5 ms·

> Whoever wrote and shipped the new Notepad should feel ashamed at their failure as a professional software engineer. Steady on old chap. Who's to say the hapl

by beachy 4y ago

> Whoever wrote and shipped the new Notepad should feel ashamed at their failure as a professional software engineer. Steady on old chap. Who's to say the hapless developer isn't embarrassed about things themselves, but is prevented from doing the right thing by some management edict, ancient process etc. My money's on that rather than one person's incompetence.

donatj 4y ago
You put up the stink of your life or you quit. Anything less and you are a coward and shouldn't work in the industry.
- __ryan__ 4y ago
  In this hypothetical, the individual is choosing between possible homelessness and making Microsoft look bad by following Microsoft’s orders and releasing bad software. And they should choose possible homelessness?
  - userbinator 4y ago
    "possible homelessness"? For someone who at least met the bar for getting hired by Microsoft? On the contrary, I think that individual would easily find a job somewhere else.
  - j-bos 4y ago
    Who are these software engineer's working at Microsoft in the year 2022 at risk of homlessness?
    - __ryan__ 4y ago
      In this hypothetical, the same person who is a “failure as a software engineer”, according to a parent commenter.
      - Dylan16807 4y ago
        You mixed up two scenarios. The original claim was that they were a failure. The hypothetical is that they are not a failure, but are "prevented from doing the right thing". In the hypothetical, they should quit and get a new job.
- GauntletWizard 4y ago
  Cowards ship. Shippers get raises and promotions. Software quality declines.
8note 4y ago
That's a difference between developer and engineer. It's part of an engineer's job to not put out the garbage required by bad management, and instead signal to regulatory agents and media that management is attempting to say, put changes into a bridge that will cause it to call down, killing the first people to step on it
- anthony_d 4y ago
  I’m ready to agree with you as long as you understand software engineering isn’t a thing.
- leetcrew 4y ago
  we're talking about the default text editor on an OS that supports endless alternatives. yes, it's an embarrassment, but (approximately) no one is dying because notepad is janky.
  - jiggawatts 4y ago
    There can be late night disaster recovery scenarios where logging into an under-resourced virtual machine and using Notepad to view a huge log file is the difference between success and failure. Failure can mean huge companies going under, life & death, suicides, end of careers, you name it. The new Notepad is not fit-for-purpose. You cannot use it to open a file several gigabytes in size. It'll just die, take minutes, fill memory, and even if it opens successfully, it'll be unusably slow. It's the Windows equivalent of 'vi'. It has to work, all of the time.
  - kajaktum 4y ago
    > No one is dying I hate this argument so much It's like being perfectly fine with a universe with as much suffering as long as no one is dying. I am exaggerating of course, but why inflict this suffering to a BILLION people? I feel bad when I annoy someone for a few seconds (like struggling to open a door) and yet people are perfectly nonchalant to create ecosystem that billions of people use everyday for the next decade at least.
  - dev_tty01 4y ago
jiggawatts 4y ago
I would absolutely refuse to ship anything of this piss-poor quality. I would refuse to even participate if I wasn't allowed to achieve at least the existing tool's quality level. In fact, I have done similar things. For example, I was asked to develop a protocol-shim for an authentication system used by tens of thousands of people accessing one of the largest SAP systems in the country. I wrote the code, tested it, and said to the PM that the only thing missing for go-live is some HTTPS certificates to make it secure. He asked me to go to production anyway to meet his deadline, and that the certificates will be fixed up later. I straight up told him: "No." The look on his face was hilarious. He called my boss, my boss' boss, and up. I told all of them: "No." We waited for the certificates to be issued.

by beachy 4y ago

donatj 4y ago

You put up the stink of your life or you quit. Anything less and you are a coward and shouldn't work in the industry.

__ryan__ 4y ago
In this hypothetical, the individual is choosing between possible homelessness and making Microsoft look bad by following Microsoft’s orders and releasing bad software. And they should choose possible homelessness?
- userbinator 4y ago
  "possible homelessness"? For someone who at least met the bar for getting hired by Microsoft? On the contrary, I think that individual would easily find a job somewhere else.
- j-bos 4y ago
  Who are these software engineer's working at Microsoft in the year 2022 at risk of homlessness?
  - __ryan__ 4y ago
    In this hypothetical, the same person who is a “failure as a software engineer”, according to a parent commenter.
    - Dylan16807 4y ago
      You mixed up two scenarios. The original claim was that they were a failure. The hypothetical is that they are not a failure, but are "prevented from doing the right thing". In the hypothetical, they should quit and get a new job.
GauntletWizard 4y ago
Cowards ship. Shippers get raises and promotions. Software quality declines.

8note 4y ago

That's a difference between developer and engineer. It's part of an engineer's job to not put out the garbage required by bad management, and instead signal to regulatory agents and media that management is attempting to say, put changes into a bridge that will cause it to call down, killing the first people to step on it

anthony_d 4y ago
I’m ready to agree with you as long as you understand software engineering isn’t a thing.
leetcrew 4y ago
we're talking about the default text editor on an OS that supports endless alternatives. yes, it's an embarrassment, but (approximately) no one is dying because notepad is janky.
- jiggawatts 4y ago
  There can be late night disaster recovery scenarios where logging into an under-resourced virtual machine and using Notepad to view a huge log file is the difference between success and failure. Failure can mean huge companies going under, life & death, suicides, end of careers, you name it. The new Notepad is not fit-for-purpose. You cannot use it to open a file several gigabytes in size. It'll just die, take minutes, fill memory, and even if it opens successfully, it'll be unusably slow. It's the Windows equivalent of 'vi'. It has to work, all of the time.
- kajaktum 4y ago
  > No one is dying I hate this argument so much It's like being perfectly fine with a universe with as much suffering as long as no one is dying. I am exaggerating of course, but why inflict this suffering to a BILLION people? I feel bad when I annoy someone for a few seconds (like struggling to open a door) and yet people are perfectly nonchalant to create ecosystem that billions of people use everyday for the next decade at least.
- dev_tty01 4y ago

jiggawatts 4y ago

I would absolutely refuse to ship anything of this piss-poor quality. I would refuse to even participate if I wasn't allowed to achieve at least the existing tool's quality level. In fact, I have done similar things. For example, I was asked to develop a protocol-shim for an authentication system used by tens of thousands of people accessing one of the largest SAP systems in the country. I wrote the code, tested it, and said to the PM that the only thing missing for go-live is some HTTPS certificates to make it secure. He asked me to go to production anyway to meet his deadline, and that the certificates will be fixed up later. I straight up told him: "No." The look on his face was hilarious. He called my boss, my boss' boss, and up. I told all of them: "No." We waited for the certificates to be issued.