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Only people building software systems get to have opinions on how they get built
- roflyear 4y agoKind of touches on someone we have employed at my job. Loves to tell people how to do something, never does anything himself.
- ejb999 4y agoI really love the people at my job they never write any code anymore, except for the quick POC's to test out every new shiny thing that comes along, and then unilaterally decree that from now on everything must be written that way, or with that new tool or on that new platform.
- ilikerashers 4y agoCan they be joined by the agile project manager who insists that producing work on time is "not agile"? In fact, being asked to do anything is "not agile". I feel like we have a good starter for a sitcom here.
- matwood 4y agoI've never worked in a company large enough to have an architect who didn't write code. My current role as a manager/bizdev/ex-CTO person, I still write code. Though, it's always janitorial type stuff so my team can do the fun/challenging things.
- roflyear 4y agoYeah. Or the owner of the company who has done a little coding (R scrips, etc.) who knows exactly how you need to implement that feature, or design that database, etc.. lol
- dsiegel2275 4y agoLike an architect that can no longer write code?
- actionfromafar 4y agoArchitecting is a skill, but it's easy for it to become out-of tune with the current reality if you don't also develop.
- beardyw 4y agoI agree with the "out of tune with reality" but in my experience it can also be a chasing after the next big thing to the detriment of the current reality. That rests on a belief that computer systems are not an end in themselves except where you are selling them to not be an end in themselves.
- VWWHFSfQ 4y agoWhen I see this kind of attitude I know that this person is burned out and needs to find something new to do. The reality is that software is complex and maintaining and running it is also complex. Making sure it continues to work 24/7 is not trivial. And the beeper that goes off when it stops working most likely belongs to a different person than wrote the code. So, no offense, but get the fuck over yourself or find a new job.
- flappyeagle 4y agoShe’s the CTO and cofounder of a dev ops product company so I don’t think she’s who you’re imagining she is.
- VWWHFSfQ 4y agoI'm aware of who she is.
- flappyeagle 4y agoThen you should be quite aware she doesn’t believe half the random shit she spouts on twitter, including this. It’s greatly exaggerated for clout chasing.
- siva7 4y agoThat's not what i expect when i see someone on twitter linking the CTO role in their bio.
- flappyeagle 4y agoYou have your assumptions inverted my friend
- dabber 4y agoThis more or less describes a lot of how I view software industry Twitter. Tweet threads on topics like this are rarely deep and thoughtfully considered, and when they are, an article or blog post would always be a better format.
- adenozine 4y ago[flagged]
- rideontime 4y agoWhat’s a “box dye”?
- gpcz 4y agoHair dye that you purchase and apply yourself.
- rideontime 4y agoOh. I'd ask them what's wrong with that, but they seem to have been banned :)
- alright_scowl 4y agoAgreed. And I say that when my role is "building software systems" People with different roles in an organization will have different perspectives and goals. Ultimately the software system being built will have to be a compromise of those perspectives and goals. Everyone has "skin in the game" to a degree, even if they don't "carry a pager".
- dang 4y agoYou can't attack others like this on HN, no matter how wrong they are or you feel they are. We have to ban accounts that do, in order to prevent the community from destroying itself, so please don't do it again. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Edit: it looks like you've been doing this repeatedly and we've already asked you repeatedly to stop, so I think we have to ban this account. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34541432 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34541432 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34537288 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34537288 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34528400 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34528400 If you don't want to be banned on Hacker News, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.
- JCM9 4y agoThis is like saying only carpenters should be able to design houses. Sure there are some excellent carpenters that are also good architects, but most are not. There obviously needs to be good communication between the carpenters and the architect but these are distinctly separate functions. The Twitter OP sounds like someone that’s a bit full of themselves and struggles to see other perspectives—-a core skill to be a broadly respected leader. I’ve seen the persona they’re referring to materialize, but that’s just someone that’s a bad architect. I’ve equally seen plenty of “know-it-all get outta my way” developers that say they don’t want others around but create terrible productions systems that end up failing because of bigger picture design items the developer missed. Building excellent production systems at scale is a hard job that requires strong collaboration from diverse teams.
