5 ms·

> We're still attending stand-ups every day with non programmers telling us when we can and cannot refactor. I highly disagree with this. For some reason, man

by edanm 5y ago

> We're still attending stand-ups every day with non programmers telling us when we can and cannot refactor. I highly disagree with this. For some reason, many devs seem to think they are somehow better than everyone else, that they are the most important part of any team, that no on besides them can have any insight on timelines, or budget, on which features are or aren't important. News flash - all of the above is none-sense. Developers are a profession that provides a specific skill, a highly valued one, but one that is a part of building things in most cases. There's nothing demeaning or wrong about devs having managers, whether or not they happen to also have been developers themselves. Some great software managers were never developers, and some great developers are horrible managers, just like in every other profession. > It's nuts to me that a skilled profession - that not many can do - lets themselves get micro-managed like this. Every skilled profession has people who are managed. Doctors, lawyers, they all have managers, and most of them interact with the public, who can override their expert opinions.

chii 5y ago
and yet i don't tell my plumbers to give me a standup for the day. I tell them what i wanted achieved, and i pay. it gets done. If there's a delay, i expect the plumber to tell me promptly, and i re-evaluate the work. Some programmers do get treated this way - consultants and such. But the majority is not - they are considered a cog in a machine.
- edanm 5y ago
  Plumbers that you personally hire to your house are similar to software consultants. They're often more than "just" plumbers - they're small business owners, so they do a lot of things besides plumbing (e.g. marketing, business management, etc). Again, similar to software contractors. But take plumbers working construction on a 30-story building. They're usually part of a team, and work together with dozens if not hundreds of other professionals. Do you think they don't have meetings where they get together with the other teams, discuss problems, progress etc? I'm not defending stand-ups here, btw. Sometimes they make sense, sometimes they don't. But if your measure of "developers are treated badly" is "developers are asked to be in a 10-minute meeting to talk about their work progress", I think you're missing the forest for the trees in terms of what are and aren't good working conditions.
- WJW 5y ago
  The plumber at your home is exactly like a freelance developer though? The plumbing equivalent of working as a dev for a bigco would probably be assembling engines in a factory or something like that, and factories most definitely have start-of-shift meetings. Even if it's just "pay extra attention to workplace safety y'all, the inspection might come by today".
- ManuelKiessling 5y ago
  But the boss of your plumber might demand to have a daily standup with him or her if he is so inclined. If you want to be treated as a payed consultant, become a payed consultant, with all the disadvantages and advantages which follow from that.
- jseban 5y ago
  Yeah but it's because your plumbers have judgement and will not start to demolish a whole house because they discovered a sub optimal detail in the initial construction of the plumbing. Or install a high pressure car wash in someone's bathroom that they obviously don't need.
LAC-Tech 5y ago
I think we're definitely better at non-developers at software development. Yet we literally have outside people dictating to us when they think it's appropriate for refactoring to happen. Or when it's time to update a dependency. This is a lot different from than "no on besides them can have any insight on timelines, or budget, on which features are or aren't important.". I definitely value the input of other professionals when it comes to their field of expertise. All I want is the same in return.
- edanm 5y ago
  Again, I'm not defending every single workplace here. Obviously some developers aren't treated well, and in those cases, they should find another job. I was commenting on the fairly blanket statement made. But the way the conversation should go isn't the developer deciding when refactoring should happen. It's the developer giving an analysis of the cost and benefit of a refactoring (it will take X time, but will save Y work in the future). And the manager factoring that into all the other circumstances, and deciding whether it's worth the current cost.
  - mibollma 5y ago
    > It's the developer giving an analysis of the cost and benefit of a refactoring (it will take X time, but will save Y work in the future). And the manager factoring that into all the other circumstances, and deciding whether it's worth the current cost. I don't think either devlopers or managers can estimate future savings in most cases, but I still think it's necessary to refactor just to not drown in complexity and slow down overall development speed. My approach is to reserve about 20% for refactoring and technical improvements and let the team decide internally what to use it on.
    - cudgy 5y ago
      Why 20%? Just curious how you arrived at that percentage.
      - mibollma 5y ago
jseban 5y ago
Doctors and lawyers have way more integrity and status, because they are well rounded people as well as experts. They can put their knowledge to the best possible use. In the software industry there is a lingering stereotype of the eccentric genius who is really good with computers, and really bad at everything else in life, and their computer skills make up for lacking a lot of basic skills of a functioning adult, such as lack of judgement and perspective. It's expected that software developers are odd and lopsided people who need someone else to babysit them and provide judgement and direction, and by now this has become the norm in the industry and is an established culture in the workplaces, so it also gets perpetuated and it's really hard to even be a well rounded software developer.
