11 ms·

Software is a focus intensive industry

100 points by siscia 7y ago

ken 7y ago
> Unfortunately people get bored, especially in creative profession, when the product is mature, the job becomes more boring. This is backwards, IME. I want to maintain a system and make it run great. Management is always pushing for some damn new thing, and features and velocity over stability and quality.
- coretx 7y ago
  Closely observe where they are creating technical debt for this can be your future cash cow.
- Jolter 7y ago
  Consider whether this is a trait of developers in general, or your own personality. I have colleagues who push ever forward with no regard to maintenance, and others who prefer the satisfaction of refactoring a working system into working even better. I find that both types can be very productive software developers, given the right team and leaders.
Syzygies 7y ago
It is poor style to capitalize FOCUS throughout the article. For example, when a mathematician starts reading a paper that uses too many acronyms, they generally freak out. It's a strong signal that they've wandered into the wrong part of town. While there is brilliant work done in applied domains, one rarely finds it in acronym-heavy papers. After a lifetime of reinforcement with this filter in place, it's very hard to read FOCUS as anything but an acronym. That's not what you intend, so look into styling your html with bold or italic emphasis? (I was at a faculty meeting that was spending an unreasonable amount of time debating an acronym for our salary committee, something that would reinforce the message that there are other aspects of our compensation. My contribution: "I love how Brits use short words for things. As a member of the most symbolic department, I'd like to speak in favor of an acronym-free workplace." I got the Provost evil eye.)
- onreact 7y ago
  Yeah, also people who are blind and use screen readers will have it spelled out char by char each time as its assumed to be an acronym. Use bold, italics, text-marker effects instead.
cuillevel3 7y ago
Maintaining focus is actually labor. Adding more devs might not help with a late project, but it does help with building bigger systems. So, I disagree, software is extremely labor intensive work.
- cies 7y ago
  I agree with you. > Software is not labor-intensive. Not many people are necessary in order to produce good software. Not many people are needed to produce 500gr of good rice. And lots of people are needed to produce something like all the software Google or MS maintains. The specialty of software is the low cost of marginal products. This is the new thing here, not labour intensiveness. > On the contrary, Brooks’s law on software project management states that “adding manpower to a late software project makes it later”. This has more to do with communication, collaboration and slowness of getting up to speed when joining a software project.
  - fit2rule 7y ago
    Attention is not easily managed labor. This becomes extra complex in cultural environments - industrial/work - which do not strive to promote commonality of attention among the group members, such that it fosters communication, and ultimately .. production. This is clearly visible in the HR requirements practices. Companies which have a confidence in their ability to manage the on-boarders' attention, tend to interview for communication rather than experience - those who haven't made the investment in attention-management techniques, such as great training, technical on-boarding routine, etc., tend to focus on experience over sociability. >Brookes' law I've found, with 30 years of experience in software development from both the trenches to management and back, that there is an aspect of this law which goes ignored - "Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later, but adding documentation to a late software project makes it easier to add manpower.." The better you document things so that strangers can understand them, the easier time you have on boarding strangers and getting them up to speed. This is a cultural mechanic, and alas is usually in the wrong persons' hands - i.e. HR, upper managements, etc. Technical people need to get this right for the true fire to burn ..
sktrdie 7y ago
Please let’s not reinvent concepts or words. We are not the chosen ones nor do we live in a field that is different from any other. Many other fields require the same mental capacities we employ: from doctors to school teachers all the way to even accountants. They are literally doing the same stuff we are doing: grabbing stuff that was already built by others, thinking about it, discussing it, having meetings, etc. I hate it when a community becomes so biased towards their own field in a way that creates a bubble and interferes with actual innovation. This has sadly been the case for the software industry.
- terminaljunkid 7y ago
  > Many other fields require the same mental capacities we employ: from doctors to school teachers all the way to even accountants. They are literally doing the same stuff we are doing: grabbing stuff that was already built by others, thinking about it, discussing it, having meetings, etc. Here I disagree. Doctors? It seems true.. But school teachers and accountants? Nope.. I don't really think these fields compare, unless your 'software' is limited to doing some outsourced CRUD work.. However much people tout against it, I believe software engineering is closer to any other engineering (say Mechanical) than it is to other fields. Our task is solving problems in efficient ways, and optimizing things for one thing or another. Except these days unfortunately the bar seems very low..
  - the_other 7y ago
    Teachers absolutely do take pre-existing knowledge of pedagogy, apply it, discuss it, modify it. There's tonnes of publications on the topic; groups form to reflect and promote ideas at every level from the single school to government.
    - sethammons 7y ago
      Having been a teacher (and designed a course with a group of other teachers) and now being a software developer, I find the similarities superficial.
  - 7y ago
onreact 7y ago
The way you define focus sounds a bit strange to me. Focus is indeed needed for programming - that's why you need to be in the zone when coding - but it's the focus we refer to usually. As we live in a frantic attention economy now focus is indeed very valuable as dealing with the ongoing bombardment with distractions is truly expensive. Just think about all those remote workers getting reminded all the time that some new Slack, Flock, Skype, WhatsApp, Facebook, e-mail messages arrived. All the companies above make money by hijacking our attention and forcing us to focus on the work we do for them for free instead. Imagine us focusing at the code instead.
draw_down 7y ago
Why do we think our field is so special and unique and different?

