5 ms·

Super subjective. The most common thing I see is developers compensating for this by never writing original code and then demonizing others who do when they can

Super subjective. The most common thing I see is developers compensating for this by never writing original code and then demonizing others who do when they cannot read it. By original code I don’t mean config files or glue for frameworks.

whateveracct 4y ago
Yep I've seen seniors/principals come in and steamroll people trying to do FP by claiming that it was inscrutable and irresponsible. Sometimes even going up the chain to cause shake-up without the team's input. Even though said FP was in production, working with a low bug rate, and the entire team was fine with it. And I've seen this happen at multiple companies. I've come to think it's the biggest existential risk to doing Haskell in industry - it's red meat to org-chart climbing sharks. And the people who tend to be willing to learn and do FP in prod tend to not be politically-minded (usually due to strong principles and values), making them even weaker to these attacks.
- Starlord2048 4y ago
  It seems as though the main issue here is not with FP itself, but with the politics and power dynamics within organizations.
  - whateveracct 4y ago
    Oh definitely, but sadly I think the culture and people involved in FP tend to be susceptible to politics. But I am in no way _blaming_ that or acting like FP should change. Those same cultures, values, and people are what make the various FP languages and communities out there great.
- vbezhenar 4y ago
  I am that guy. Because you’ll leave and there will be no one brave enough to support and expand this code. And so it’ll get rewritten from the scratch. Why not write it in a maintainable way from the start. A significant part of choosing a technology is economics of people available to hire. Who can work with that technology 5 years later, when original authors will be long gone.
  - whateveracct 4y ago
    The only reason the 10+ authors (all plenty skilled in Haskell either before joining or due to working on the project) were all gone is because said senior came in and pushed them out. As I said, the team was fully functional, in production, low bug rate, generally happy. Is it really cheaper to rewrite an entire working system (that took a year+ to build in the first place) than to just learn something new? I have learned a new language in order to inherit a working, hardened, well-made system before. But I am finding for certain senior engineers, the answer to "can I learn a new language" is a resounding no. The cost is infinite, so of course it's cheaper to rewrite. Plus they are incentivized to rewrite thanks to political reasons (i.e. it's a great way to get promoted). The last time it happened, I was lucky enough to be accidentally shielded from accountability due to the organizational quagmire that resulted from the team blowing up. I basically got to do nothing for a year and make $200k. And I got to be less than useful to the principal who made the powerplay (not -10x level but I did get to spend time maintaining the existing FP system due to it having a single production consumer left). That dude did not like that I never turned my camera on. My manager also seemed pretty checked-out, so that was extra buffer. So to summarize, I'll say that it's easy to have be prescient when you make self-fulfilling prophecies. That's one skill I've learned from senior management over the years.
    - jay_kyburz 4y ago
      Now, every time you hire an engineer they need to spend weeks or months learning Haskell on top of everything else. It now costs the business an extra 50K every time you get a new developer. I like Google's strategy of having the simplest language that anybody can pickup as fast as possible. Go.
      - whateveracct 4y ago
        There are more costs than onboarding costs. Also it's not hard to hire Haskellers or Haskell-adjacent devs. Haskell in fact makes you stand out. Those sorts of people don't need months. I've seen people new to Haskell make their first commits within a week. And they weren't geniuses or anything. But they also didn't have an attitude about it.
- eecc 4y ago
  Heh, I was once walked through a live “code review” where all my code that used Java steam maps were replaced by this one dude with for loops in private methods. What a dress-down… pff, the project was canned a few months after I left. But I’m a consultant, no long term investments
  - whstl 4y ago
    Man, I got a story not with Streams but with its C# cousin, LINQ. A long time ago I've seen a senior engineer totally lambasting a junior because the junior used a LINQ ORM. He saw DB.Users.Where(a => a.Id == 1) on the screen and launched a tirade of "Are you retarded? You're downloading the whole Users table when you do that!" It was fun watching our boss explain how LINQ worked and seeing the shame in the engineer's face.
    - myko 4y ago
      I've never really worked with C# before but I assume that query is about as efficient as a similar SQL statement?
      - whstl 4y ago
        Exactly. LINQ allows you to use the same syntax for both local arrays and in an ORM, or any data source really, if you implement its IQueryable interface. You implementation can "parse" the AST and generate an SQL query, like a regular ORM.
intelVISA 4y ago
The "genius" who transforms complex systems into Eldritch horrors and the "swore an oath to never reinvent the wheel" glue engineer are equally as damaging imo.
safety1st 4y ago
Yes and no. I don't think the basics are subjective. A lot of the code which needs to be written basically is framework glue or some CRUD app or something else that doesn't need to be computationally sophisticated or elaborate. If a developer working on that sort of task A) matches the coding conventions of the underlying framework and B) employs basic use of docblocks to describe things like function signatures, they're 90% of the way to decent, understandable code that someone else can pick up and work with. It's amazing, though, how many developers will not do those two things unless you drive home that they're mandatory. They are pretty objective guidelines that I use to "grade" code in my head and it's pretty rare that anyone who follows them produces code that isn't at least a B, and that other people are able to pick up and extend later on without too much trouble.

whateveracct 4y ago

Yep I've seen seniors/principals come in and steamroll people trying to do FP by claiming that it was inscrutable and irresponsible. Sometimes even going up the chain to cause shake-up without the team's input. Even though said FP was in production, working with a low bug rate, and the entire team was fine with it. And I've seen this happen at multiple companies. I've come to think it's the biggest existential risk to doing Haskell in industry - it's red meat to org-chart climbing sharks. And the people who tend to be willing to learn and do FP in prod tend to not be politically-minded (usually due to strong principles and values), making them even weaker to these attacks.