- mstipetic 5y ago
  As someone who has managed developers And worked as a developer I’m not sure that’s completely untrue. I’ve seen bored devops people starting to build their own ci/cd system, massive meetings where people started building their own micro service framework, a dev in my startup spent a month reworking things into sagas with no consideration that we have no product market fit yet, people that insist on “contributing their thoughts” even though they’re not the least qualified or experienced… I’ve seen millions and millions of euros get wasted on things that don’t matter.
  - heurisko 5y ago
    > I’ve seen bored devops people starting to build their own ci/cd system I've seen this too. It added tons of overhead before it was rightly cancelled. > I’ve seen millions and millions of euros get wasted on things that don’t matter. To be fair, I've also seen this from the business side. A great number of ill thought out unsuccessful projects, that are dispiriting to work on, as you know from the beginning that they will not be a success for concrete reasons, e.g. using an immature piece of software that doesn't support the features required.
  - marcellus23 5y ago
    This is not unique, at all, to developers.
lowercased 5y ago
> and most of them interact with the public, who can override their expert opinions. Does the law office receptionist get to tell a lawyer which pieces of evidence should be brought to trial, and which shouldn't? What are the parameters and limits around 'managing' attorneys? I worked in a couple law offices (office stuff and deliveries) and while there was some 'management', it was generally 'top down', and had to do with billable time and court deadlines. Coordination between lawyers to help each other or work on a specific case together happened, but even then the deadlines were generally based on external dates, and were generally not company-imposed ("gotta get all these items done by Q3 for the Q4 launch!")
redleader9345 5y ago
Sometimes it's a matter of hygiene and humane working conditions. You might be surprised at the amount of codebases that are just the equivalent of working in filth. If your workspace has shit smeared on the walls, you don't ask if you can clean it up. You just do it.
knighthack 5y ago
> Every skilled profession has people who are managed. Doctors, lawyers, they all have managers, and most of them interact with the public, who can override their expert opinions. Speaking as a lawyer, and as a programmer: your statement is utter falsehood. In many countries lawyers are not 'managed' by other lawyers. In fact, most non-lawyers have no say in how lawyers practice, and are there to assist only in clerical/administrative matters. In some jurisdictions, non-lawyers are even barred from taking any cut in the outcome of matters (e.g. possible champerty/barratry), and definitely cannot override expert opinions. We even have a derogatory word for those who 'manage' lawyers: touts. In a similar manner, the non-professionals who think they can 'project manage' professionals often over-evaluate their own ability at management; I've seen them make plans that have no basis in engineering reality or technical compliance/requirements especially when it comes to development timelines. Your defensive posture of non-programmers is very indicative of the kind of mentality that true professionals must guard against. Professionals must do a job well, and not just be told to rush out buggy, unsafe products by non-programmers the majority of whom cannot even program to save their lives.
- edanm 5y ago
  Interesting! So you're saying e.g. a legal practice can never be run by non-lawyers? That does seem to make sense. Still, what about cases like a legal counsel for a firm? Surely in those cases, the manager of the lawyer is the CEO, who might not be a lawyer himself?
  - knighthack 5y ago
    Generally, lawyers can only be managed by other lawyers. Exceptions apply in limited circumstances (e.g. see Australia). As to your reference to the word 'legal counsel': a distinction must first be made. The use of the word 'counsel' is often confused by non-lawyers. 'Counsel' is a specific term used to refer to lawyers appearing in court ('counsel of the courts', or 'court practitioners', or 'barristers'). Whereas 'legal counsel' is more specifically used in reference to in-house employees of companies, who handle regulatory compliance, general legal affairs of their companies, and so on. Such legal counsel may be legally trained/qualified, and may have had prior experience in legal practice. But they are not considered 'lawyers', in so far as they are not active/practising members of the bar at which they are practice, and in some instances are referred to as 'non-practising' lawyers. This is about the same distinction as e.g. a graduate of civil engineering, who has decided not to practice as an engineer and has gone on to some other field. Lawyering is however a very traditional profession, and the distinction between practising vs non-practising lawyers is very marked, and generally 'legal counsel' (as described above) are not treated as lawyers at all. It is not uncommon to find an in-house 'legal counsel' who has absolutely no idea what they're doing in practical/commercial reality, as they've never handled proper disputes or difficult contracts before except in non-contentious settings. Thus in certain jurisdictions legal counsel are often prevented from performing any acts that must and can only properly be done by actual practising lawyers - e.g. 'legal counsel' cannot represent other companies/people/entities in courts (as they have no right of audience or locus to represent third parties), they cannot give legal advice as lawyers, etc. 'Legal counsel' as referred to in such context may be 'managed' by a CEO, but that's only because they are staff with legal knowledge, and not lawyers per se.

