5 ms·

Well his point is this technically isn’t a bug because comparable performance to fs.readFile was never guaranteed as part of the API contract. I don’t think hi

Well his point is this technically isn’t a bug because comparable performance to fs.readFile was never guaranteed as part of the API contract. I don’t think his statement implies we generally ought not to expect excellence nor that effort shouldn’t be spent on improving things. I think his point is valid even if slightly tongue in cheek. Bugs are defined by the contract / specification not wishful thinking.

xiphias2 6y ago
It wasn't categorized as a bug, but as a speed issue. Do you categorize thinking that JSON parsing takes at most O(n log n) time as wishful thinking as well? It's humanly impossible to code for contract, that's why generally it's important to strive for no surprises in an API. This is the only way to build more and more complex software over time.
mr_toad 6y ago
This is how enterprise software is written. Performs exactly as specified, and completely unusable.
- mrtweetyhack 6y ago
  and too lazy to give a shit
- CyberRabbi 6y ago
  It’s also how great software is written. Assuming a subcomponent behaves in a way that it does not claim to isn’t a recipe for functional software, enterprise or otherwise.
hmillison 6y ago
As engineers, we should be capable of critical thinking beyond this. Otherwise you will end up with barely working enterprise software like the sibling comment mentioned. If this is how you do your work, you are asking for a computer to replace you! We should aspire to be better than this. It’s crazy to me that people take massive salaries and expect other people to spoon feed their tasks to them.
- carlmr 6y ago
  >It’s crazy to me that people take massive salaries and expect other people to spoon feed their tasks to them. I remember being one of two software engineers working on a project in a small company. We were cooperating with two bigger companies delivering other parts of the system. I kept asking myself: "These guys have hundreds of well paid engineers working on this, and they never deliver! Are they sabotaging the project?". In the end we delivered the finished prototype and the customer ran a 48h acceptance test, their parts fizzled out almost immediately, while ours just kept running. It took me a few years and joining a bigger company to notice that thinking about what you're doing is not expected in bigger corporations, where everything is bureaucratized. Also if the company is big enough it can shift the deadlines set by its customers. It drove me near madness whenever a colleague said something "wasn't their job". I never heard such an attitude before, and these people were paid twice as much as in my previous company. I still, to this day, hope that a lot of these people get replaced by computers. Defective programs can at least be improved.
  - hmillison 6y ago
    Agree with this sentiment. I had a short stint at a large tech company and the sort of attitude you describe is what turned me off from working there longer. “Not my job” people tend to be the most frustrating folks to work with. While I understand wanting to mainly do the work you were hired for, there are always going to be times where you have to roll up your sleeves and do something different. I wish I was the kind of person who would thrive in that environment because it sounds nice, but I’m not wired that way.
    - cbm-vic-20 6y ago
      I'm a large tech company employee, and I use "Not my job" sometimes because it means that I believe that the issue could be handled more effectively by someone else, or that I should not be the one to address the issue for political reasons. So it's less of a "not my job" and leave it at that, but more like "not my job, but Jane over on that other team is closer to that code and has a better understanding of what's going on."

xiphias2 6y ago

It wasn't categorized as a bug, but as a speed issue. Do you categorize thinking that JSON parsing takes at most O(n log n) time as wishful thinking as well? It's humanly impossible to code for contract, that's why generally it's important to strive for no surprises in an API. This is the only way to build more and more complex software over time.

mr_toad 6y ago

This is how enterprise software is written. Performs exactly as specified, and completely unusable.

mrtweetyhack 6y ago
and too lazy to give a shit
CyberRabbi 6y ago
It’s also how great software is written. Assuming a subcomponent behaves in a way that it does not claim to isn’t a recipe for functional software, enterprise or otherwise.

hmillison 6y ago

As engineers, we should be capable of critical thinking beyond this. Otherwise you will end up with barely working enterprise software like the sibling comment mentioned. If this is how you do your work, you are asking for a computer to replace you! We should aspire to be better than this. It’s crazy to me that people take massive salaries and expect other people to spoon feed their tasks to them.

carlmr 6y ago
>It’s crazy to me that people take massive salaries and expect other people to spoon feed their tasks to them. I remember being one of two software engineers working on a project in a small company. We were cooperating with two bigger companies delivering other parts of the system. I kept asking myself: "These guys have hundreds of well paid engineers working on this, and they never deliver! Are they sabotaging the project?". In the end we delivered the finished prototype and the customer ran a 48h acceptance test, their parts fizzled out almost immediately, while ours just kept running. It took me a few years and joining a bigger company to notice that thinking about what you're doing is not expected in bigger corporations, where everything is bureaucratized. Also if the company is big enough it can shift the deadlines set by its customers. It drove me near madness whenever a colleague said something "wasn't their job". I never heard such an attitude before, and these people were paid twice as much as in my previous company. I still, to this day, hope that a lot of these people get replaced by computers. Defective programs can at least be improved.
- hmillison 6y ago
  Agree with this sentiment. I had a short stint at a large tech company and the sort of attitude you describe is what turned me off from working there longer. “Not my job” people tend to be the most frustrating folks to work with. While I understand wanting to mainly do the work you were hired for, there are always going to be times where you have to roll up your sleeves and do something different. I wish I was the kind of person who would thrive in that environment because it sounds nice, but I’m not wired that way.
  - cbm-vic-20 6y ago
    I'm a large tech company employee, and I use "Not my job" sometimes because it means that I believe that the issue could be handled more effectively by someone else, or that I should not be the one to address the issue for political reasons. So it's less of a "not my job" and leave it at that, but more like "not my job, but Jane over on that other team is closer to that code and has a better understanding of what's going on."