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A guide for how to talk to a developer
- holografix 8y agoDjango - “a style sheet language that extends from CSS” what blasphemy!
- Jeremy1026 8y ago"Django is a free and open-source web framework, written in Python, which follows the model-view-template architectural pattern. It is maintained by the Django Software Foundation, an independent organization established as a 501 non-profit. Django's primary goal is to ease the creation of complex, database-driven websites." The flashcard is uhh, close?
- yetihehe 8y agoIt looks like it's just several flash cards to help managers talk like Pointy Haired Boss from Dilbert.
- piefayth 8y agoIt is. And it should be titled as such. The current title calls it a "guide", which is misleading.
- positr0n 8y agoSome of these are just wrong. "Django" is not "A style sheet language that extends from CSS."
- some_account 8y agoNow you ruined the fun of some boss trying to say he understands Django :(
- gone35 8y agoAnd an API is not quite "A set of rules that developers follow to create software that can interact with an external system or application" [emphasis added]... (Gives the impression of a design pattern or something, IMO) This is awful.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- booleandilemma 8y agoIf you’re a manager of developers and you need these cards to tell you what some of these things are (database, stack...) you probably shouldn’t be managing developers.
- throwaway2016a 8y agoRather than memorize a bunch of flash cards it seems much easier to just talk to them like humans and if they say something you don't understand don't be embarrassed to ask them what it means.
- mfoy_ 8y agoI know non-technical people who, when they think they are hearing anything remotely technical, seem to shut down and go into "I don't know technical stuff!" mode... Not that flashcards are going to cure _that_.
- thorell 8y agoI think you're right. I also know technical people who obscure gaps in their own knowledge with jargon. So clarifying questions that might expose the gap are responded to with increasingly technical rambling. Bad habits all around, feeding off each other.
- watwut 8y agoIncreasingly technical rambling is good. What I hate is when techies start to imply that whoever they talk with is an idiot after they reach limit of their knowledge. That tactic is used surprisingly often. It makes people scared to ask and passive.
- IshKebab 8y agoNo he means increasingly technical rambling that is also meant to obscure the fact that they don't know the answer. Definitely not good.
- LyndsySimon 8y agoTrue, but one-sentence explanations can be helpful for managers and PMs that aren't familiar with the specific tech stack to get up to speed quickly. I don't think this is a bad idea per se, but I do think that it's got a long way to go before it's really useful (or even correct).
- ElliotH 8y agoSurely as developers we should be able to reduce or explain our use of jargon for the person we're speaking to, rather than the rest of the world having to learn our industry-specific language?
- zaccus 8y agoI try not to use any jargon at all when communicating to non-dev stakeholders, and they still complain about jargon. Words like "server" or "database" are not jargon. There are literally no other words to use for those things. And if you don't want to hear any technical-sounding words at all, then don't ask technical questions. Or better yet, don't work at a tech company.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- tbirrell 8y agoThis is as condescending as it is wrong.
- psetq 8y agoIMO, being wrong makes for the most amusing condescension. This website is excellent in that regard, but otherwise remarkably wrong!
- Hasz 8y agoThis is painful. If, as an employee you're so engrossed in technical jargon that you can't explain it at an understandable and reasonable level to a competent adult, there's a problem. Likewise, as a manager, you memorized some flashcards and now "understand" enough to throw around some buzzwords and jargon, that's going to have it's own set of problems. Talk like a human, ask questions, and don't be an idiot.
- acconrad 8y agoThe UI is pretty, but that's about it. How about you just talk to a developer like a regular person? Don't understand what an API is? Just ask them. Great folks love explaining things to others, and if you're not a developer yourself, it's not too stupid of a question to ask (or simply Google it).
- kyberias 8y agoFirst there was mansplaining, now there's devsplaining.
- mosselman 8y ago‘Mansplaining’ “You Keep Using That Word, I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means” More clearly. I don’t think you know what mansplaining means.
