3 ms·

This is, IMO, one of the most underrated aspects of the monorepo, that has such a valuable impact over time. It only takes a handful of extremely passionate en

by gen220 6y ago

This is, IMO, one of the most underrated aspects of the monorepo, that has such a valuable impact over time. It only takes a handful of extremely passionate engineers (and I really mean a handful, like less that 2% of engineers in an org) to raise the quality-floor of the entire codebase.

randall 6y ago
Ya, fb feels the same way fwiw. I'm very sold on the benefits of monorepos now.
lifeisstillgood 6y ago
For sanity, sustainability and fairness I would rather that read It only takes a handful of extremely passionate engineers > It only takes a handful of paid engineers, full time assigned to the task
- gen220 6y ago
  Anecdotally (I don't work at Google, and this might not apply there because it's such a large company): At the monorepo companies I've worked at, of the 2% passionate I mentioned, maybe half have naturally gravitated towards working FT on the infra teams, the other half make very occasional but astronomical contributions, while working full-time on an actual product. What I mean to say is that with a monorepo, you leave the door open to essentially passion-driven contributions made by the other half of that 2%. In non-monorepo environments, the barrier to uniform adoption is too high for someone that isn't full-time assigned to the task to justify. Some people are genuinely passionate about this stuff, and want to take on the task of migrating the entire code base, because it's a fun challenge and it'll improve their day-to-day work every day for the remainder of their employment. They're very rare, but they do exist, and with a monorepo those people are better-equipped to drag the company forward.
  - lifeisstillgood 6y ago
    I don't get this - changing the code is not the problem - this is a political / marketing issue. I have some news - passion is not enough, and there are more than 2% of people working on things they are passionate about - it only 2% get lucky. I can think of a few instances in my recent career at large monorepo company where I have built something on the scale of "passionate, could improve our working lives" One died because ... well I gave up, two are used locally by my team and those I could persuade, whilst other solutions built by others for the same fix have gone on to be blessed officially, (ie replaced by grassroots competition) and one was replaced by a fully mandated and funded project that spotted the need and just steamrollered over all the local fixes. One is still outstanding and I think well worth pushing still. But I don't dream of the big win where suddenly the Board says "why, without your glasses Miss Moneypenny you look ravishing". I get paid, I work, and I try and make the world a bit better where I can. I am passionate about it. But i don't write blog posts about how passionate I am. Maybe I should :-)

by gen220 6y ago

randall 6y ago

Ya, fb feels the same way fwiw. I'm very sold on the benefits of monorepos now.

lifeisstillgood 6y ago

For sanity, sustainability and fairness I would rather that read It only takes a handful of extremely passionate engineers > It only takes a handful of paid engineers, full time assigned to the task

gen220 6y ago
Anecdotally (I don't work at Google, and this might not apply there because it's such a large company): At the monorepo companies I've worked at, of the 2% passionate I mentioned, maybe half have naturally gravitated towards working FT on the infra teams, the other half make very occasional but astronomical contributions, while working full-time on an actual product. What I mean to say is that with a monorepo, you leave the door open to essentially passion-driven contributions made by the other half of that 2%. In non-monorepo environments, the barrier to uniform adoption is too high for someone that isn't full-time assigned to the task to justify. Some people are genuinely passionate about this stuff, and want to take on the task of migrating the entire code base, because it's a fun challenge and it'll improve their day-to-day work every day for the remainder of their employment. They're very rare, but they do exist, and with a monorepo those people are better-equipped to drag the company forward.
- lifeisstillgood 6y ago
  I don't get this - changing the code is not the problem - this is a political / marketing issue. I have some news - passion is not enough, and there are more than 2% of people working on things they are passionate about - it only 2% get lucky. I can think of a few instances in my recent career at large monorepo company where I have built something on the scale of "passionate, could improve our working lives" One died because ... well I gave up, two are used locally by my team and those I could persuade, whilst other solutions built by others for the same fix have gone on to be blessed officially, (ie replaced by grassroots competition) and one was replaced by a fully mandated and funded project that spotted the need and just steamrollered over all the local fixes. One is still outstanding and I think well worth pushing still. But I don't dream of the big win where suddenly the Board says "why, without your glasses Miss Moneypenny you look ravishing". I get paid, I work, and I try and make the world a bit better where I can. I am passionate about it. But i don't write blog posts about how passionate I am. Maybe I should :-)