4 ms·

I'm an outsider to these kind of processes: how is a 3rd party marketing tool added to a site at a BigCo? I'm still fairly certain it involves developers, who,

by pmlnr 7y ago

I'm an outsider to these kind of processes: how is a 3rd party marketing tool added to a site at a BigCo? I'm still fairly certain it involves developers, who, in theory, should have pre- and post- number on performance, visits, etc. Or am I delusional?

luckylion 7y ago
I believe the point is that developers don't have a say in whether some 3rd party lib gets added. Some PM gets a lunch with a vendor, they are being sold on the miraculous technology that will totally disrupt everything and that's that.
- guggle 7y ago
  > I believe the point is that developers don't have a say in whether some 3rd party lib gets added And even more so with tools like tagmanager... not only you have no say, you also don't know. And one day the site breaks or is too slow to be useful and someone puts the blame on you.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
  They do have a say, they just value keeping their jobs more than doing the right thing. That isn't ridiculous, but they need to stop blaming everyone else (who are essentially doing the same thing) for the problem as though they aren't contributing.
  - luckylion 7y ago
    With that understanding of "having a say", you're having a say in being kidnapped, too. "Hey, you could've fought the guy with the gun... you just valued your life more than doing the right thing". It's not a useful definition imho. It's not that there aren't any developers contributing to the problem, those building the fat 3rd-party scripts definitely are (though they're likely under different constraints), but the argument for "you're contributing if you don't use your credentials to secretly edit out the javascript that loads that tool and get fired" is pretty far out there, I think.
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
      Honestly you can't see the difference between being held at gunpoint and voluntary employment? It's not like web developers are working low-skill jobs for minimum wage and scraping by here.
      - luckylion 7y ago
        I see the difference, I just don't believe it's a reasonable argument. You don't make a difference if you quit over performance issues, your personal position has no weight in the decision-making process, you have no say in the matter. Yes, you can make the argument that "well nobody actually has the power to decide, they are all being forced by something", but it gets very weird quite quickly when you're looking at the people making the decisions. Whenever it gets into "but is there actually such a thing as free will" territory, I feel like the usefulness of the definitions used isn't there.
        AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
        > your personal position has no weight in the decision-making process, you have no say in the matter. Not on an individual level, no, but collectively it could. I'm not advocating that webdevs organize to boycott companies bloating things because it isn't really that big a deal, but if we imagine the ethical situation were much more important then that's how they could go about changing the situation. Of course, it's much easier to pretend that they have no option at all than to admit that, compared to being slightly less well off, it really isn't that big a deal to them. It lets them virtue-signal that they care without accepting any blame for the situation, while also conveniently allowing them to point the finger at their mortal enemies in marketing. Nevermind that marketing needs to put food on the table too.
        luckylion 7y ago
        That's generalized to the point of uselessness, isn't it? "You're contributing to imperialist wars" - "No, I'm not" - "well, not personally, but if everybody on earth stood together and said no, nobody would be going to war". You're very right that marketing needs to put food on the table too, that's what I hinted at regarding being forced. There's a very clear difference though, in deciding what to do (marketing) and not deciding what to do (devs, at least those where they aren't involved in the decision, which is a lot). Whoever is in charge could very much make a different choice in this particular manner, a developer getting a task cannot. What a marketing person can't do, similarly, is say that they won't do their job. How they do their job is mostly up to them, just as the developer tends to be free in choosing how they get that 3rd-party-lib into the site, as long as they do it.
tiborsaas 7y ago
> I'm still fairly certain it involves developers It doesn't. Once you have Google Tag Manager added, the marketing team can add scrips as they like on an admin interface. Point, click, murder.

by pmlnr 7y ago

luckylion 7y ago

I believe the point is that developers don't have a say in whether some 3rd party lib gets added. Some PM gets a lunch with a vendor, they are being sold on the miraculous technology that will totally disrupt everything and that's that.

guggle 7y ago
> I believe the point is that developers don't have a say in whether some 3rd party lib gets added And even more so with tools like tagmanager... not only you have no say, you also don't know. And one day the site breaks or is too slow to be useful and someone puts the blame on you.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
They do have a say, they just value keeping their jobs more than doing the right thing. That isn't ridiculous, but they need to stop blaming everyone else (who are essentially doing the same thing) for the problem as though they aren't contributing.
- luckylion 7y ago
  With that understanding of "having a say", you're having a say in being kidnapped, too. "Hey, you could've fought the guy with the gun... you just valued your life more than doing the right thing". It's not a useful definition imho. It's not that there aren't any developers contributing to the problem, those building the fat 3rd-party scripts definitely are (though they're likely under different constraints), but the argument for "you're contributing if you don't use your credentials to secretly edit out the javascript that loads that tool and get fired" is pretty far out there, I think.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
    Honestly you can't see the difference between being held at gunpoint and voluntary employment? It's not like web developers are working low-skill jobs for minimum wage and scraping by here.
    - luckylion 7y ago
      I see the difference, I just don't believe it's a reasonable argument. You don't make a difference if you quit over performance issues, your personal position has no weight in the decision-making process, you have no say in the matter. Yes, you can make the argument that "well nobody actually has the power to decide, they are all being forced by something", but it gets very weird quite quickly when you're looking at the people making the decisions. Whenever it gets into "but is there actually such a thing as free will" territory, I feel like the usefulness of the definitions used isn't there.
      - AnIdiotOnTheNet 7y ago
        > your personal position has no weight in the decision-making process, you have no say in the matter. Not on an individual level, no, but collectively it could. I'm not advocating that webdevs organize to boycott companies bloating things because it isn't really that big a deal, but if we imagine the ethical situation were much more important then that's how they could go about changing the situation. Of course, it's much easier to pretend that they have no option at all than to admit that, compared to being slightly less well off, it really isn't that big a deal to them. It lets them virtue-signal that they care without accepting any blame for the situation, while also conveniently allowing them to point the finger at their mortal enemies in marketing. Nevermind that marketing needs to put food on the table too.
        luckylion 7y ago
        That's generalized to the point of uselessness, isn't it? "You're contributing to imperialist wars" - "No, I'm not" - "well, not personally, but if everybody on earth stood together and said no, nobody would be going to war". You're very right that marketing needs to put food on the table too, that's what I hinted at regarding being forced. There's a very clear difference though, in deciding what to do (marketing) and not deciding what to do (devs, at least those where they aren't involved in the decision, which is a lot). Whoever is in charge could very much make a different choice in this particular manner, a developer getting a task cannot. What a marketing person can't do, similarly, is say that they won't do their job. How they do their job is mostly up to them, just as the developer tends to be free in choosing how they get that 3rd-party-lib into the site, as long as they do it.

tiborsaas 7y ago

> I'm still fairly certain it involves developers It doesn't. Once you have Google Tag Manager added, the marketing team can add scrips as they like on an admin interface. Point, click, murder.