3 ms·

In some cases, sure, it's not the fault of engineers — if an engineer is in an environment where they're not able to take the time to do things right. In some

In some cases, sure, it's not the fault of engineers — if an engineer is in an environment where they're not able to take the time to do things right. In some cases, it is the lack of tools. But I think it's often not either of those, and it is in fact the chosen priorities of the engineers. A lack of attention to craft. We see a similar split in GameDev. Some game developers (Carmack, Blow, Acton) sweat every millisecond and byte and cache hit. If you work on engines in AAA, that's a job requirement. Others are happy to use Unity (etc), never optimize, and don't mind that their simple 2d platformer is bloated and wastes cycles. But many simply don't care — why spend time cutting down on bloat and waste when the game plays well enough. I see plenty of engineers who have a "it works, ship it" mentality. To me, that's not the attitude of someone who cares about their craft.

goldenchrome 8y ago
To many people, programming isn't a craft. It's just a way to get things done.
- arbie 8y ago
  It's a combination of the tooling getting better, and expectations/parceling for a product solidifying at a higher level in the org chart. "Engineers" are devolving into technicians as a result.
mLuby 8y ago
I see plenty of engineers who would love to keep polishing their work far after PMs and other stakeholders have decided it's good enough to ship. Some even do it after hours.
reidjs 8y ago
I think a lot of people program at work purely for monetary reasons. For this reason they follow the “it works, ship it” mentality because then they can focus on other tasks to make money from. If a sluggish program makes a million dollars but a beautifully written program makes 0, which shows more better craftsmanship? Admittedly that’s an unrealistic situation, but people have different motivations for coding.
C1sc0cat 8y ago
I am afraid that a lot of web devs don't care about speed at all they just use the trendy frame work. This is from direct experience working with many major brands to improve their sites - its not improving at all.

goldenchrome 8y ago

To many people, programming isn't a craft. It's just a way to get things done.

arbie 8y ago
It's a combination of the tooling getting better, and expectations/parceling for a product solidifying at a higher level in the org chart. "Engineers" are devolving into technicians as a result.

mLuby 8y ago

I see plenty of engineers who would love to keep polishing their work far after PMs and other stakeholders have decided it's good enough to ship. Some even do it after hours.

reidjs 8y ago

I think a lot of people program at work purely for monetary reasons. For this reason they follow the “it works, ship it” mentality because then they can focus on other tasks to make money from. If a sluggish program makes a million dollars but a beautifully written program makes 0, which shows more better craftsmanship? Admittedly that’s an unrealistic situation, but people have different motivations for coding.

C1sc0cat 8y ago

I am afraid that a lot of web devs don't care about speed at all they just use the trendy frame work. This is from direct experience working with many major brands to improve their sites - its not improving at all.