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Technical Excellence Is Not Enough

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Re: Technical Excellence Is Not Enough

#91

Post by eithed »

trentnix wrote: post #53
loevborg wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah that's a painful process, as I know from experience. What do you think is the reason for the gradual shift?

“Truly I tell you,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown." - Luke 4:24 It's why people often trust consultants over the people inside the organization. It's why people often want to elect new leaders even if the current leaders are doing a decent job. The baby almost always gets thrown out with the bath water. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_throw_the_baby_out_with_...

I find this hilarious given that I've experienced it from both viewpoints - 1. consultant implemented their half baked solution that continued to bite us for my tenure and imo was completely unmaintainable; how were they able to convince leadership about their ideas - sometimes it's just snake oil 2. In new place am preaching certain things to people that do listen and seem to want to do it - it makes me a bit uncomfortable and to a degree scary in how easily you can find acolytes. They do validate my suggestions, ask questions and most importantly - think, so I am hopeful that I won't turn out to be a false prophet

Re: Technical Excellence Is Not Enough

#92

Post by MrJohz »

watwut wrote: post #63
MrJohz wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, a lot of the examples made me think "wait, there's something else going on there, right?", which would make sense if the author has difficulty communicating or negotiating their proposals. In the first example, for example, they suggested a new metric to track added warnings in the build, and then there was a disagreement in the team, and then as a footnote someone went and fixed the warnings anyway? That sound…

> In the first example, for example, they suggested a new metric to track added warnings in the build, and then there was a disagreement in the team, and then as a footnote someone went and fixed the warnings anyway? That sounds like the author might be missing something from their story. I do not find anything missing here. This is how things often plays out in reality. Both your retelling of it and what was actuall…

I'm referencing the footnote where the author says that the discussion caused one team member to go and fix the issue. The warnings causing a production issue is, I think, a complete hypothetical.

What this story is missing is an explanation for why people were disagreeing. Like, why is someone not looking at warnings? Is it that the warnings are less important than the author understands? Is it that the warnings come from something that the team have little control over? And the solution the author suggests - would it really have changed anything if they already weren't looking at warnings? The author writes as if their proposal would have fixed things, but that's not really clear to me, because it's basically just a view into whether the problem is getting worse, which can be ignored just as easily as the problem itself.

Re: Technical Excellence Is Not Enough

#93

Post by eithed »

loevborg wrote: post #8
eithed wrote: post #5

I worked for 7 years in a place where my technical insight slowly turned into questioning my decisions and expertise (this was after being 3 years in tech lead and 2 years in staff engineer role). Sometimes the solution is just to walk away

Yeah that's a painful process, as I know from experience. What do you think is the reason for the gradual shift?

The prevalent pattern I can see is making things mundane. Capabilities that you are enabling are no longer something that only you could do, was you expertise there at all? Things running smoothly is something that is granted. Doing your job well becomes unexceptional

Re: Technical Excellence Is Not Enough

#94

Post by trentnix »

eithed wrote: post #91
trentnix wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Truly I tell you,” he continued, “no prophet is accepted in his hometown." - Luke 4:24 It's why people often trust consultants over the people inside the organization. It's why people often want to elect new leaders even if the current leaders are doing a decent job. The baby almost always gets thrown out with the bath water. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_throw_the_baby_out_with_...

I find this hilarious given that I've experienced it from both viewpoints - 1. consultant implemented their half baked solution that continued to bite us for my tenure and imo was completely unmaintainable; how were they able to convince leadership about their ideas - sometimes it's just snake oil 2. In new place am preaching certain things to people that do listen and seem to want to do it - it makes me a bit uncomf…

I've also played both roles myself at times. I've been the wise consultant. And I've been the Cassandra that nobody would listen to. My wisdom was never as good as presumed when I was the consultant. And my wisdom was far better than was assumed when I as the Cassandra.

Re: Technical Excellence Is Not Enough

#95

Post by watwut »

MrJohz wrote: post #92
watwut wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In the first example, for example, they suggested a new metric to track added warnings in the build, and then there was a disagreement in the team, and then as a footnote someone went and fixed the warnings anyway? That sounds like the author might be missing something from their story. I do not find anything missing here. This is how things often plays out in reality. Both your retelling of it and what was actuall…

I'm referencing the footnote where the author says that the discussion caused one team member to go and fix the issue. The warnings causing a production issue is, I think, a complete hypothetical. What this story is missing is an explanation for why people were disagreeing. Like, why is someone not looking at warnings? Is it that the warnings are less important than the author understands? Is it that the warnings com…

Someone hacked his site or something, so I cant get back. But, I thought you mean situation in one of the first paragraphs where the team started take some issue seriously after actual problem.