- actionfromafar 4y agoIt is like saying only carpenters should be able to design houses, but it's also not exactly that. Why? Because house construction and building is a proper engineering discipline, but very little software is built like that. We are just starting to understand how software can be designed with such rigor, and maybe we will never be able to because of market forces.
- roflc0ptic 4y agoAre we starting to understand that? In what ways?
- actionfromafar 4y agoIn small ways, formal verification of software, with Coq and such.
- peteradio 4y agoGreat way to increase adoption, name it Coq.
- hgsgm 4y ago
- hgsgm 4y agoThanks, TikTok Joel Spolsky.
- password1 4y agoI really wish I could see the reactions to this tweet in a parallel universe where it was not written by a woman with died hairs. I have a hunch that the disagreement wouldn't come with personal attacks and judgments on OP's character.
- switch007 4y agoMe too. The responses are so predictable, even on HN. Comments just take a different (worse) tone when the post is by a woman
- misto 4y agoMaybe I don't know how Twitter works, but I didn't manage to find a single personal attack or judgement on her character from the Tweet replies or from the comments here. The responses were rather on the contrary, enforcing her view with some anecdotal testimonies etc. This is a bit surprising given the provoking nature of her initial comment (calling peoples engineering roles bullshit).. So what exactly are you talking about?
- password1 4y agoI'm sorry you couldn't find them. Here are some comments with personal attacks and judgements that I found on this very comment section here on HN: > Have some humility with your cheap box dye, ugh > When I see this kind of attitude I know that this person is burned out and needs to find something new to do. > So, no offense, but get the fuck over yourself or find a new job. > Yeah, when you start to describe your daily work with words like "burden", you're usually not in a good mental state. > The Twitter OP sounds like someone that’s a bit full of themselves and struggles to see other perspectives—-a core skill to be a broadly respected leader. > Toxic attitude. I hope to hell to not work with someone like that. These are either attacks or judgements of her character, based on a single statement (or opinion if they actually went to read the entire thread). One thing is to say "you are wrong" and another is to say "you are wrong and burned out/mentally unstable/full of yourself/unable to be a leader/toxic". Again, I would be very curious if I would find these kind of remarks in a parallel universe where this thread was not posted by a woman with dyed hairs. Bias is a real thing and the fact that she's actually wrong in this instance doesn't make bias justified or less problematic.
- jawns 4y agoI've read a lot of Charity Majors' stuff, and in some ways this opinion is typical of her, and in some ways it is not. Obviously, she's a big proponent of engineers taking full ownership of their work. That's core to observability, which is what her day job is all about: https://charity.wtf/2020/03/03/observability-is-a-many-splendored-thing/ https://charity.wtf/2020/03/03/observability-is-a-many-splen... Yet one of the pieces she's well known for is "The Engineer/Manager Pendulum," where she argues that some of the best managers and some of the best ICs are people who have gone back and forth between the two roles: https://charity.wtf/2017/05/11/the-engineer-manager-pendulum/ https://charity.wtf/2017/05/11/the-engineer-manager-pendulum... In one sense, that is consistent with her opinion about architects being a BS position, sort of analogous to calling out useless middle managers. But one of my takeaways from her pendulum opinion is that those senior ICs who have pendulumed are better off precisely because they bring a management skillset to IC work and an IC skillset to management work. And a high enough level, that manager's eye might involve recognizing that helping other engineers design their systems is imparting more engineering influence than whatever any one person can do at the code level. And in these cases, I'd argue you're still delivering engineering value rather than just project-management value. Charity knows a lot of these senior ICs, and so it's not as if she's dismissing their potential value out of ignorance. So I'm a little surprised that she's throwing the baby out with the bathwater and arguing not that there are a lot of architects who aren't delivering the value they should be, but that the role itself is inherently not valuable.
- flerchin 4y agoOn balance, the role might be net-negative. Like PMs. There are _good people_ doing _hard jobs_, at most orgs. However, a role where you're not responsible for the systems you create is one where the feedback loops are too large to add value beyond random chance.
- SpicyLemonZest 4y agoThere’s many kinds of responsibility. You can just as easily tell the inverse story, where you need architects and PMs to be in charge because engineers aren’t responsible for the business value of the systems they create.
