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I wouldn't go about fixing the messages/symptoms, but after "software engineers" doing things wrong. Also if it's really "always" one might consider the option

by tete 4y ago

I wouldn't go about fixing the messages/symptoms, but after "software engineers" doing things wrong. Also if it's really "always" one might consider the option that one goes about things the wrong way, and especially not implying that someone is mean spirited as the phrase "you are not good enough" seems to imply. It could also hint at things like thinking software engineering is about quickly copy pasting stuff from Stack Overflow or tutorials and somehow making it "run", which at least isn't the only way to go about software engineering and in my opinion certainly isn't the best. Given that the trend is to essentially create more of these (see Rust, Typescript, hinters, linters, etc.) to create better software I think more feedback is the way to go, because then one doesn't end up being scared that things will go wrong at the worst time. As a software engineer I think feedback should be embraced, especially when it is direct, because it makes it more helpful than some vague "it's down", "feature X doesn't work". I also don't think it's good to complain about neutral feedback, because the idea of "nice" error messages sounds scary, annoying and like it a waste of valuable time that people in general tend to have too little of. I'd rather spend that time NOT dealing with an error.

PaulHoule 4y ago
Alternately, take out the footguns. I saw a team of data scientists brought to their knees by pip --user install some-package because these packages would infect all of their venv's, including anaconda. When they were just screwing around with Jupyter notebooks to make reports they did OK but when they were trying to create a factory that produced models that could be transplanted into production systems it was a constant struggle and we discovered so many ways you could screw up the configuration of a Python system such as having the output configured to UTF-8 and throwing errors when an invalid character is printed. Engineering would say "just don't print uncontrolled text" but we had nearly 100 dependencies and some of them would print. Engineering would say "just use Docker" but we found plenty of times people used Docker images that had broken Pythons, just now there is another layer of indirection to make problems harder to debug. Then there are all the little things like 0.1 + 0.2 - 0.3 = 5.551115123125783e-17 The route to reliable quality is to make it easier to do things right than to do things wrong.
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- feet 4y ago
  Managing python environments makes me want to cry. I totally understand how that happens, I wish there was an easy way to manage it

by tete 4y ago

PaulHoule 4y ago

Alternately, take out the footguns. I saw a team of data scientists brought to their knees by pip --user install some-package because these packages would infect all of their venv's, including anaconda. When they were just screwing around with Jupyter notebooks to make reports they did OK but when they were trying to create a factory that produced models that could be transplanted into production systems it was a constant struggle and we discovered so many ways you could screw up the configuration of a Python system such as having the output configured to UTF-8 and throwing errors when an invalid character is printed. Engineering would say "just don't print uncontrolled text" but we had nearly 100 dependencies and some of them would print. Engineering would say "just use Docker" but we found plenty of times people used Docker images that had broken Pythons, just now there is another layer of indirection to make problems harder to debug. Then there are all the little things like 0.1 + 0.2 - 0.3 = 5.551115123125783e-17 The route to reliable quality is to make it easier to do things right than to do things wrong.

deleted 4y ago
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feet 4y ago
Managing python environments makes me want to cry. I totally understand how that happens, I wish there was an easy way to manage it