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I'm thinking 1 is more like: "The devs who can write a new system are not the same as the devs who can keep a system running." That's definitely true in my exp
by bilbo0s 2y ago
I'm thinking 1 is more like: "The devs who can write a new system are not the same as the devs who can keep a system running."
That's definitely true in my experience. The people you can hire to write a totally new system are out there in abundance. But finding a guy or gal good at maintenance is actually surprisingly difficult. Good maintenance devs are worth their weight in gold.
- gsf_emergency 2y agoYes! Was trying to keep the 2 points tightly integrated but your thinking is definitely closer to analog31's interpretation of the political economics. There can be a cyclical aspect to the situation: the new hire gives up fixing legacy and rewrites the base out of anger. Probably many other archetypes that I missed, all of which resemble the basic setup. One might also generalize "coding culture" to "culture around legal codes". To pile on your point: meanwhile, the suboptimal job market conditions (shall we say) preps the engineering culture for vicious spirals
- analog31 2y agoThese are all good points, but the people I'm talking about at a high level are more like managers, not devs. The managers haven't even expressed an interest in managing anything.
- gsf_emergency 2y agoAh you are the OP? Thank you for getting the conversation started in a promising direction! Apologies for fixating on the analog instead of the referent, wish you would expand more on this snipe :) >the hacks to get it done this time actually make it harder on an ongoing basis.