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If you do not follow the happy path something will break 100% of the time. That's why engineers always follow the happy path. Some engineers even think that any

by z3t4 2y ago

If you do not follow the happy path something will break 100% of the time. That's why engineers always follow the happy path. Some engineers even think that anything outside the happy path is an exception and not even worth investigating. These engineers only thrives if the users are unable to switch to another product. Only competition will lead to better products.

steveBK123 2y ago
My favorite happy path developer.. and he was by far 10x worse than any engineer I worked with at this, did the following: Spec: allow the internal BI tool to send scheduled reports to the user Implementation: the server required the desktop front end of said user to have been opened that day for the scheduled reports to work, even though the server side was sending the mails Why this was hilariously bad - the only reason to have this feature is for when the user is out of office / away from desk for an extended period, precisely when they may not have opened their desktop UI for the day. One of my favorite examples of how an engineer can get the entire premise of the problem wrong. In the end he had taken so long and was so intransigent that desktop support team found it easier to schedule the desktop UIs to auto-open in windows scheduler every day such that the whole Rube Goldberg scheduled reports would work.
- db48x 2y ago
  You found a 1× engineer; the worst engineer that can keep the job.
  - steveBK123 2y ago
    Over time we actually found him to be more of a -2x engineer, but thats another story edit: reminded me of the old joke A programmer gets sent to the store by his wife. His wife says, “Get a gallon of milk, and if they have eggs, get a dozen.” The programmer returns home with 12 gallons of milk and says, “They had eggs.”
    - monsieurbanana 2y ago
      The fool, he should have gotten 13 gallons of milk
    - stavros 2y ago
      Ah, the "and" ruins that joke for me by signifying a separate clause. I think the original is: > A programmer gets sent to the store by his wife. His wife says, “Get a gallon of milk. If they have eggs, get a dozen.”
    - chrismorgan 2y ago
      > more of a -2x engineer You just needed to find another one like him, and bam, +4×. (It is actually conceivable that two bad engineers could mostly cancel each other out, if they can occupy each other enough, but it’s not the most likely outcome.)
    - glxxyz 2y ago
      'Antiwork' - every hour they work uses up more than an hour of other engineers' time in questions, meetings, and later fixes.
      - steveBK123 2y ago
        Correct - they do bad work quickly which requires 2x the time on repairs
- pavel_lishin 2y ago
  It honestly doesn't even sound like there was a happy path involved in his work.
epolanski 2y ago
Nonsense, you're not describing any engineering at all. I mean, it's well known that there's very little engineering in most software "engineers", but you're describing a person I've never seen.
pjc50 2y ago
> If you do not follow the happy path something will break 100% of the time No, that means you're dealing with an early alpha, rigged demo, or some sort of vibe coding nonsense.

by z3t4 2y ago

steveBK123 2y ago

My favorite happy path developer.. and he was by far 10x worse than any engineer I worked with at this, did the following: Spec: allow the internal BI tool to send scheduled reports to the user Implementation: the server required the desktop front end of said user to have been opened that day for the scheduled reports to work, even though the server side was sending the mails Why this was hilariously bad - the only reason to have this feature is for when the user is out of office / away from desk for an extended period, precisely when they may not have opened their desktop UI for the day. One of my favorite examples of how an engineer can get the entire premise of the problem wrong. In the end he had taken so long and was so intransigent that desktop support team found it easier to schedule the desktop UIs to auto-open in windows scheduler every day such that the whole Rube Goldberg scheduled reports would work.

db48x 2y ago
You found a 1× engineer; the worst engineer that can keep the job.
- steveBK123 2y ago
  Over time we actually found him to be more of a -2x engineer, but thats another story edit: reminded me of the old joke A programmer gets sent to the store by his wife. His wife says, “Get a gallon of milk, and if they have eggs, get a dozen.” The programmer returns home with 12 gallons of milk and says, “They had eggs.”
  - monsieurbanana 2y ago
    The fool, he should have gotten 13 gallons of milk
  - stavros 2y ago
    Ah, the "and" ruins that joke for me by signifying a separate clause. I think the original is: > A programmer gets sent to the store by his wife. His wife says, “Get a gallon of milk. If they have eggs, get a dozen.”
  - chrismorgan 2y ago
    > more of a -2x engineer You just needed to find another one like him, and bam, +4×. (It is actually conceivable that two bad engineers could mostly cancel each other out, if they can occupy each other enough, but it’s not the most likely outcome.)
  - glxxyz 2y ago
    'Antiwork' - every hour they work uses up more than an hour of other engineers' time in questions, meetings, and later fixes.
    - steveBK123 2y ago
      Correct - they do bad work quickly which requires 2x the time on repairs
pavel_lishin 2y ago
It honestly doesn't even sound like there was a happy path involved in his work.

epolanski 2y ago

Nonsense, you're not describing any engineering at all. I mean, it's well known that there's very little engineering in most software "engineers", but you're describing a person I've never seen.

pjc50 2y ago

> If you do not follow the happy path something will break 100% of the time No, that means you're dealing with an early alpha, rigged demo, or some sort of vibe coding nonsense.