by edanm 5y ago

chii 5y ago

and yet i don't tell my plumbers to give me a standup for the day. I tell them what i wanted achieved, and i pay. it gets done. If there's a delay, i expect the plumber to tell me promptly, and i re-evaluate the work. Some programmers do get treated this way - consultants and such. But the majority is not - they are considered a cog in a machine.

edanm 5y ago
Plumbers that you personally hire to your house are similar to software consultants. They're often more than "just" plumbers - they're small business owners, so they do a lot of things besides plumbing (e.g. marketing, business management, etc). Again, similar to software contractors. But take plumbers working construction on a 30-story building. They're usually part of a team, and work together with dozens if not hundreds of other professionals. Do you think they don't have meetings where they get together with the other teams, discuss problems, progress etc? I'm not defending stand-ups here, btw. Sometimes they make sense, sometimes they don't. But if your measure of "developers are treated badly" is "developers are asked to be in a 10-minute meeting to talk about their work progress", I think you're missing the forest for the trees in terms of what are and aren't good working conditions.
WJW 5y ago
The plumber at your home is exactly like a freelance developer though? The plumbing equivalent of working as a dev for a bigco would probably be assembling engines in a factory or something like that, and factories most definitely have start-of-shift meetings. Even if it's just "pay extra attention to workplace safety y'all, the inspection might come by today".
ManuelKiessling 5y ago
But the boss of your plumber might demand to have a daily standup with him or her if he is so inclined. If you want to be treated as a payed consultant, become a payed consultant, with all the disadvantages and advantages which follow from that.
jseban 5y ago
Yeah but it's because your plumbers have judgement and will not start to demolish a whole house because they discovered a sub optimal detail in the initial construction of the plumbing. Or install a high pressure car wash in someone's bathroom that they obviously don't need.

LAC-Tech 5y ago

I think we're definitely better at non-developers at software development. Yet we literally have outside people dictating to us when they think it's appropriate for refactoring to happen. Or when it's time to update a dependency. This is a lot different from than "no on besides them can have any insight on timelines, or budget, on which features are or aren't important.". I definitely value the input of other professionals when it comes to their field of expertise. All I want is the same in return.

edanm 5y ago
Again, I'm not defending every single workplace here. Obviously some developers aren't treated well, and in those cases, they should find another job. I was commenting on the fairly blanket statement made. But the way the conversation should go isn't the developer deciding when refactoring should happen. It's the developer giving an analysis of the cost and benefit of a refactoring (it will take X time, but will save Y work in the future). And the manager factoring that into all the other circumstances, and deciding whether it's worth the current cost.
- mibollma 5y ago
  > It's the developer giving an analysis of the cost and benefit of a refactoring (it will take X time, but will save Y work in the future). And the manager factoring that into all the other circumstances, and deciding whether it's worth the current cost. I don't think either devlopers or managers can estimate future savings in most cases, but I still think it's necessary to refactor just to not drown in complexity and slow down overall development speed. My approach is to reserve about 20% for refactoring and technical improvements and let the team decide internally what to use it on.
  - cudgy 5y ago
    Why 20%? Just curious how you arrived at that percentage.
    - mibollma 5y ago

jseban 5y ago

Doctors and lawyers have way more integrity and status, because they are well rounded people as well as experts. They can put their knowledge to the best possible use. In the software industry there is a lingering stereotype of the eccentric genius who is really good with computers, and really bad at everything else in life, and their computer skills make up for lacking a lot of basic skills of a functioning adult, such as lack of judgement and perspective. It's expected that software developers are odd and lopsided people who need someone else to babysit them and provide judgement and direction, and by now this has become the norm in the industry and is an established culture in the workplaces, so it also gets perpetuated and it's really hard to even be a well rounded software developer.