- kyberias 8y ago> More clearly. I don’t think you know what mansplaining means. That is unnecessarily hostile comment. I don't care what you think. I know what it means and you have exactly zero reason to publicly doubt that.
- alxlaz 8y ago1. Is this for real? 2. Here are exactly two things that you need to memorize in order to make this sort of talk productive: a) I don't know what X is, sorry. Can you tell me what that is/Can you explain to me what it does? b) I'm not sure I follow. I thought X is [...]/does [...], what am I missing? 3. Did anyone who actually knows what these things mean review these definitions? E.g: Vanilla: "Plain or basic, often used in reference to coding languages or other computing-related systems that remain unmodified from their original form." There's nothing plain or basic about the vanilla Linux kernel. What makes it vanilla is the absence of distribution- and/or vendor-specific patches that are not in mainline. API: "A set of rules that developers follow to create software that can interact with an external system or application." This sort of matches what an API is in web land, if you squint a little. If someone were to ask me what that definition describes, "API" is about the last thing I'd say. Django: "A style sheet language that extends from CSS." Last time I wrote web-related code, my girlfriend dragged me to see The Aviator twice because it was all the rage, and I haven't really kept up, but I could swear Django is not a language and that it doesn't extend from CSS, whatever that means.
- LyndsySimon 8y ago> API Yeah, I'd say an API is the interface that you expose so that other developers or systems can interact with your project. That can be over HTTP if it's a web service, but it can also be the interface that you expose from a library that's intended to be used by other developers. Python's Requests is based around the idea of exposing a better API than the stdlib's to manage HTTP requests. Win32 is an API, and so is Cocoa. > Django Uh... generally speaking, Django is a Python web framework. It has its own templating language, but I don't recall any facility specific to CSS. That one is just weird.
- iaml 8y ago>This sort of matches what an API is in web land, if you squint a little. If someone were to ask me what that definition describes, "API" is about the last thing I'd say. I struggle with defining simple things like this, and I think what author offers is a good generic way to define API. This definition includes any actual way I can imagine one can get (programmatic) access to generic service that does not belong to them. I would really like to know how you would define it though.
- rhapsodic 8y agoIf you look past the poorly-thought-out title, this page is actually a good information resource for non-technical people.
- deft 8y agoIf it was cleaned up a bit sure. The title totally ruins it... how elitist can tech people get? Go study this glossary of terms THEN you can talk to me.
- sulam 8y agoExcept for the part where a bunch of the definitions are wrong, misleading, or woefully incomplete.
- rhapsodic 8y ago>Except for the part where a bunch of the definitions are wrong, misleading, or woefully incomplete. Examples?
- sulam 8y agoHave you read this thread? I personally stumbled hard on the definition for Firebase ("essentially equivalent to AWS" -- I might be paraphrasing slightly since it's been a day).
- glax 8y agoJust No. It doesnt't even feel human. It's like throwing bunch of things at the developers and will give out output. It's upper management version of random button smashing.
- Animats 8y agoThe "computer science" terms are funny. That's not computer science, that's web project development. "Agile - A adapted method of project management in which tasks are divided into short phases, and plans are regularly revisited and modified in response to new information." What does "adapted" mean in this context, anyway?
- joslin01 8y agoShoot, well if this is the way the world works, I better get some flash cards to talk as a doctor/mechanic/craftsmen/anything-else before I even think of talking to them. The horror of asking what something means is too much!
- LyndsySimon 8y agoI sent them a message offering to review their definitions. There's a lot that are incorrect, but complaining about it doesn't solve anything :)
- jspash 8y agoThis is quite funny. Not the website itself, but the comments on here. And it proves the point so well! The website in question is a seemingly obviously quick project that someone whipped up quickly on the hatchapps website. But almost all of the responses here seem to think it's a serious project, taking it at face value. And therein lies (one of) the problem(s) in talking with developers. We (developers) assume what you (the customer) said is what you meant, but it rarely is.