- siva7 4y agoQuite sad reading such a statement from a CTO. This attitude would tell me that a hypothetical candidate lacks likely fundamental skills in software architecture and has also either never worked or grasped the business need in complex organizations for such roles. I've seen this attitude many times over and it always boiled down to a fundamental misunderstanding of what software architecture is about
- radlad 4y agoCould you elaborate on what software architecture IS about?
- siva7 4y agoDepends entirely on your company. At big Orgs (hundreds of teams) it's usually consulting and being compliant with the goals of the overall enterprise architecture. What it's certainly not about if the architect is actually worth their salt - dictating other teams what to do.
- tptacek 4y agoSo architecture is about... architecture?
- grrdotcloud 4y ago[dead]
- flerchin 4y agoThis rings true to me. "Architects" are more often than not, an antipattern. We never call an Architect when there's a P1.
- nayroclade 4y agoOne thing I think is kinda strange about software development as a craft is how a large portion of the industry seems to believe that the end goal of spending 10-20 years becoming a highly skilled coder is to one day stop coding. You're either supposed to become a manager, an architect, or spend 100% of your time mentoring and reviewing work for junior developers. Personally, I like coding. I don't want to be a manager. I don't want to be an architect. I don't mind mentoring, but only if it's a minority of my time. If I wanted to be a teacher, I'd have chosen that as a career. I understand that many people do want to transition those roles, but I don't like the feeling that transitioning around the age of 40 is considered the default.
- tuatoru 4y agoOther people, likewise, prefer being builders' laborers to being builders.
- gpjanik 4y ago"Architects are not real engineers/their opinion doesn't matter" is just a rephrased version of "the real developer starts at exactly my level of knowledge, but anything above is already 'incredibly good'" which I've seen, well, everywhere & all the time. IT culture has a big problem with repressed aggression and some weird & frankly speaking pretty useless type of competitiveness which leads to this type of behavior.
- Eumenes 4y agothis is about what I expect from a chronically online twitter tech personality.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- ergonaught 4y agoThat "way of operating" has gone horribly wrong in pretty much every domain it's ever been attempted. It's obviously "wrong", insofar as opinions can be "wrong", conflating different skills, authorities, responsibilities. All the counters appear to already be known and obvious, sooooo, trolling for fun and profit? Attention economy for the win? Here I am posting comments about it. Tsk.
- JohnCClarke 4y agoWondering whether you need an architect? You may like to consider: [1] The Winchester House, and [2] KRAZAM, Microservices Just saying, [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winchester_Mystery_House https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winchester_Mystery_House [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8OnoxKotPQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8OnoxKotPQ
- karmakaze 4y agoThis is just a rant on Architects who don't know what they're doing. At face value, it's like saying only players with current season court-time should be coaches. It would have been much more insightful and productive to present this as being hands-off for too long leads to a detrimental disconnect, and seek solutions to close that gap. If the tweet was motivated by a specific incident, perhaps that would be a more interesting read.
- ploppyploppy 4y agoToxic attitude. I hope to hell to not work with someone like that.
- fmajid 4y agoWhen Richard Hipp of SQLite was setting up his foundation to manage the project, Mitchell Baker of Mozilla advised him to ensure only developers got the final say, and that was excellent advice (Baker is a lawyer herself by training). We all know Architecture Astronauts who have been so long out of the field their recommendations are completely disconnected from reality. Back when I worked at a Fortune Global 500, we were invited by IBM to a lunch with Grady Booch, and seldom have I been as unimpressed by the torrent of meaningless platitudes he spewed during that event.
- rektide 4y agoAgreed, the people building should ideally have the decision (which every now and then I think they are also liable to be overruled on). But this seems to say they should be the only voice in the room too, which seems not right. It's not easy creating an environment where it's clear whose decision it is, and where teams feel ok brushing off other people's opinion. But I do think dialog & discourse are an important thing to maintain, and I am having a hard time seeing how that factors into this assertion. It's not perfect but I like having the org use the RAPID framework at my last job, as it established some framing/roles for secision making & was clear who had what roles: R, recommender, gathers input - makes a formal recommemdation. A, agree, optional, people signing off on recommendation. P, perform, the team doing the work. I, input, provide info/advice t o recommemder. D, decide, the decider who commits org to task, based on recommendation & it's gathered inputs. Often teams would be recommender, decider, & performer, but being clear on that was a nice positive.