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> Software seems to be overrun by a mentality that any future cost is worth it to save even 1 minute of development time… From the instant the idea to do somet

> Software seems to be overrun by a mentality that any future cost is worth it to save even 1 minute of development time… From the instant the idea to do something pops into management’s heads, or is explained to them by sales (who heard it from a customer), the clock is ticking. Actually developing the software necessary is just an irritating overhead. Something to be reduced to near zero. A one-dimensional “scalar”. This isn’t about building. It’s a sort of conditioned response, like a chicken pecking at a lamp to get a grain of corn. Quality, maintainability, simplicity, doesn’t come into it and all management hear from you is technobabble, like Scotty explaining why the dilithium crystals need time to cycle.

Tool_of_Society 4y ago
Indeed none of this is new. The extra complexity of modern software and hardware causes issues to pop up far more often than in the past. I mean for fck's sake remember when the early Pentium CPUs had dividing issues (Pentium FDIV bug) back in the mid 90s? That was a bug that should of been easy to catch but wasn't because of the corporate/stockholder demand for more short term profits. No time to fix or test things because that costs money and we might not be the first to market.
maerF0x0 4y ago
I dont understand why they dont understand the concept that goes like this "If we do it this way, the next feature will take 10% longer, and it will cost 20% more to rectify. When we compound this our feature rate will grind to near 0, or you'll have to hire infinite head count. Your roadmap is 12 months long, and I have reason to believe this is the fastest path to that set of asks, and also sets us up for an excellent future beyond that too".
- nickdothutton 4y ago
  I don’t want to appear too jaded, I consider myself a realist. One component of this collapse of measurement into a single scalar is that many of us (us being those who either engineer software or are close to it, and the software lifecycle) need to do better at explaining the trade-offs. However, I would be surprised it even with better explanations the outcome, the reckoning, is any different. How many quarters ahead does your management plan? How many years? Average tenure for a Chief Revenue Officer is less than 4 years for example.
Izkata 4y ago
> Quality, maintainability, simplicity, doesn’t come into it and all management hear from you is technobabble, like Scotty explaining why the dilithium crystals need time to cycle. In his TNG appearance, Scotty explained to LaForge he padded every single estimate he gave to Kirk, because Kirk would inevitably ask for more or faster. The episode aired in 1992.
jfalcon 4y ago
I see it as the battle between the jocks and the nerds. As frankly from my few decades in the industry, who becomes upper middle management are all the people who you dislike (or they you) in high school. It's just them trying to justify their value to those that truly built or are deemed to be responsible to build out a product/company for the benefit of the shareholders/investors. This is the sort of environment that leads to [non]great ideas like 'swarming' resources on current 'fad/trend' projects (Mythical Man Month) or rapid development of features at a pace beyond what it took to deliver the 1.0 product (tech-debt inhibiting growth causing tech-death) which causes them to just "reinvent/reboot" the idea with yet another different spin. You are seeing it in movies where even the scope of time they perform it is getting shorter and shorter. It's not like people are remaking Cyrano De Bergerac despite it's time being due (Roxanne with Steve Martin is my last recall) but they have to retread ideas from my own adulthood yet skip over others - like why reboot DeGrassi and not BJ and the Bear let alone Knight Rider or any of the dozens of other tech influence tv series of our youth. The reason I think is mostly due to fear. Fear of risking what they didn't like before for something they felt was awesome but not influence by - like Sex in the City or even Return of the Jedi. If it weren't for the amount of time that has gone by, I wouldn't be surprised if within the next 10 years there isn't an attempt to reboot Firefly with the hope that it hooks as much as people pine for it to have stayed on today. We're told that most decisions are due to the investors wanting return on money invested - but if the employees are a large holder of the company shares, doesn't that mean that if they collectively feel willing to risk a different tact that it should be abided? Now-a-days it seems that those who are vocal and can pull it off become "king"... like Twitter.

Tool_of_Society 4y ago

Indeed none of this is new. The extra complexity of modern software and hardware causes issues to pop up far more often than in the past. I mean for fck's sake remember when the early Pentium CPUs had dividing issues (Pentium FDIV bug) back in the mid 90s? That was a bug that should of been easy to catch but wasn't because of the corporate/stockholder demand for more short term profits. No time to fix or test things because that costs money and we might not be the first to market.

maerF0x0 4y ago

I dont understand why they dont understand the concept that goes like this "If we do it this way, the next feature will take 10% longer, and it will cost 20% more to rectify. When we compound this our feature rate will grind to near 0, or you'll have to hire infinite head count. Your roadmap is 12 months long, and I have reason to believe this is the fastest path to that set of asks, and also sets us up for an excellent future beyond that too".

nickdothutton 4y ago
I don’t want to appear too jaded, I consider myself a realist. One component of this collapse of measurement into a single scalar is that many of us (us being those who either engineer software or are close to it, and the software lifecycle) need to do better at explaining the trade-offs. However, I would be surprised it even with better explanations the outcome, the reckoning, is any different. How many quarters ahead does your management plan? How many years? Average tenure for a Chief Revenue Officer is less than 4 years for example.

Izkata 4y ago

> Quality, maintainability, simplicity, doesn’t come into it and all management hear from you is technobabble, like Scotty explaining why the dilithium crystals need time to cycle. In his TNG appearance, Scotty explained to LaForge he padded every single estimate he gave to Kirk, because Kirk would inevitably ask for more or faster. The episode aired in 1992.

jfalcon 4y ago

I see it as the battle between the jocks and the nerds. As frankly from my few decades in the industry, who becomes upper middle management are all the people who you dislike (or they you) in high school. It's just them trying to justify their value to those that truly built or are deemed to be responsible to build out a product/company for the benefit of the shareholders/investors. This is the sort of environment that leads to [non]great ideas like 'swarming' resources on current 'fad/trend' projects (Mythical Man Month) or rapid development of features at a pace beyond what it took to deliver the 1.0 product (tech-debt inhibiting growth causing tech-death) which causes them to just "reinvent/reboot" the idea with yet another different spin. You are seeing it in movies where even the scope of time they perform it is getting shorter and shorter. It's not like people are remaking Cyrano De Bergerac despite it's time being due (Roxanne with Steve Martin is my last recall) but they have to retread ideas from my own adulthood yet skip over others - like why reboot DeGrassi and not BJ and the Bear let alone Knight Rider or any of the dozens of other tech influence tv series of our youth. The reason I think is mostly due to fear. Fear of risking what they didn't like before for something they felt was awesome but not influence by - like Sex in the City or even Return of the Jedi. If it weren't for the amount of time that has gone by, I wouldn't be surprised if within the next 10 years there isn't an attempt to reboot Firefly with the hope that it hooks as much as people pine for it to have stayed on today. We're told that most decisions are due to the investors wanting return on money invested - but if the employees are a large holder of the company shares, doesn't that mean that if they collectively feel willing to risk a different tact that it should be abided? Now-a-days it seems that those who are vocal and can pull it off become "king"... like Twitter.