100 points by siscia 7y ago

ken 7y ago

> Unfortunately people get bored, especially in creative profession, when the product is mature, the job becomes more boring. This is backwards, IME. I want to maintain a system and make it run great. Management is always pushing for some damn new thing, and features and velocity over stability and quality.

coretx 7y ago
Closely observe where they are creating technical debt for this can be your future cash cow.
Jolter 7y ago
Consider whether this is a trait of developers in general, or your own personality. I have colleagues who push ever forward with no regard to maintenance, and others who prefer the satisfaction of refactoring a working system into working even better. I find that both types can be very productive software developers, given the right team and leaders.

Syzygies 7y ago

It is poor style to capitalize FOCUS throughout the article. For example, when a mathematician starts reading a paper that uses too many acronyms, they generally freak out. It's a strong signal that they've wandered into the wrong part of town. While there is brilliant work done in applied domains, one rarely finds it in acronym-heavy papers. After a lifetime of reinforcement with this filter in place, it's very hard to read FOCUS as anything but an acronym. That's not what you intend, so look into styling your html with bold or italic emphasis? (I was at a faculty meeting that was spending an unreasonable amount of time debating an acronym for our salary committee, something that would reinforce the message that there are other aspects of our compensation. My contribution: "I love how Brits use short words for things. As a member of the most symbolic department, I'd like to speak in favor of an acronym-free workplace." I got the Provost evil eye.)

onreact 7y ago
Yeah, also people who are blind and use screen readers will have it spelled out char by char each time as its assumed to be an acronym. Use bold, italics, text-marker effects instead.

cuillevel3 7y ago

Maintaining focus is actually labor. Adding more devs might not help with a late project, but it does help with building bigger systems. So, I disagree, software is extremely labor intensive work.

cies 7y ago
I agree with you. > Software is not labor-intensive. Not many people are necessary in order to produce good software. Not many people are needed to produce 500gr of good rice. And lots of people are needed to produce something like all the software Google or MS maintains. The specialty of software is the low cost of marginal products. This is the new thing here, not labour intensiveness. > On the contrary, Brooks’s law on software project management states that “adding manpower to a late software project makes it later”. This has more to do with communication, collaboration and slowness of getting up to speed when joining a software project.
- fit2rule 7y ago
  Attention is not easily managed labor. This becomes extra complex in cultural environments - industrial/work - which do not strive to promote commonality of attention among the group members, such that it fosters communication, and ultimately .. production. This is clearly visible in the HR requirements practices. Companies which have a confidence in their ability to manage the on-boarders' attention, tend to interview for communication rather than experience - those who haven't made the investment in attention-management techniques, such as great training, technical on-boarding routine, etc., tend to focus on experience over sociability. >Brookes' law I've found, with 30 years of experience in software development from both the trenches to management and back, that there is an aspect of this law which goes ignored - "Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later, but adding documentation to a late software project makes it easier to add manpower.." The better you document things so that strangers can understand them, the easier time you have on boarding strangers and getting them up to speed. This is a cultural mechanic, and alas is usually in the wrong persons' hands - i.e. HR, upper managements, etc. Technical people need to get this right for the true fire to burn ..

sktrdie 7y ago

Please let’s not reinvent concepts or words. We are not the chosen ones nor do we live in a field that is different from any other. Many other fields require the same mental capacities we employ: from doctors to school teachers all the way to even accountants. They are literally doing the same stuff we are doing: grabbing stuff that was already built by others, thinking about it, discussing it, having meetings, etc. I hate it when a community becomes so biased towards their own field in a way that creates a bubble and interferes with actual innovation. This has sadly been the case for the software industry.

terminaljunkid 7y ago
> Many other fields require the same mental capacities we employ: from doctors to school teachers all the way to even accountants. They are literally doing the same stuff we are doing: grabbing stuff that was already built by others, thinking about it, discussing it, having meetings, etc. Here I disagree. Doctors? It seems true.. But school teachers and accountants? Nope.. I don't really think these fields compare, unless your 'software' is limited to doing some outsourced CRUD work.. However much people tout against it, I believe software engineering is closer to any other engineering (say Mechanical) than it is to other fields. Our task is solving problems in efficient ways, and optimizing things for one thing or another. Except these days unfortunately the bar seems very low..
- the_other 7y ago
  Teachers absolutely do take pre-existing knowledge of pedagogy, apply it, discuss it, modify it. There's tonnes of publications on the topic; groups form to reflect and promote ideas at every level from the single school to government.
  - sethammons 7y ago
    Having been a teacher (and designed a course with a group of other teachers) and now being a software developer, I find the similarities superficial.
- 7y ago

onreact 7y ago

The way you define focus sounds a bit strange to me. Focus is indeed needed for programming - that's why you need to be in the zone when coding - but it's the focus we refer to usually. As we live in a frantic attention economy now focus is indeed very valuable as dealing with the ongoing bombardment with distractions is truly expensive. Just think about all those remote workers getting reminded all the time that some new Slack, Flock, Skype, WhatsApp, Facebook, e-mail messages arrived. All the companies above make money by hijacking our attention and forcing us to focus on the work we do for them for free instead. Imagine us focusing at the code instead.

draw_down 7y ago

Why do we think our field is so special and unique and different?