: How to write stuff no one else can

#88

Post by whstl »

Aurornis wrote: post #45
austin-cheney wrote: post #44

The article misses something super critical: why? . More specifically why a key few hires can change the trajectory of a company. The answer almost always comes down to one word and applies companies of any size: leadership . Leadership is a concept largely foreign to the software industry for two reasons. * Most software developers are never exposed to strong personalities and have no idea what strong leadership loo…

> Leadership is a concept largely foreign to the software industry Maybe in the companies you’ve worked for, but I haven’t found this to be true at all > An excellent software developer tends to score high in agreeability, but a strong leader knows how to turn that down to 0 for maximum confrontation and/or defiance Hard disagree. “Maximum confrontation and/or defiance” has never been a goal of good leaders who are t…

> Encouraging “maximum confrontation” is just going to create chaos. The goal is to work together to ship, not to argue and defy all the time. I can’t think of anyone who would want to work on a team where everyone had agreeableness dialed down to 0 where leaders encouraged confrontation all the time, except maybe for people who just like to argue a lot.

To "turn that down to 0" doesn't mean operating 100% of the time in non-agreeable mode. It also doesn't mean doing that only with your team. It also doesn't mean encouraging people to do it. It's just that sometimes you gotta put your foot down.

You jumped to another extreme, but the whole point is just that both extremes are problematic. An always 100%-agreeable leader needs a lot of luck to succeed.

Re: How to write stuff no one else can

#89

Post by danbruc »

Tangent. I understand the appeal of a four hour work week but how can people take that seriously? You will either have to have a pretty unappealing standard of living or you will have to exploit other people. If you only work four hours per week, then you can only consume as much as can be produced in four hours each week. But I guess people mostly hope to make the exploitation strategy work, manage to only produce something for four hours per week but consume stuff that took others forty hours to produce.

Re: How to write stuff no one else can

#90

Post by f1shy »

travisjungroth wrote: post #82
tirthvora wrote: post #67

To double down on one of the points a bit, its well observed and accepted that the CEO or senior authorities get all the attention, even in politics; But there's always the less-known team behind it that did most of the work. They don't get the credits because they couldn't take the RISKS, that the senior folks did. Senior positions come with its associated risk and stakes, and not everyone has the guts to tackle tha…

> Senior positions come with its associated risk and stakes Strong doubt on the risks part. Sure, for founders. But for executives at established companies, the more senior you are the less risk you have. Severances get larger, firing rates get lower, and you probably have more cash in the bank.

AND if you get fired you go to destroy the next company... They always have work.
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