4 ms·

I’ve been reading these Dilbert rants for twenty five years. I probably made some of them on slashdot. We as an industry tried the all engineers thing and it d

I’ve been reading these Dilbert rants for twenty five years. I probably made some of them on slashdot. We as an industry tried the all engineers thing and it didn’t work. Have you considered the possibility that the boss’ bosses have a point? That the intelligent people you once respected have been convinced rather than intimidated?

pdimitar 6y ago
I would be ashamed to call myself a thinking human if I never considered it. And as said in other comments, for some companies and businesses they are right indeed. But not in programming / IT in general. At least not where I worked (and where many of my former colleagues worked). It's all optimizing for short-term and never the long-term. And I have seen people playing the long game gaining a lot so I also know I am not imagining it.
- kansface 6y ago
  Predictability in the short term has a definite business value in and of itself, regardless if it makes development slower - or perhaps, a value to management. Certainly the degree matters.
  - pdimitar 6y ago
    You know, I am actually VERY okay with short-term thinking but not when it's 100% of all decision making. Make it 75% short-term objective and give the other 25% to longer-term planning and/or simply playing with ideas and I'll be very happy to work in such a place. I am not a fanatic -- and most programmers are actually quite understanding (if a bit too timid sometimes) people. We just want the pendulum to not be on one of the sides 100% of the time. That's it really.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
tremon 6y ago
Have you considered the possibility that the boss’ bosses have a point? It's the organization that shapes the individual, not the other way around. Changing a cog in an existing gear system only works if the cog is of a particular shape, and it will get chafed and dented if not sufficiently so. If the cog is too different, it will break and be replaced again. Occam's razor says that if many different people fail within the same organizational structure, the problem is not with those people.
- AlexCoventry 6y ago
  That's just begging the question, though, since the comment you replied to was essentially asking whether the promoted SEs are actually unthinking cogs, vs people who've been convinced by their new perspective.
  - tremon 6y ago
    But my point was that that's a false dichotomy: where is the option that they were thinking cogs that found themselves unable to change the shape of the gear system around them?
didibus 6y ago
> We as an industry tried the all engineers thing and it didn’t work Example of when this was tried?
- bradleyjg 6y ago
  https://medium.com/illumination/google-once-fired-all-managers-30f73e862ff4 https://medium.com/illumination/google-once-fired-all-manage...

pdimitar 6y ago

I would be ashamed to call myself a thinking human if I never considered it. And as said in other comments, for some companies and businesses they are right indeed. But not in programming / IT in general. At least not where I worked (and where many of my former colleagues worked). It's all optimizing for short-term and never the long-term. And I have seen people playing the long game gaining a lot so I also know I am not imagining it.

kansface 6y ago
Predictability in the short term has a definite business value in and of itself, regardless if it makes development slower - or perhaps, a value to management. Certainly the degree matters.
- pdimitar 6y ago
  You know, I am actually VERY okay with short-term thinking but not when it's 100% of all decision making. Make it 75% short-term objective and give the other 25% to longer-term planning and/or simply playing with ideas and I'll be very happy to work in such a place. I am not a fanatic -- and most programmers are actually quite understanding (if a bit too timid sometimes) people. We just want the pendulum to not be on one of the sides 100% of the time. That's it really.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]

tremon 6y ago

Have you considered the possibility that the boss’ bosses have a point? It's the organization that shapes the individual, not the other way around. Changing a cog in an existing gear system only works if the cog is of a particular shape, and it will get chafed and dented if not sufficiently so. If the cog is too different, it will break and be replaced again. Occam's razor says that if many different people fail within the same organizational structure, the problem is not with those people.

AlexCoventry 6y ago
That's just begging the question, though, since the comment you replied to was essentially asking whether the promoted SEs are actually unthinking cogs, vs people who've been convinced by their new perspective.
- tremon 6y ago
  But my point was that that's a false dichotomy: where is the option that they were thinking cogs that found themselves unable to change the shape of the gear system around them?

didibus 6y ago

> We as an industry tried the all engineers thing and it didn’t work Example of when this was tried?

bradleyjg 6y ago
https://medium.com/illumination/google-once-fired-all-managers-30f73e862ff4 https://medium.com/illumination/google-once-fired-all-manage...