mstipetic 5y ago
As someone who has managed developers And worked as a developer I’m not sure that’s completely untrue. I’ve seen bored devops people starting to build their own ci/cd system, massive meetings where people started building their own micro service framework, a dev in my startup spent a month reworking things into sagas with no consideration that we have no product market fit yet, people that insist on “contributing their thoughts” even though they’re not the least qualified or experienced… I’ve seen millions and millions of euros get wasted on things that don’t matter.
- heurisko 5y ago
  > I’ve seen bored devops people starting to build their own ci/cd system I've seen this too. It added tons of overhead before it was rightly cancelled. > I’ve seen millions and millions of euros get wasted on things that don’t matter. To be fair, I've also seen this from the business side. A great number of ill thought out unsuccessful projects, that are dispiriting to work on, as you know from the beginning that they will not be a success for concrete reasons, e.g. using an immature piece of software that doesn't support the features required.
- marcellus23 5y ago
  This is not unique, at all, to developers.

lowercased 5y ago

> and most of them interact with the public, who can override their expert opinions. Does the law office receptionist get to tell a lawyer which pieces of evidence should be brought to trial, and which shouldn't? What are the parameters and limits around 'managing' attorneys? I worked in a couple law offices (office stuff and deliveries) and while there was some 'management', it was generally 'top down', and had to do with billable time and court deadlines. Coordination between lawyers to help each other or work on a specific case together happened, but even then the deadlines were generally based on external dates, and were generally not company-imposed ("gotta get all these items done by Q3 for the Q4 launch!")

redleader9345 5y ago

Sometimes it's a matter of hygiene and humane working conditions. You might be surprised at the amount of codebases that are just the equivalent of working in filth. If your workspace has shit smeared on the walls, you don't ask if you can clean it up. You just do it.

knighthack 5y ago

> Every skilled profession has people who are managed. Doctors, lawyers, they all have managers, and most of them interact with the public, who can override their expert opinions. Speaking as a lawyer, and as a programmer: your statement is utter falsehood. In many countries lawyers are not 'managed' by other lawyers. In fact, most non-lawyers have no say in how lawyers practice, and are there to assist only in clerical/administrative matters. In some jurisdictions, non-lawyers are even barred from taking any cut in the outcome of matters (e.g. possible champerty/barratry), and definitely cannot override expert opinions. We even have a derogatory word for those who 'manage' lawyers: touts. In a similar manner, the non-professionals who think they can 'project manage' professionals often over-evaluate their own ability at management; I've seen them make plans that have no basis in engineering reality or technical compliance/requirements especially when it comes to development timelines. Your defensive posture of non-programmers is very indicative of the kind of mentality that true professionals must guard against. Professionals must do a job well, and not just be told to rush out buggy, unsafe products by non-programmers the majority of whom cannot even program to save their lives.

edanm 5y ago
Interesting! So you're saying e.g. a legal practice can never be run by non-lawyers? That does seem to make sense. Still, what about cases like a legal counsel for a firm? Surely in those cases, the manager of the lawyer is the CEO, who might not be a lawyer himself?
- knighthack 5y ago
  Generally, lawyers can only be managed by other lawyers. Exceptions apply in limited circumstances (e.g. see Australia). As to your reference to the word 'legal counsel': a distinction must first be made. The use of the word 'counsel' is often confused by non-lawyers. 'Counsel' is a specific term used to refer to lawyers appearing in court ('counsel of the courts', or 'court practitioners', or 'barristers'). Whereas 'legal counsel' is more specifically used in reference to in-house employees of companies, who handle regulatory compliance, general legal affairs of their companies, and so on. Such legal counsel may be legally trained/qualified, and may have had prior experience in legal practice. But they are not considered 'lawyers', in so far as they are not active/practising members of the bar at which they are practice, and in some instances are referred to as 'non-practising' lawyers. This is about the same distinction as e.g. a graduate of civil engineering, who has decided not to practice as an engineer and has gone on to some other field. Lawyering is however a very traditional profession, and the distinction between practising vs non-practising lawyers is very marked, and generally 'legal counsel' (as described above) are not treated as lawyers at all. It is not uncommon to find an in-house 'legal counsel' who has absolutely no idea what they're doing in practical/commercial reality, as they've never handled proper disputes or difficult contracts before except in non-contentious settings. Thus in certain jurisdictions legal counsel are often prevented from performing any acts that must and can only properly be done by actual practising lawyers - e.g. 'legal counsel' cannot represent other companies/people/entities in courts (as they have no right of audience or locus to represent third parties), they cannot give legal advice as lawyers, etc. 'Legal counsel' as referred to in such context may be 'managed' by a CEO, but that's only because they are staff with legal knowledge, and not lawyers per se.