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Ghetto-izing code reuse in programming as “VendorOps” and associating it with the Peter Principle seems like a great way to discourage code reuse and reward peo

Ghetto-izing code reuse in programming as “VendorOps” and associating it with the Peter Principle seems like a great way to discourage code reuse and reward people who would rather rewrite code unnecessarily than read someone else’s existing code (notoriously hard). Do you really want to make it a badge of honor to reinvent the wheel? I also would venture this will further marginalize people in tech who are already marginalized. There’s enough hierarchy in programming already (and not particularly correlated with skill). IMO! Also: the position (my summary) “People who disagree with my last blog post don’t REALLY know how to program and are covering up insecurity over their own incompetence” is an awfully convenient one to take. Maybe this is not as objective an assessment as it could be.

hoorayimhelping 6y ago
>I also would venture this will further marginalize people in tech who are already marginalized. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I'd venture that if you're going to say, "suggesting this marginalizes people," you should back it up with why you think that. It does no good for anyone to say something like that (and in doing so, heavily imply that the person making the statement is some kind of icky paraiah) and leave it at that.
- ritchiea 6y ago
  It’s clear the author of the original post is taking an elitist stance on what it means to work as a coder and trying to brand the work of others as less important & give it a different job title. Essentially saying “a real programmer does the job in this specific way I say a real programmer does.” It’s not the kind of attitude that benefits anyone. It’s the kind of attitude that does push people out in an industry already with a reputation for pushing people out.
  - joejerryronnie 6y ago
    The irony is that I’m sure the author experienced elitism and discrimination when she started her career in software development and now doesn’t realize she is propagating the same.
    - ritchiea 6y ago
      Yea exactly, she seems to have reached a level of comfort with her technical proficiency and years of experience that she's not even seeing how this kind of talk can be discouraging to a junior who doesn't have the depth of knowledge she has.
  - jlokier 6y ago
    I don't think it is elitism according to the meaning of that word. Elitism would be saying "this group of people should be in charge because they know what they are doing; that group of people should not be in charge because they don't". I think the author is in fact correctly recognising that different people enjoy a significantly different kind of software work from each other, and are unhappy with the other kind, and both kinds are valuable. Recognising when there are different kinds of work and allowing people to choose for themselves which one suits them is not elitism. Imagine if someone on a factory floor said "I've just realised that welding and painting are different kinds of work and most people greatly prefer one over the other. Perhaps we should label the jobs and let people gravitate to the kind they like so people aren't as unhappy." Should we be up in arms and call that elitism? No, we should ensure both roles have equal status and recognition, but not hide the differences. However, "VendorOps" does sound like a slightly derogatory word, so a better word might help.
    - chrisrhoden 6y ago
      There is no equivocating here - the assertion is that the folks in this category are incompetent and, "almost rational," whatever that means. > "I've just realised that welding and painting are different kinds of work and most people greatly prefer one over the other. Perhaps we should label the jobs and let people gravitate to the kind they like so people aren't as unhappy." Except it's more like, "We hire people to design and assemble complex machines and some people make their own tools while others buy them. Anyway, the people who buy them are basically incompetent and when they claim to prefer focusing on producing the machines rather than tools for building them it's because they are scared of losing their jobs. Let's give them a new title, ideally that trivializes the work."
scarface74 6y ago
I had no problem with the concept with what she calls “VendorOps”. My last two jobs after moving up to a position where I was a developer but also either officially or de facto responsible for deciding when to build and when to outsource, my job is not to develop software. It’s to add business value. I am just as proud of the code that I had sense enough not to write as that I did.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
coding123 6y ago
At the company I work the lead, who also writes the most code, is also first to recommend we use a vendor, like split.io or rollbar or sendgrid or otherwise. It's not that he's lazy or stupid, he's focusing on product, and leaving little code things to vendors. He's right too. If we had someone spend 10 days figuring out how to correctly push errors into elastic and then create a bunch of dashboards for it, we could simply save those 10 days and focus on product and instead put the saved time on a 5 year subscription to rollbar. Just a quick edit - if we were working at Google, of course we wouldn't use another vendor. Everything within google has a google solution. Rollbar, splitio, sendgrid, Google literally has an internal product for all of these things.
Lammy 6y ago
> Do you really want to make it a badge of honor to reinvent the wheel? The performance review processes of FAANG-like companies tend to vastly favor building new things over any other type of code contribution. If you stay in those environments for long enough it's easy to internalize the ideology via those "best" practices in a way that feels like it was your own independent decisionmaking. "What do you mean, throw off center? That's ridiculous! You throw the ball straight at their head if you want to hit them in the head. Everyone knows that."
friedman23 6y ago
This was my take as well, the author immediately attacks people and not the arguments and classifies them as lesser. Frankly, I don't know what this person has contributed to software engineering that merits them speaking this way.
- Lammy 6y ago
  I try not to be in the business of deciding who has and has not earned a particular mode of speech, but I think the consistently-high volume of votes and discussions on Rachel's posts should show that the substance is there, many many times over :)
  - friedman23 6y ago
    Votes only mean that they write things that agree with popular opinion. I find it funny that you say that accomplishments don't matter and then immediately use the amount of votes and discussion to give this person credibility. Anyway, if someone writes an article being a proponent for elitism they should have accomplishments to back it up. This person has done nothing and they don't deserve to be writing this kind of article. Maybe if this came from someone like John Carmack I would listen but I don't think he would be dumb enough to write this.
    - Lammy 6y ago
      When did I say that accomplishments don't matter? I worked in the author's sphere of influence at a previous previous company and witnessed them firsthand on a regular basis. I would agree that the corporate "fog-of-war" makes it easy for the accomplishments of very skilled people to disappear within the Googles and Facebooks of the world, but for certain people I imagine being away from the mouths of the outside world makes it worth being away from their eyes too. Popularity is just one of those things that helps me trust that something may exist even in cases where I can't personally see it. The crowd aren't always right, but I think their approval can often signify my need for a second or third look at something I've reflexively dismissed. Attitude is a tangential but separate detail that would be inappropriate for me to have opinions on, but I can at least say that if there is any it is deserved :)
hinkley 6y ago
People who experience empathy like a semi-normal human being complain on behalf of others. As does anyone who has had to manage other people. If someone’s narrative is all about the individual, it really doesn’t say anything flattering about them. I generally like her work, and I’m more referring to the class of writing that generally invites comments like this.

