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We can adapt the Gresham’s Law for Software Development: Project [A] is built within "x" months with lot of tech debt, crunch time and stressed out employees

by rkwz 7y ago

We can adapt the Gresham’s Law for Software Development: Project [A] is built within "x" months with lot of tech debt, crunch time and stressed out employees Project [B] is built within "x+y" months with sane architecture and healthy working hours If management doesn't understand the benefits of good architecture and employee well being, [A] will become the baseline against which all future projects get measured. The software system gets messier and messier => resulting in more bugs => resulting in working weekends and late nights => employees make poor decisions because of mental fatigue => resulting in more bugs => ...

rantwasp 7y ago
that's one way to look at it, but it's rarely this clear cut. usually the system is initially built from P1+P2+P3+...PN that are wired together in a somewhat sane manner and do the job. enter joe, that thinks P2 is over-engineered and thinks he can do a a better job without understanding why P2 is the way it is or why it was even built like this. joe proceeds to replace P2 with P2'+P2a+P2b that kind-of get the job done but make the system a little bit more complicated. Joe gets a promotion for being a doer and improving "complicated shit". Now, imagine armies of Joes picking up the least complicated part of the system and making their contribution. The initially sane and straightforward components get replaced with increasingly more complicated ones. In the end, everything is so complex that no progress can be made.
- castratikron 7y ago
  Microservices https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8OnoxKotPQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8OnoxKotPQ
  - thrwaway69 7y ago
    That channel is legit underrated
wdutch 7y ago
I think you're dead right but it goes even deeper. With more bugs the company starts evaluating devs on their ability to fix bugs and put out fires. Eventually the devs who can build a sane product are squeezed out and all the devs are good at is fixing bugs rather than introducing fewer bugs in the first place. I noticed this when working as a dev in the finance industry. The devs who put out the most fires got the biggest bonuses and float to the top so they have a say in hiring and hire more people like themselves. A textbook case of Gresham's Law.
- quantified 7y ago
  Or basic Darwinism, which says that the fittest for their niche survive and reproduce. Fittest is relative to current circumstances, so each generation can modify the niche that others find themselves in.
- castratikron 7y ago
  Was at a job once where a dev shipped a bug on a Friday, spent the weekend fixing it, then got a bonus for it because he worked hard over the weekend and "got it done".
- chii 7y ago
  but why does the effect only happen in software engineering, but not physical engineering? You don't see buildings that are near collapse and require constant repair and redesign. You don't see construction contracts awarded to companies that build poor buildings. In fact, most buildings work fine, and even tho most also have some defects, those defects tend to be minor and can often be overlooked. So what makes software engineering different?
  - yrb 7y ago
    Software engineering isn't special in this regard. It happens in a lot of other domains. Software often doesn't have a lot of the constraints of other disciplines so effects like these are more pronounced. I would characterize all the statements you made as false. Though it does depend on what your standards are. Most of the critical things are done well enough, but that is a pretty low bar.
dredmorbius 7y ago
Technical debt, risk, maintainability, and long-term resilience are all elements that don't get fully accounted for. This joins a few related concepts: "manifestation" (or: cognizability, perceptibility, tangibility), risk (effectively a measure of probabalistic fiture cost), and resilience, which often contrasts strongly with efficiency. Sociologist Robert K. Merton pioneered many. of the concepts around manifest vs. covert functions, usually of social institutions or behaviours.
cjfd 7y ago
We might also consider that if x is larger than a few weeks y might well be negative.....
doubletgl 7y ago
This rather sounds like short term vs. long term decision making, or accumulating debt. What are the "coins" of Greshams's law in your example?
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  Short-term consequences (positive or negative) are far mor cognizable than long-term, both to individuals and organisations. Cognizability is, then, the market for exchange and evaluation. Options with short-term benefit but long-term harm, are excessively adopted. Options with short-term harm or cost, but long-term benefit, are excessively rejected. Put another way, markets consistently under-rate risks, and more complex ones to a greater extent. But they also under-value long-term. positive benefits. Markets operate in the now. Related is Robert K. Merton's work in manifest vs. latent functions, from sociology.

by rkwz 7y ago

rantwasp 7y ago

that's one way to look at it, but it's rarely this clear cut. usually the system is initially built from P1+P2+P3+...PN that are wired together in a somewhat sane manner and do the job. enter joe, that thinks P2 is over-engineered and thinks he can do a a better job without understanding why P2 is the way it is or why it was even built like this. joe proceeds to replace P2 with P2'+P2a+P2b that kind-of get the job done but make the system a little bit more complicated. Joe gets a promotion for being a doer and improving "complicated shit". Now, imagine armies of Joes picking up the least complicated part of the system and making their contribution. The initially sane and straightforward components get replaced with increasingly more complicated ones. In the end, everything is so complex that no progress can be made.

castratikron 7y ago
Microservices https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8OnoxKotPQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8OnoxKotPQ
- thrwaway69 7y ago
  That channel is legit underrated

wdutch 7y ago

I think you're dead right but it goes even deeper. With more bugs the company starts evaluating devs on their ability to fix bugs and put out fires. Eventually the devs who can build a sane product are squeezed out and all the devs are good at is fixing bugs rather than introducing fewer bugs in the first place. I noticed this when working as a dev in the finance industry. The devs who put out the most fires got the biggest bonuses and float to the top so they have a say in hiring and hire more people like themselves. A textbook case of Gresham's Law.

quantified 7y ago
Or basic Darwinism, which says that the fittest for their niche survive and reproduce. Fittest is relative to current circumstances, so each generation can modify the niche that others find themselves in.
castratikron 7y ago
Was at a job once where a dev shipped a bug on a Friday, spent the weekend fixing it, then got a bonus for it because he worked hard over the weekend and "got it done".
chii 7y ago
but why does the effect only happen in software engineering, but not physical engineering? You don't see buildings that are near collapse and require constant repair and redesign. You don't see construction contracts awarded to companies that build poor buildings. In fact, most buildings work fine, and even tho most also have some defects, those defects tend to be minor and can often be overlooked. So what makes software engineering different?
- yrb 7y ago
  Software engineering isn't special in this regard. It happens in a lot of other domains. Software often doesn't have a lot of the constraints of other disciplines so effects like these are more pronounced. I would characterize all the statements you made as false. Though it does depend on what your standards are. Most of the critical things are done well enough, but that is a pretty low bar.

dredmorbius 7y ago

Technical debt, risk, maintainability, and long-term resilience are all elements that don't get fully accounted for. This joins a few related concepts: "manifestation" (or: cognizability, perceptibility, tangibility), risk (effectively a measure of probabalistic fiture cost), and resilience, which often contrasts strongly with efficiency. Sociologist Robert K. Merton pioneered many. of the concepts around manifest vs. covert functions, usually of social institutions or behaviours.

cjfd 7y ago

We might also consider that if x is larger than a few weeks y might well be negative.....

doubletgl 7y ago

This rather sounds like short term vs. long term decision making, or accumulating debt. What are the "coins" of Greshams's law in your example?

dredmorbius 7y ago
Short-term consequences (positive or negative) are far mor cognizable than long-term, both to individuals and organisations. Cognizability is, then, the market for exchange and evaluation. Options with short-term benefit but long-term harm, are excessively adopted. Options with short-term harm or cost, but long-term benefit, are excessively rejected. Put another way, markets consistently under-rate risks, and more complex ones to a greater extent. But they also under-value long-term. positive benefits. Markets operate in the now. Related is Robert K. Merton's work in manifest vs. latent functions, from sociology.