4 ms·

It's nice that LinkedIn has a great process: regression testing and the like, but what if you work in an environment where you can't afford to test every single

by Hisoka 15y ago

It's nice that LinkedIn has a great process: regression testing and the like, but what if you work in an environment where you can't afford to test every single little thing, and where business models, let alone requirements change constantly (ie. a startup)? What if a competitor just launched a feature that will put you out of business if you don't implement the same thing in 48 hours? What if there is a mission-critical bug that has to be fixed by the end of the day or else all your customers will bail out? Secondly, most who work in Wall Street will tell you it's not about the process. It's about the culture. People don't work until 7 or 8 because they're fixing bugs, or because development is so slow. It's because they're expected to and if they get up and leave at 5, it leaves a bad impression on management and their co-workers.

djb_hackernews 15y ago
Those sound like outliers and they happen. I think he was getting at chronic long work days. However, I'd like to make a few points. regression tests should be baked in from the start, especially easy at a startup starting from fresh. Features that can be implemented in 48 hours have no business being in the way of your success. Mission critical bugs are a symptom of a broken process. They happen, but shouldn't be pathological. Yes, and that culture stinks. Luckily for software developers at this point in time we have MANY options and don't have to be subject to shitty working conditions.
plastics 15y ago
If your company is put out of business by a feature from a competitor you can not copy it within 48 hours, you do not have a business.
rokhayakebe 15y ago
What if a competitor just launched a feature that will put you out of business if you don't implement the same thing in 48 hours? Even if we stretched the 48 hours to 48 days, I am pretty sure this has never happened.
- mattmanser 15y ago
  Facebook suddenly rushing out stuff as Google+ launches. Reddit having to work crazy to take up the exodus from Digg. That bookmark service that did great out of the del.ici.ous fiasco (sorry I honestly can't remember your name!). Perpetuum having a mass of new players because of the Eve monocle incident. I'm sure others can think of times when one business has had to react rapidly to either manoeuvres or failures of another business. Not quite put out of business, but massive opportunity cost if the reaction is not made.
  - zzzeek 15y ago
    reddit is doing 32M page views a day and has (at least somewhat recently) like what, five employees. That is a huge organizational issue.
  - robryan 15y ago
    That bookmark service that did great out of the del.ici.ous fiasco (sorry I honestly can't remember your name!). trunk.ly? They certainly weren't the only ones but were in the right place at the right time to attract a heap of users and as a consequence did some crazy weeks to bring forward a heap of planned features to keep the newly attracted users.
  - prakash 15y ago
    That bookmark service that did great out of the del.ici.ous fiasco (sorry I honestly can't remember your name!). http://pinboard.in/ http://pinboard.in/
- reginaldo 15y ago
  And if it happened, it was because the company was out of business already...
- reginaldo 15y ago
  And if it happened, it was because the company was out of business already...
- Daniel_Newby 15y ago
ww520 15y ago
These are nice excuses managers give to rally workers to work overtime.
cksk 15y ago
What if you work in a construction site where they cannot afford helmets? And what difference does it make to call it a cultural thing? People are still getting their heads injured.
DougWebb 15y ago
If a feature can be duplicated in 48 hours, it's a trivial feature. If your business is that dependent on trivial features, it's a really precarious business.
zzzeek 15y ago
I'm not necessarily taking a side here, but the arguments might be along the lines of a. how is it that you didn't think of some feature capable of killing your whole business in 48 hours ahead of time (poor planning) b. why did you launch a mission-critical bug (not enough testing) ? As for Wall Street, they do many amazing things sure but I'd hope that the WS culture is not the one we're all aspiring towards.
MartinCron 15y ago
but what if you work in an environment where you can't afford to test every single little thing What if you were performing surgery in an environment where you couldn't afford to sterilize every single instrument?
LargeWu 15y ago
* but what if you work in an environment where you can't afford to test every single little thing, and where business models, let alone requirements change constantly (ie. a startup)?* Constantly changing requirements are exactly why you want tests. Not only do they help you find regression bugs when requirements change, but they help tremendously in writing code that is easy to maintain. If you can't test a piece of code, it's a red flag that you can't easily change it either. Furthermore, I don't buy the notion that writing test code adds significant time to the development process. I do not have metrics, but I would argue that a good test suite actually reduces total development time, since the time writing tests is more than offset by the time saved testing manually and fixing bugs later.
robryan 15y ago
A pretty good example of what you are talking about is AirBnB, sure they may have had some of the security features in the pipeline but the pressure was really on them to at least get something out the represented a step in the right direction shortly after what happened. I'm pretty sure they must have had people pull some big hours to put together such a comprehensive security features overhaul so quickly.

