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Doesn't matter what the code looks like, as long as the customers are happy. Can you imagine if other industries had this same attitude? "It doesn't matte

Doesn't matter what the code looks like, as long as the customers are happy. Can you imagine if other industries had this same attitude? "It doesn't matter what the warehouse looks like, as long as we ship on time, and the customers are happy." At one level that's true, but at another level, it does matter what your warehouse looks like, because a neat and tidy warehouse is what allows you to ship on time. A warehouse that's filthy and disorganized is one which loses orders, ships the wrong products. Similarly a disorganized codebase with poor abstractions isn't bad because it's unpleasant to work in. It's bad because when a dev ships a feature, they have little or no confidence that they've done so without breaking two or three other features and causing customer dissatisfaction in the process.

WJW 4y ago
Have you actually been inside many warehouses or factories? I don't think I've ever seen one that was as clean or visually attractive as the areas that customers were meant to see. You're right that they're (usually) not filthy to the point that it impedes operations, but it's quite correct that customers don't care about how the warehouse looks like as long as the goods arrive on time. Same for restaurant kitchens, bakeries, metal workshops and a host of other production facilities. The only production facility I've ever seen that was "clean" was the assembly area of a medical instruments producer (it was a literal clean room with suits and everything), but even their warehouse did not look attractive. Their customers were quite happy though, the company was growing fast. Most programmers imagine other industries to be better because they only see the customer facing parts, but that is like judging the state of a codebase by how nice the landing page is styled. Penny-pinching managers exist in all industries.
- quanticle 4y ago
  Joel Spolsky has a good article about this [1], where he discusses apparent cleanliness versus actual cleanliness in the context of a bakery. I agree that, at least on the surface, a warehouse or commercial kitchen may be quite messy. But there has to be an underlying order, otherwise the system just doesn't function like it ought to. [1]: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2005/05/11/making-wrong-code-look-wrong/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2005/05/11/making-wrong-code-...

WJW 4y ago

Have you actually been inside many warehouses or factories? I don't think I've ever seen one that was as clean or visually attractive as the areas that customers were meant to see. You're right that they're (usually) not filthy to the point that it impedes operations, but it's quite correct that customers don't care about how the warehouse looks like as long as the goods arrive on time. Same for restaurant kitchens, bakeries, metal workshops and a host of other production facilities. The only production facility I've ever seen that was "clean" was the assembly area of a medical instruments producer (it was a literal clean room with suits and everything), but even their warehouse did not look attractive. Their customers were quite happy though, the company was growing fast. Most programmers imagine other industries to be better because they only see the customer facing parts, but that is like judging the state of a codebase by how nice the landing page is styled. Penny-pinching managers exist in all industries.

quanticle 4y ago
Joel Spolsky has a good article about this [1], where he discusses apparent cleanliness versus actual cleanliness in the context of a bakery. I agree that, at least on the surface, a warehouse or commercial kitchen may be quite messy. But there has to be an underlying order, otherwise the system just doesn't function like it ought to. [1]: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2005/05/11/making-wrong-code-look-wrong/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2005/05/11/making-wrong-code-...