Starlord2048 4y ago
It seems as though the main issue here is not with FP itself, but with the politics and power dynamics within organizations.
- whateveracct 4y ago
  Oh definitely, but sadly I think the culture and people involved in FP tend to be susceptible to politics. But I am in no way _blaming_ that or acting like FP should change. Those same cultures, values, and people are what make the various FP languages and communities out there great.
vbezhenar 4y ago
I am that guy. Because you’ll leave and there will be no one brave enough to support and expand this code. And so it’ll get rewritten from the scratch. Why not write it in a maintainable way from the start. A significant part of choosing a technology is economics of people available to hire. Who can work with that technology 5 years later, when original authors will be long gone.
- whateveracct 4y ago
  The only reason the 10+ authors (all plenty skilled in Haskell either before joining or due to working on the project) were all gone is because said senior came in and pushed them out. As I said, the team was fully functional, in production, low bug rate, generally happy. Is it really cheaper to rewrite an entire working system (that took a year+ to build in the first place) than to just learn something new? I have learned a new language in order to inherit a working, hardened, well-made system before. But I am finding for certain senior engineers, the answer to "can I learn a new language" is a resounding no. The cost is infinite, so of course it's cheaper to rewrite. Plus they are incentivized to rewrite thanks to political reasons (i.e. it's a great way to get promoted). The last time it happened, I was lucky enough to be accidentally shielded from accountability due to the organizational quagmire that resulted from the team blowing up. I basically got to do nothing for a year and make $200k. And I got to be less than useful to the principal who made the powerplay (not -10x level but I did get to spend time maintaining the existing FP system due to it having a single production consumer left). That dude did not like that I never turned my camera on. My manager also seemed pretty checked-out, so that was extra buffer. So to summarize, I'll say that it's easy to have be prescient when you make self-fulfilling prophecies. That's one skill I've learned from senior management over the years.
  - jay_kyburz 4y ago
    Now, every time you hire an engineer they need to spend weeks or months learning Haskell on top of everything else. It now costs the business an extra 50K every time you get a new developer. I like Google's strategy of having the simplest language that anybody can pickup as fast as possible. Go.
    - whateveracct 4y ago
      There are more costs than onboarding costs. Also it's not hard to hire Haskellers or Haskell-adjacent devs. Haskell in fact makes you stand out. Those sorts of people don't need months. I've seen people new to Haskell make their first commits within a week. And they weren't geniuses or anything. But they also didn't have an attitude about it.
eecc 4y ago
Heh, I was once walked through a live “code review” where all my code that used Java steam maps were replaced by this one dude with for loops in private methods. What a dress-down… pff, the project was canned a few months after I left. But I’m a consultant, no long term investments
- whstl 4y ago
  Man, I got a story not with Streams but with its C# cousin, LINQ. A long time ago I've seen a senior engineer totally lambasting a junior because the junior used a LINQ ORM. He saw DB.Users.Where(a => a.Id == 1) on the screen and launched a tirade of "Are you retarded? You're downloading the whole Users table when you do that!" It was fun watching our boss explain how LINQ worked and seeing the shame in the engineer's face.
  - myko 4y ago
    I've never really worked with C# before but I assume that query is about as efficient as a similar SQL statement?
    - whstl 4y ago
      Exactly. LINQ allows you to use the same syntax for both local arrays and in an ORM, or any data source really, if you implement its IQueryable interface. You implementation can "parse" the AST and generate an SQL query, like a regular ORM.

intelVISA 4y ago

The "genius" who transforms complex systems into Eldritch horrors and the "swore an oath to never reinvent the wheel" glue engineer are equally as damaging imo.

safety1st 4y ago

Yes and no. I don't think the basics are subjective. A lot of the code which needs to be written basically is framework glue or some CRUD app or something else that doesn't need to be computationally sophisticated or elaborate. If a developer working on that sort of task A) matches the coding conventions of the underlying framework and B) employs basic use of docblocks to describe things like function signatures, they're 90% of the way to decent, understandable code that someone else can pick up and work with. It's amazing, though, how many developers will not do those two things unless you drive home that they're mandatory. They are pretty objective guidelines that I use to "grade" code in my head and it's pretty rare that anyone who follows them produces code that isn't at least a B, and that other people are able to pick up and extend later on without too much trouble.