4 ms·

> It is said that flask doesn't try to suggest any particular structure for your project, but I would say that the effect of that the majority of the time is to

> It is said that flask doesn't try to suggest any particular structure for your project, but I would say that the effect of that the majority of the time is to produce a project with no structure. Don't blame Flask, blame whoever hired mediocre developers in your company. No framework that "enforces" things will compensate for bad human capital.

BigJono 9y ago
I'm not sure why you're getting down-voted. You're (mostly) right. Though it tends not to be a black and white decision. More of a sliding scale between how badly you want shit done and how much you're willing to sacrifice for that. 10 programmers with an ultra-opinionated library will get more work done than 2 good ones with proper tools for the job. They'll get the finished product fairly close to as good for a fraction of the cost. Almost every business is time constrained in some way. Sometimes you have to make a conscious decision to hire people that are just "good enough" and write "good enough" code. Sometimes you just don't have a choice in the matter if the talent market is sparse.
- flavio81 9y ago
  > 10 programmers with an ultra-opinionated library will get more work done than 2 good ones with proper tools for the job Maybe. But if the "2 good ones" cost less than 5 times the rate-per-hour than the so-called "mediocre" ones, i'd hire the good ones without hesitation. And in real life, it is that way, at least here the rph factor is 3x at most, usually 2x. This topic it's worth a HN thread of its own, really.
  - BigJono 9y ago
    Oh don't get me wrong, I'd hire the good ones in a heartbeat. I was just saying I can see why managers like the strategy of going with something like Django then hiring a bunch of cheap "Django" programmers to whip up a CRUD app.
rsj_hn 9y ago
Are we in lake Woebegone, where all developers are above average? Odds are, your company is going to hire mediocre developers. Odds are, you are a mediocre developer. An average or mediocre developer is not bad human capital. It's the only kind of human capital you can reasonably expect to have access to.
- flavio81 9y ago
  I am the one who hires devs at my workplace. Have recruited for years. I would never call my devs "mediocre". If they were, I was to blame. I guess i live in lake Woebegone, according to you.
  - rsj_hn 9y ago
    Yes, I think so. There is nothing wrong with cheerleading (we are better than the competition). But there is something wrong with drinking your own kool-aid. Then again, you might have all above average programmers working for you -- it's certainly possible to arrange that if your engineering department is very small, and for one instance in time. But the odds of that diminish very rapidly as your company becomes more successful and the size of your engineering department grows. And the idea that no one at your company is mediocre is just crazy. I've seen a lot of start ups, and all of them had some below average people, not to mention mediocre people -- even the very good start ups. Moreover, if you do have good people then your company will grow, possibly rapidly, at which point it's pretty much impossible to beat the market long term -- e.g. to consistently have above average developers while at the same time growing in size. Of course that doesn't stop everyone from saying they are above average, just like every kid needs a trophy and a good grade. But if you are really responsible for engineering, you will be focused on building an architecture and processes that work well for average people and that can be resilient to even below average people, because you either have them on your team now or will have them in the future, whether you like it or not.
ris 9y ago
You can't just pretend these people don't exist. The bulk of the developer population are what could be called mediocre. Heck, I'd class myself as fairly mediocre. You will end up working with these people or inheriting a project that was started by one of then sooner or later.

BigJono 9y ago

I'm not sure why you're getting down-voted. You're (mostly) right. Though it tends not to be a black and white decision. More of a sliding scale between how badly you want shit done and how much you're willing to sacrifice for that. 10 programmers with an ultra-opinionated library will get more work done than 2 good ones with proper tools for the job. They'll get the finished product fairly close to as good for a fraction of the cost. Almost every business is time constrained in some way. Sometimes you have to make a conscious decision to hire people that are just "good enough" and write "good enough" code. Sometimes you just don't have a choice in the matter if the talent market is sparse.

flavio81 9y ago
> 10 programmers with an ultra-opinionated library will get more work done than 2 good ones with proper tools for the job Maybe. But if the "2 good ones" cost less than 5 times the rate-per-hour than the so-called "mediocre" ones, i'd hire the good ones without hesitation. And in real life, it is that way, at least here the rph factor is 3x at most, usually 2x. This topic it's worth a HN thread of its own, really.
- BigJono 9y ago
  Oh don't get me wrong, I'd hire the good ones in a heartbeat. I was just saying I can see why managers like the strategy of going with something like Django then hiring a bunch of cheap "Django" programmers to whip up a CRUD app.

rsj_hn 9y ago

Are we in lake Woebegone, where all developers are above average? Odds are, your company is going to hire mediocre developers. Odds are, you are a mediocre developer. An average or mediocre developer is not bad human capital. It's the only kind of human capital you can reasonably expect to have access to.

flavio81 9y ago
I am the one who hires devs at my workplace. Have recruited for years. I would never call my devs "mediocre". If they were, I was to blame. I guess i live in lake Woebegone, according to you.
- rsj_hn 9y ago
  Yes, I think so. There is nothing wrong with cheerleading (we are better than the competition). But there is something wrong with drinking your own kool-aid. Then again, you might have all above average programmers working for you -- it's certainly possible to arrange that if your engineering department is very small, and for one instance in time. But the odds of that diminish very rapidly as your company becomes more successful and the size of your engineering department grows. And the idea that no one at your company is mediocre is just crazy. I've seen a lot of start ups, and all of them had some below average people, not to mention mediocre people -- even the very good start ups. Moreover, if you do have good people then your company will grow, possibly rapidly, at which point it's pretty much impossible to beat the market long term -- e.g. to consistently have above average developers while at the same time growing in size. Of course that doesn't stop everyone from saying they are above average, just like every kid needs a trophy and a good grade. But if you are really responsible for engineering, you will be focused on building an architecture and processes that work well for average people and that can be resilient to even below average people, because you either have them on your team now or will have them in the future, whether you like it or not.

ris 9y ago

You can't just pretend these people don't exist. The bulk of the developer population are what could be called mediocre. Heck, I'd class myself as fairly mediocre. You will end up working with these people or inheriting a project that was started by one of then sooner or later.