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>> The soldiers on the front lines spent years being trained to obey orders first, ask questions later. I think you have the wrong impression of the army. Dece

>> The soldiers on the front lines spent years being trained to obey orders first, ask questions later. I think you have the wrong impression of the army. Decentralized command is one of the central tenants of American military doctrine. Trying to route everything through layers of leadership leads to an incompetent fighting unit. Unfortunately, this stereotype is hard to shake. As a result the soldier must understand the broader objective and actively question the tactics used to achieve it. If the ground situation deviates from the plan, waiting for orders will get you killed. I would argue software development is surprisingly similar. The difference between a decent developer and a great developer is the latter understand how their work fits into the larger picture. As a result they're able to quickly and effectively pivot to suit the dynamic needs of the business.

TeMPOraL 5y ago
I am familiar with US decentralized command doctrine, which pushed a lot of decision making to the very front lines. But that's a Cold War-era American invention, and 'theshrike79 quoted a Finnish lieutenant general, who fought before and led through World War II. Back then, soldiers had much less autonomy. And even if somebody ported the US doctrine 100 years into the past, so that LtGen Airo could've learned it in France, it probably wouldn't hold, because there was only so much a front line soldier could do with their decision making capacity. Tanks were a fresh invention, most of the world probably haven't seen them. Cavalry was the pinnacle of agility. Artillery was big, bulky, and hard to reposition. Planes were still laughed at. Portable radios weren't a thing yet. Where your modern American grunt is entrusted with the capability to direct howitzers and call down air strikes, the soldiers of Airo's era were just discovering automated weapons, and modes of transport other than "by foot" and "by horse". There was little they could really decide about. In other words: soldiers gained greater autonomy and more sophisticated training when their tools became more sophisticated and powerful. As it should be - as it is, in any sane industry. If there was any officer that said things like, "those Stingers and Javelins are too complex, they'll confuse our new privates", or "why waste your time learning to use night vision gear when you could run with a flashlight and shoot the enemy", or "giving front line soldiers keys to artillery strikes, that's crazy!" - that officer was ignored, as others recognized that people can be trained in doctrine, tactics and operating complex equipment. > The difference between a decent developer and a great developer is the latter understand how their work fits into the larger picture. Strongly agreed. But 'theshrike79 wasn't talking about that. They were talking about managing men who weren't given the insight into larger picture, because there was nothing useful they could do with it anyway. That was true for the military then. It isn't now. It also isn't true for software development - but there's this persistent trend to make it true, to turn us from modern fighting force into a 17th century line infantry.
- ItsMonkk 5y ago
  This reminded me a lot of Jessitron's latest blog post.[0] [0]:https://jessitron.com/2021/05/26/a-high-resilience-org-chart/ https://jessitron.com/2021/05/26/a-high-resilience-org-chart...
- theshrike79 5y ago
  In my example the coder would be the general and the soldiers are the code :) The easy way is to use all of the latest fancy gizmos, you'll have microservices on a kubernetes cluster and a sharded globally distributed schemaless database - all done with $hype_language and 4200 different npm packages. Because you don't have the knowledge or experience to cut through all the hype and masses of different options. You need to have experience, education and/or training to come up with the simplest possible solution.

TeMPOraL 5y ago

I am familiar with US decentralized command doctrine, which pushed a lot of decision making to the very front lines. But that's a Cold War-era American invention, and 'theshrike79 quoted a Finnish lieutenant general, who fought before and led through World War II. Back then, soldiers had much less autonomy. And even if somebody ported the US doctrine 100 years into the past, so that LtGen Airo could've learned it in France, it probably wouldn't hold, because there was only so much a front line soldier could do with their decision making capacity. Tanks were a fresh invention, most of the world probably haven't seen them. Cavalry was the pinnacle of agility. Artillery was big, bulky, and hard to reposition. Planes were still laughed at. Portable radios weren't a thing yet. Where your modern American grunt is entrusted with the capability to direct howitzers and call down air strikes, the soldiers of Airo's era were just discovering automated weapons, and modes of transport other than "by foot" and "by horse". There was little they could really decide about. In other words: soldiers gained greater autonomy and more sophisticated training when their tools became more sophisticated and powerful. As it should be - as it is, in any sane industry. If there was any officer that said things like, "those Stingers and Javelins are too complex, they'll confuse our new privates", or "why waste your time learning to use night vision gear when you could run with a flashlight and shoot the enemy", or "giving front line soldiers keys to artillery strikes, that's crazy!" - that officer was ignored, as others recognized that people can be trained in doctrine, tactics and operating complex equipment. > The difference between a decent developer and a great developer is the latter understand how their work fits into the larger picture. Strongly agreed. But 'theshrike79 wasn't talking about that. They were talking about managing men who weren't given the insight into larger picture, because there was nothing useful they could do with it anyway. That was true for the military then. It isn't now. It also isn't true for software development - but there's this persistent trend to make it true, to turn us from modern fighting force into a 17th century line infantry.

ItsMonkk 5y ago
This reminded me a lot of Jessitron's latest blog post.[0] [0]:https://jessitron.com/2021/05/26/a-high-resilience-org-chart/ https://jessitron.com/2021/05/26/a-high-resilience-org-chart...
theshrike79 5y ago
In my example the coder would be the general and the soldiers are the code :) The easy way is to use all of the latest fancy gizmos, you'll have microservices on a kubernetes cluster and a sharded globally distributed schemaless database - all done with $hype_language and 4200 different npm packages. Because you don't have the knowledge or experience to cut through all the hype and masses of different options. You need to have experience, education and/or training to come up with the simplest possible solution.