by Hisoka 15y ago

djb_hackernews 15y ago

Those sound like outliers and they happen. I think he was getting at chronic long work days. However, I'd like to make a few points. regression tests should be baked in from the start, especially easy at a startup starting from fresh. Features that can be implemented in 48 hours have no business being in the way of your success. Mission critical bugs are a symptom of a broken process. They happen, but shouldn't be pathological. Yes, and that culture stinks. Luckily for software developers at this point in time we have MANY options and don't have to be subject to shitty working conditions.

plastics 15y ago

If your company is put out of business by a feature from a competitor you can not copy it within 48 hours, you do not have a business.

rokhayakebe 15y ago

What if a competitor just launched a feature that will put you out of business if you don't implement the same thing in 48 hours? Even if we stretched the 48 hours to 48 days, I am pretty sure this has never happened.

mattmanser 15y ago
Facebook suddenly rushing out stuff as Google+ launches. Reddit having to work crazy to take up the exodus from Digg. That bookmark service that did great out of the del.ici.ous fiasco (sorry I honestly can't remember your name!). Perpetuum having a mass of new players because of the Eve monocle incident. I'm sure others can think of times when one business has had to react rapidly to either manoeuvres or failures of another business. Not quite put out of business, but massive opportunity cost if the reaction is not made.
- zzzeek 15y ago
  reddit is doing 32M page views a day and has (at least somewhat recently) like what, five employees. That is a huge organizational issue.
- robryan 15y ago
  That bookmark service that did great out of the del.ici.ous fiasco (sorry I honestly can't remember your name!). trunk.ly? They certainly weren't the only ones but were in the right place at the right time to attract a heap of users and as a consequence did some crazy weeks to bring forward a heap of planned features to keep the newly attracted users.
- prakash 15y ago
  That bookmark service that did great out of the del.ici.ous fiasco (sorry I honestly can't remember your name!). http://pinboard.in/ http://pinboard.in/
reginaldo 15y ago
And if it happened, it was because the company was out of business already...
reginaldo 15y ago
And if it happened, it was because the company was out of business already...
Daniel_Newby 15y ago

ww520 15y ago

These are nice excuses managers give to rally workers to work overtime.

cksk 15y ago

What if you work in a construction site where they cannot afford helmets? And what difference does it make to call it a cultural thing? People are still getting their heads injured.

DougWebb 15y ago

If a feature can be duplicated in 48 hours, it's a trivial feature. If your business is that dependent on trivial features, it's a really precarious business.

zzzeek 15y ago

I'm not necessarily taking a side here, but the arguments might be along the lines of a. how is it that you didn't think of some feature capable of killing your whole business in 48 hours ahead of time (poor planning) b. why did you launch a mission-critical bug (not enough testing) ? As for Wall Street, they do many amazing things sure but I'd hope that the WS culture is not the one we're all aspiring towards.

MartinCron 15y ago

but what if you work in an environment where you can't afford to test every single little thing What if you were performing surgery in an environment where you couldn't afford to sterilize every single instrument?

LargeWu 15y ago

* but what if you work in an environment where you can't afford to test every single little thing, and where business models, let alone requirements change constantly (ie. a startup)?* Constantly changing requirements are exactly why you want tests. Not only do they help you find regression bugs when requirements change, but they help tremendously in writing code that is easy to maintain. If you can't test a piece of code, it's a red flag that you can't easily change it either. Furthermore, I don't buy the notion that writing test code adds significant time to the development process. I do not have metrics, but I would argue that a good test suite actually reduces total development time, since the time writing tests is more than offset by the time saved testing manually and fixing bugs later.

robryan 15y ago

A pretty good example of what you are talking about is AirBnB, sure they may have had some of the security features in the pipeline but the pressure was really on them to at least get something out the represented a step in the right direction shortly after what happened. I'm pretty sure they must have had people pull some big hours to put together such a comprehensive security features overhaul so quickly.