hoorayimhelping 6y ago

>I also would venture this will further marginalize people in tech who are already marginalized. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. I'd venture that if you're going to say, "suggesting this marginalizes people," you should back it up with why you think that. It does no good for anyone to say something like that (and in doing so, heavily imply that the person making the statement is some kind of icky paraiah) and leave it at that.

ritchiea 6y ago
It’s clear the author of the original post is taking an elitist stance on what it means to work as a coder and trying to brand the work of others as less important & give it a different job title. Essentially saying “a real programmer does the job in this specific way I say a real programmer does.” It’s not the kind of attitude that benefits anyone. It’s the kind of attitude that does push people out in an industry already with a reputation for pushing people out.
- joejerryronnie 6y ago
  The irony is that I’m sure the author experienced elitism and discrimination when she started her career in software development and now doesn’t realize she is propagating the same.
  - ritchiea 6y ago
    Yea exactly, she seems to have reached a level of comfort with her technical proficiency and years of experience that she's not even seeing how this kind of talk can be discouraging to a junior who doesn't have the depth of knowledge she has.
- jlokier 6y ago
  I don't think it is elitism according to the meaning of that word. Elitism would be saying "this group of people should be in charge because they know what they are doing; that group of people should not be in charge because they don't". I think the author is in fact correctly recognising that different people enjoy a significantly different kind of software work from each other, and are unhappy with the other kind, and both kinds are valuable. Recognising when there are different kinds of work and allowing people to choose for themselves which one suits them is not elitism. Imagine if someone on a factory floor said "I've just realised that welding and painting are different kinds of work and most people greatly prefer one over the other. Perhaps we should label the jobs and let people gravitate to the kind they like so people aren't as unhappy." Should we be up in arms and call that elitism? No, we should ensure both roles have equal status and recognition, but not hide the differences. However, "VendorOps" does sound like a slightly derogatory word, so a better word might help.
  - chrisrhoden 6y ago
    There is no equivocating here - the assertion is that the folks in this category are incompetent and, "almost rational," whatever that means. > "I've just realised that welding and painting are different kinds of work and most people greatly prefer one over the other. Perhaps we should label the jobs and let people gravitate to the kind they like so people aren't as unhappy." Except it's more like, "We hire people to design and assemble complex machines and some people make their own tools while others buy them. Anyway, the people who buy them are basically incompetent and when they claim to prefer focusing on producing the machines rather than tools for building them it's because they are scared of losing their jobs. Let's give them a new title, ideally that trivializes the work."