And honestly, I have seen people disagree and fight literal standard changes like "lets have pipeline that runs tests before merge" or "database change must go through test environment before being sent over".

It is perfertly possible and normal for people to fight change and be wrong without there being grave smart missing reason. I have no problem to m trust the author that he was simply right in hindsight.

If you ever tried to improve processes or project with persistent issues, the problems author described are entirely believable. The author does not know what to do in that situation, but he described the usual dynamic pretty accurately.

Re: Technical Excellence Is Not Enough

#97

Post by medi8r »

dogleash wrote: post #65
medi8r wrote: post #3

Ouch I don't want to work there! It seems extreme. A decent place to work let's you do your thing. There will be guardrails. But my current job my boss has never told me not to do something. Getting the time to do it is another story and there are solutions. Sometimes picking the battle and lettung it go. Sometimes driving a decision and agreement. But if you do that people like it. And I work somewhere pretty well m…

> my current job my boss has never told me not to do something. Getting the time to do it is another story I’m confused. The polite way to say no at work is to make it about not having time.

Yeah the other story I refer to isn't using time as an excuse to block architectural improvements though. We get time for both new features and tech debt.

But if your idea blows out the quarter it had bettet be game changing!

Re: Technical Excellence Is Not Enough

#98

Post by armchairhacker »

sgarland wrote: post #89
grey-area wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree on Vonnegut. Most human authors at least have a voice, even if you don't like it it's recognisable and theirs, and I would rarely think to criticise that, it makes the writing come alive. If you truly write like an LLM (there is little evidence here of that) it would not be the same. LLMs serve up a sort of bland pap with sugary highs of excitement which resembles a cross between manic advertising copy and…

I don't disagree with your take on what how LLM copy is awful; I just disagree that this was written by an LLM. For example, this paragraph at the end: > If you're in this position (relied upon, validated, powerless), you're not imagining it. And it's not a communication problem. "Just communicate better" is the advice equivalent of "have you tried not being depressed?" I've seen "you're not imagining it" countless t…

Your comments don't read like LLM-slop to me.

An occasional "it's not X, it's Y", rule of three, or em-dash isn't atypical nor intrinsically bad writing. LLM-slop stands out because of the frequency of those and other subliminal cues. And LLM-slop is bad writing, at least to me, because:

- It's not unique (like how generic art is bad compared to distinct artstyles)

- It's faux-authentic ("how do you do, fellow kids?")

- It's extremely shallow in information. Phrases like "here's the kicker" and "let that sink in" are wasted words

- The meaning is "fuzzy". It's hard to describe, but connotations and figurative language are "off" (inconsistent to the larger idea? Like they were picked randomly from a subset of acceptable candidates...); so I can't get information from them, and it's hard to form in my mind what the LLM is trying to convey (perhaps because the words didn't come from a human mind)

- It doesn't always have good organization: some parts seem to go on and on, high-level ideas drift, and occasionally previous points are contradicted. But I suspect a plan+write process would significantly reduce these issues

Re: Technical Excellence Is Not Enough

#100

Post by BobbyTables2 »

MrJohz wrote: post #37
james_marks wrote: post #18

I find OP's communication style abrasive and off-putting, which tracks with them saying they've been coached on this, and found that advice lacking. Maybe it's still insufficient advice, but it hasn't worked for them at least in part because they haven't figured out how to apply it. From the post, I see low empathy and an air of superiority, (perhaps earned by genuinely being smarter than their peers-- doesn't make i…

Yeah, a lot of the examples made me think "wait, there's something else going on there, right?", which would make sense if the author has difficulty communicating or negotiating their proposals. In the first example, for example, they suggested a new metric to track added warnings in the build, and then there was a disagreement in the team, and then as a footnote someone went and fixed the warnings anyway? That sound…

IRL I’ve seen similar discussions devolve into an hour long bike shedding meeting about how to define thresholds for warnings, track new ones, etc.

Before the end, I had them all fixed. Zero is far easier to deal with…

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