5 ms·

There is absolutely a perverse obsession with the opposite and the narrative of "lone wolves/mercenaries are bad" needs to die already. I've never seen a compa

There is absolutely a perverse obsession with the opposite and the narrative of "lone wolves/mercenaries are bad" needs to die already. I've never seen a company that hasn't had severe problems getting someone else in the domain of a person who left. The problem isn't an asocial person in an important position. It is lack of documentation or at least a paper trail. Various reasons why this could be, but I find the people overly eager to communicate to be the worst offenders of this, not the asocial ones. Personality doesn't magically solve strategy and lack of litmus tests. And funnily enough, these problems form in domains that are considered solved, too. Everyone writes their own half-attempt without looking at what big corps are already doing. The domain itself is never the difficult part.

BigJono 4y ago
Couldn't agree more. Also, the worst fucking docs of all time come out of consulting teams where like 8 people have a superficial understanding of the system and are all trying to collaboratively document everything. They just produce reams of unstructured nonsense that has no actual value whatsoever. 99% of the teams that think they have some decent bus factor actually just have bus factor 0 and survive by lighting piles of money on fire with an army of 0.01xers with high turnover and no chance for anyone to ramp. Give me a single handover .txt file from a lone wolf any day of the week. In fact, that's the exact type of person I want to work with. Fuck "teamwork™" and fuck bus factor.
- BlargMcLarg 4y ago
  It is crazy. We hear these stories all the time. We have clear examples of good and bad documentation. Yet in the same breath, we condemn loners who neither solve nor worsen the problem by default, and praise the social butterflies omnipresent in places with these symptoms present. Nothing is going to substitute throwing a few individuals with zero domain knowledge at your code/docs and seeing if they grasp enough. Certainly not some talking which fades away in 10 minutes.

BigJono 4y ago

Couldn't agree more. Also, the worst fucking docs of all time come out of consulting teams where like 8 people have a superficial understanding of the system and are all trying to collaboratively document everything. They just produce reams of unstructured nonsense that has no actual value whatsoever. 99% of the teams that think they have some decent bus factor actually just have bus factor 0 and survive by lighting piles of money on fire with an army of 0.01xers with high turnover and no chance for anyone to ramp. Give me a single handover .txt file from a lone wolf any day of the week. In fact, that's the exact type of person I want to work with. Fuck "teamwork™" and fuck bus factor.

BlargMcLarg 4y ago
It is crazy. We hear these stories all the time. We have clear examples of good and bad documentation. Yet in the same breath, we condemn loners who neither solve nor worsen the problem by default, and praise the social butterflies omnipresent in places with these symptoms present. Nothing is going to substitute throwing a few individuals with zero domain knowledge at your code/docs and seeing if they grasp enough. Certainly not some talking which fades away in 10 minutes.