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Too many best practices in software engineering are followed as if they were immutable laws. Too many best practices in software engineering are followed to im
by meheleventyone 5y ago
Too many best practices in software engineering are followed as if they were immutable laws.
Too many best practices in software engineering are followed to improve developers experience rather than the quality of the end result.
Too many best practices in software engineering have no empirical basis.
- tcbasche 5y agoI feel like having automated testing though is objectively beneficial. I imagine SO make up for that by having a QA team and spend a heap of time manually testing stuff at the expense of “performance”.
- meheleventyone 5y agoI agree, automated tests of all kinds do have empirical basis every time I’ve seen them used. You can literally see their value by measuring their output. There’s a lot more to the “best practices” around automated testing than just doing it though. And therein lies the rub.
- nhinck2 5y agoThere is a world of difference between objectively having benefits and being strictly beneficial.
- commandlinefan 5y ago> I imagine SO make up for that by having a QA team Most places I've ever worked have made automated testing impossible but then gone ahead and made up for it by just never testing anything and then blaming the programmers when bugs show up in production.
- DocTomoe 5y agoBest practices, when blindly followed, especially without understanding, lead to cargo cult programming. Ill-understood best practice documents are an organisational code smell. Complaining about best practice, however, is itself a best practice.
- hulitu 5y ago> Too many best practices in software engineering are followed as if they were immutable laws. The wise programmer is told about Tao and follows it. The average programmer is told about Tao and searches for it. The foolish programmer is told about Tao and laughs at it. If it were not for laughter, there would be no Tao. The highest sounds are hardest to hear. Going forward is a way to retreat. Great talent shows itself late in life. Even a perfect program still has bugs. > Too many best practices in software engineering are followed to improve developers experience rather than the quality of the end result. Thus spake the Master Programmer: "Though a program be but three lines long, someday it will have to be maintained." > Too many best practices in software engineering have no empirical basis. Thus spake the Master Programmer: "When you have learned to snatch the error code from the trap frame, it will be time for you to leave."
- meheleventyone 5y agoAnd don’t get me started on all the pseudo-profound advice dressed up in mystic, Asian clothes. Sometimes I feel what programmers really value is their ego.
- hulitu 5y agoA lot of professionals value their ego. Best practices are there to also make their work valuable.
- meheleventyone 5y agoSo long as they’re contingent, corrigible, evidence-based and lead to a better product I’m all for them. Sadly most aren’t and really should be called “my personal, preferred way of doing things”.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- FpUser 5y agoThis post reads like delirium.
- playpause 5y agoAny examples?
- meheleventyone 5y agoThe whole repertoire of Uncle Bob comes to mind. But I’m not really here to litigate the details.