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> Moreover the sort of engineers who pay down more than their fair share of legitimate tech debt are invariably the ones who complain about it the least. Oh re

by jibal 8y ago

> Moreover the sort of engineers who pay down more than their fair share of legitimate tech debt are invariably the ones who complain about it the least. Oh really? I recently contracted with an industrial firm where most of the programming staff copy and paste at the drop of the hat and have no idea what DRY is, and think that technical debt and refactoring are some fancy university CS theory that "practical" programmers like them have no use for. I explained to the manager at some length the development and maintenance costs of the massive technical debt of their 30 year old code base, while at the same time I tried to reduce it a bit with every submit.

repolfx 8y ago
Good for you :) I think your situation sounds a bit different, where the manager either isn't very technical or isn't technical enough. Otherwise they'd be able to see the problem for themselves. What I'm talking about are employees who have managers who understand the value of refactoring. What I find is that the people who get stuck in and most unambiguously improve hairy bits of the code (with full support of management) are usually not the ones who complain loudly and publicly about tech debt. Speaking as a manager for a sec here, what I'd watch out for in your case is to not be seen too much as a complainer. Rather than say "this codebase is shit why does nobody care" look at it as, "hey guys! why not come to my interesting 10 minute lightning talk on my favourite refactoring technique" and maybe don't phrase it as about tech debt if they aren't responsive to that kind of analogy. Managers in particular probably know their codebase is shit even if they aren't very technical, but labelling things as "tech debt" is always tricky because it's entirely possible that the debt was created by colleagues or those very same managers themselves, and whilst financial debt is well defined and measurable, tech debt is just an analogy. They may not even agree that any given bit of code is a problem.
- jibal 8y ago
  > I think your situation sounds a bit different Even if so, that's not relevant; you said that people like me "invariably" don't exist. > where the manager either isn't very technical or isn't technical enough. Otherwise they'd be able to see the problem for themselves. No, that's entirely wrong. As I clearly stated, it's the programming staff who can't see the problem. They are the people who never complain about technical debt while also never reducing it, contrary to your statement. That's the point, and your "good for you" is point-missingly dismissive. > Speaking as a manager for a sec here Just don't; I've been developing software since 1965 and I don't need your lectures (which are based on a complete lack of knowledge and erroneous assumptions about the software manager at that firm and my relationship and interactions with him), I simply pointed out that your sweeping generalization about who reduces technical debt and who points it out is erroneous. That's all. Period. The end. I won't respond further.

by jibal 8y ago

repolfx 8y ago

Good for you :) I think your situation sounds a bit different, where the manager either isn't very technical or isn't technical enough. Otherwise they'd be able to see the problem for themselves. What I'm talking about are employees who have managers who understand the value of refactoring. What I find is that the people who get stuck in and most unambiguously improve hairy bits of the code (with full support of management) are usually not the ones who complain loudly and publicly about tech debt. Speaking as a manager for a sec here, what I'd watch out for in your case is to not be seen too much as a complainer. Rather than say "this codebase is shit why does nobody care" look at it as, "hey guys! why not come to my interesting 10 minute lightning talk on my favourite refactoring technique" and maybe don't phrase it as about tech debt if they aren't responsive to that kind of analogy. Managers in particular probably know their codebase is shit even if they aren't very technical, but labelling things as "tech debt" is always tricky because it's entirely possible that the debt was created by colleagues or those very same managers themselves, and whilst financial debt is well defined and measurable, tech debt is just an analogy. They may not even agree that any given bit of code is a problem.

jibal 8y ago
> I think your situation sounds a bit different Even if so, that's not relevant; you said that people like me "invariably" don't exist. > where the manager either isn't very technical or isn't technical enough. Otherwise they'd be able to see the problem for themselves. No, that's entirely wrong. As I clearly stated, it's the programming staff who can't see the problem. They are the people who never complain about technical debt while also never reducing it, contrary to your statement. That's the point, and your "good for you" is point-missingly dismissive. > Speaking as a manager for a sec here Just don't; I've been developing software since 1965 and I don't need your lectures (which are based on a complete lack of knowledge and erroneous assumptions about the software manager at that firm and my relationship and interactions with him), I simply pointed out that your sweeping generalization about who reduces technical debt and who points it out is erroneous. That's all. Period. The end. I won't respond further.