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A single line of code cost $8000

pietrasiak.com

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Re: A single line of code cost $8000

#81

Post by hbsbsbsndk »

jarym wrote: post #7

Just amazed that ‘better testing’ isn’t one of the takeaways in the summary. Just amazed. Yea ‘write code carefully’ as if suggesting that’ll fix it is a rookie mistake. So so frustrating when developers treat user machines like their test bed!

I worked on a product where there was basically no automated testing, just a huge product surface to click around with a bunch of options. Because of technical debt some of the options would trigger different code paths, but it was up to the developer to memorize all the code paths and test accordingly.

After I shipped a bug the Director of Engineering told me I should "test better" (by clicking around the app). This was about 1 step away from "just don't write bugs" IMO.

Re: A single line of code cost $8000

#82

Post by indymike »

We just put a header for version in our app, and when we deploy new code the client checks against the version header and upgrades if the version is mismatched. No extra get requests required. Bonus: we just use the last git commit hash as the version. Stupid simple.

Re: A single line of code cost $8000

#83

Post by adrianN »

zveyaeyv3sfye wrote: post #67
karhuton wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be as user friendly as possible, always ask if user wants automatic background updates or not. If you can’t update without user noticing it, please implement manual updates as two mechanisms: 1) Emergency update for remote exploit fixes only 2) Regular updates The emergency update can show a popup, but only once. It should explain the security risk. But allow user to decline, as you should never interrupt work in…

> You have to understand, if user has 30 pieces of software, they have to update every day of the month. That is not a good overall user experience. That's not an user issue tho, it's a "packaging and distribution of updates" issue which coincidentally has been solved for other OS:es using a package manager.

Getting used to changes is not something a package manager can help with.

Re: A single line of code cost $8000

#84

Post by dkdbejwi383 »

moi2388 wrote: post #76

Why on earth are you checking for updates every 5 minutes to begin with?! Seriously this alone makes me question everything about this app.

Probably product owner wants to show off a nice chart at their next meeting showing how quickyl users upgrade, as some kind of proxy metric for "engagement"

Re: A single line of code cost $8000

#85

Post by stevage »

I'm really surprised this could happen. As they note:

> Write your auto-updater code very carefully.

You have to be soooo careful with this stuff. Especially because your auto-updater code can brick your auto-updater.

It looks like they didn't do any testing of their auto update code at all, otherwise they would have caught it immediately.

Re: A single line of code cost $8000

#86

Post by stevage »

spaqin wrote: post #11

I would also put into question if you _really_ need to check for updates every 5 minutes. Once per startup is already enough, and if you're concerned about users who leave it on for days, it could easily be daily or even less often.

It's absolutely way too frequent.

Their users do not care about their screen recording studio anywhere near as much as the devs who wrote it do.

Once a month is probably plenty.

Personally, I disable auto-update on everything wherever possible, because the likelihood of annoying changes is much greater than welcome changes for almost all software I use, in my experience.

Re: A single line of code cost $8000

#87

Post by stevage »

jarym wrote: post #7

Just amazed that ‘better testing’ isn’t one of the takeaways in the summary. Just amazed. Yea ‘write code carefully’ as if suggesting that’ll fix it is a rookie mistake. So so frustrating when developers treat user machines like their test bed!

>Just amazed that ‘better testing’ isn’t one of the takeaways in the summary.

I don't get the impression they did any testing at all.

Re: A single line of code cost $8000

#89

Post by stevage »

hbsbsbsndk wrote: post #81
jarym wrote: post #7

Just amazed that ‘better testing’ isn’t one of the takeaways in the summary. Just amazed. Yea ‘write code carefully’ as if suggesting that’ll fix it is a rookie mistake. So so frustrating when developers treat user machines like their test bed!

I worked on a product where there was basically no automated testing, just a huge product surface to click around with a bunch of options. Because of technical debt some of the options would trigger different code paths, but it was up to the developer to memorize all the code paths and test accordingly. After I shipped a bug the Director of Engineering told me I should "test better" (by clicking around the app). This…

Yep, my first job was at a company like that. Huge Windows desktop app built in Delphi. No automated testing of any kind. No testing scripts either. Just a lot of clicking around.

Re: A single line of code cost $8000

#90

Post by stevage »

fifilura wrote: post #45
jarym wrote: post #7

Just amazed that ‘better testing’ isn’t one of the takeaways in the summary. Just amazed. Yea ‘write code carefully’ as if suggesting that’ll fix it is a rookie mistake. So so frustrating when developers treat user machines like their test bed!

Contrarian approach: $8000 is not a lot in this context. What did the CEO think of this? Most of the time it is just a very small speed bump in the overall finances of the company. Avoidable, unfortunate, but the cost of slowing down development progress e.g. 10% is much higher. But agree that senior gatekeepers should know by heart some places where review needs to be extra careful. Like security pitfalls, exponenti…

I'm sure it cost a lot more than $8000. That was only the direct visible cost to them. There were likely users hit with costs for the additional downloads, who never even knew what was the issue. Users working on a mobile hotspot who had to pay for extra data etc etc.
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