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No. Your systems and processes should protect you from doing something stupid, because we’ve all done stupid things. Most stupid things are done whilst sober.
by cle 6y ago
No. Your systems and processes should protect you from doing something stupid, because we’ve all done stupid things. Most stupid things are done whilst sober.
In this case there were like 10 relatively easy things that could have prevented this. Your ability to mentally compile and evaluate your code before you hit enter is not a reliable way to protect your production systems.
Coding after drinking is probably not a good idea of course, but “think better” is not the right takeaway from this.
- TedDoesntTalk 6y ago> Coding after drinking is probably not a good idea I’ve done some of my most productive work this way. Not on production systems fortunately, and not in a long time.
- marcosdumay 6y agoYes, it can be productive (depends on exactly what you are doing). But I imagine you revise your work while sober before you deploy it.
- ultrarunner 6y agoRiding the Ballmer Peak is a precarious operation, but I simply cannot deny its occasional effectiveness.
- onlinejk 6y agoWell played, and it's always pleasant to find XKCD in one's search results. (And an on-topic one at that). For ref: https://xkcd.com/323/ https://xkcd.com/323/
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- nicoburns 6y agoA highly experienced developer in their 50s who I used to work with said that they used to regularly sit down and code with a pint. Until on one occasion they introduced some Undefined Behaviour into their aplication during one of these sessions and it took them 3 days to track down! Probably less of an issue with modern tooling. Still, it certainly makes me think twice before drinking and coding.
- bigbubba 6y agoYou know it's totally feasible to make a car that won't turn on for drunk people. Should those systems be installed on all cars, in pursuit of creating systems that don't permit stupid actions? Maybe such a breathalyzer interlock could be installed on your workstation too. After all, your systems and processes should prevent you from stupid things.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- cle 6y agoDon’t be absurd. Of course there are costs and tradeoffs to guardrails, and you have to balance the tradeoffs based on your requirements. This person had to publicly apologize to their customers. One or two low-cost guardrails could have prevented it and would probably have been worth the cost.
- bigbubba 6y agoIs that absurd? Systems should prevent mistakes, unless the part needed to implement that is a hundred dollars or so? That seems like quite the walk-back. Courts order alcoholics to install these things, they're established available technology. What tradeoffs are you balancing here?
- TomVDB 6y agoIt's a free website to keep scoreboards. Not a mission critical nuclear missile launcher. (But if your mission critical system relies on that scoreboard website, that's on you...)
- emodendroket 6y agoHonestly not a bad idea to install the interlocks on all cars.
- WarOnPrivacy 6y ago
- watwut 6y ago> Most stupid things are done whilst sober. That is because most companies these days have processes around drinking in workplace, coming in drunk and working drunk. Most mistakes are done sober only in environments where drinking couple of vine cups and then doing production change is considered unacceptable. In environment where drunk people work, mistakes are made when drunk.