scarface74 6y ago

I had no problem with the concept with what she calls “VendorOps”. My last two jobs after moving up to a position where I was a developer but also either officially or de facto responsible for deciding when to build and when to outsource, my job is not to develop software. It’s to add business value. I am just as proud of the code that I had sense enough not to write as that I did.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

coding123 6y ago

At the company I work the lead, who also writes the most code, is also first to recommend we use a vendor, like split.io or rollbar or sendgrid or otherwise. It's not that he's lazy or stupid, he's focusing on product, and leaving little code things to vendors. He's right too. If we had someone spend 10 days figuring out how to correctly push errors into elastic and then create a bunch of dashboards for it, we could simply save those 10 days and focus on product and instead put the saved time on a 5 year subscription to rollbar. Just a quick edit - if we were working at Google, of course we wouldn't use another vendor. Everything within google has a google solution. Rollbar, splitio, sendgrid, Google literally has an internal product for all of these things.

Lammy 6y ago

> Do you really want to make it a badge of honor to reinvent the wheel? The performance review processes of FAANG-like companies tend to vastly favor building new things over any other type of code contribution. If you stay in those environments for long enough it's easy to internalize the ideology via those "best" practices in a way that feels like it was your own independent decisionmaking. "What do you mean, throw off center? That's ridiculous! You throw the ball straight at their head if you want to hit them in the head. Everyone knows that."

friedman23 6y ago

This was my take as well, the author immediately attacks people and not the arguments and classifies them as lesser. Frankly, I don't know what this person has contributed to software engineering that merits them speaking this way.

Lammy 6y ago
I try not to be in the business of deciding who has and has not earned a particular mode of speech, but I think the consistently-high volume of votes and discussions on Rachel's posts should show that the substance is there, many many times over :)
- friedman23 6y ago
  Votes only mean that they write things that agree with popular opinion. I find it funny that you say that accomplishments don't matter and then immediately use the amount of votes and discussion to give this person credibility. Anyway, if someone writes an article being a proponent for elitism they should have accomplishments to back it up. This person has done nothing and they don't deserve to be writing this kind of article. Maybe if this came from someone like John Carmack I would listen but I don't think he would be dumb enough to write this.
  - Lammy 6y ago
    When did I say that accomplishments don't matter? I worked in the author's sphere of influence at a previous previous company and witnessed them firsthand on a regular basis. I would agree that the corporate "fog-of-war" makes it easy for the accomplishments of very skilled people to disappear within the Googles and Facebooks of the world, but for certain people I imagine being away from the mouths of the outside world makes it worth being away from their eyes too. Popularity is just one of those things that helps me trust that something may exist even in cases where I can't personally see it. The crowd aren't always right, but I think their approval can often signify my need for a second or third look at something I've reflexively dismissed. Attitude is a tangential but separate detail that would be inappropriate for me to have opinions on, but I can at least say that if there is any it is deserved :)

hinkley 6y ago

People who experience empathy like a semi-normal human being complain on behalf of others. As does anyone who has had to manage other people. If someone’s narrative is all about the individual, it really doesn’t say anything flattering about them. I generally like her work, and I’m more referring to the class of writing that generally invites comments like this.