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Yea, this is a really bizarre article. >It reinforces the idea that any one person or piece of code can be blamed for a given failure. That can absolutely be
by Nicksil 7y ago
Yea, this is a really bizarre article.
>It reinforces the idea that any one person or piece of code can be blamed for a given failure.
That can absolutely be the case. How could it not sometimes be the case?
>Short of malice, this is never the case.
Never? Outside of somebody deliberately harming a system, there has never once been such an instance?
>It gives the impression that, when you wrote the code, you should have written it better. This is a counterfactual that rarely holds up to examination.
Lots of assertions in this piece with no supporting information. There are plenty of reasons substandard code is written by some individuals. Laziness is a big one. Apathy is another.
>It positions shame as the correct emotion to feel about bugs in your code: if you were a better engineer – a better teammate – the bug wouldn’t exist.
Call it whatever you want, but concern is certainly warranted.
>If you’re a more senior engineer on your team, the effects of these anti-patterns are magnified: people see you apologizing for bugs, so they think that they should be striving to write bug-free code. They may feel ashamed if their code has bugs.
People look up to experienced individuals within their profession. In fact, I would argue that it is even more important these senior individuals are able to accept responsibility and act accordingly; that's setting an example, something from which everyone will benefit.
- valesco 7y agoI think the important point is to let go of ego issues. A bug is a technical problem, how do we address a technical problem? By being level-headed and not playing the blame game. Being sorry doesn't add any relevant information and generate a strange atmosphere, like admitting a moral failing really. Any matter of substandard performance is better dealt by the management, well outside the scope of bug fixing.
- catalogia 7y agoRefusing to accept responsibility for your own errors is more an ego problem than the alternative.
- jhayward 7y agoNo, elaborate insistence on repentance rituals, shaming, and ideologies of "personal responsibility" over systems thinking and data driven improvement is all about ego.
- joesb 7y agoI don't think anyone is argue for one instead of the other. Why not a little bit of both? Can we not think about system and data driven improvement while also at the same time apologize for our mistake?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]