4 ms·

This sounds like a tale of failed 'waterfall model' software development. Was it not possible to sees the quality issues before the project was finished?

pjmlp 1y ago
As participant in many kinds of similar projects, lets put it this way, the crew already knows that the ship has a few holes while at the harbour, but captain decides for sailing anyway. Eventually you will find yourself on deep waters, with the ship lower than it should be, routinely taking out buckets of water, whishing for the nearest island, only to repair ship with whatever is on that island, and keep sailing to the nearest one, with the buckets ready. After a couple of enterprise projects, one learns it is either move into another business, or learn to cope with this approach. Which might be specially trick given the job landscape on someone's region.
- fredrikholm 1y ago
  My suspicion is that all type of work is this; a universal issue where quality and forethought are at odds with quantity and good enough (where good enough trends towards worse over time). Before SE I had a bunch of vastly different jobs and they all suffered from something akin to crab bucket mentality where doing a good job was something you got away with. I've had jobs where doing the right thing was something you kept to yourself or suffer for it.
- pydry 1y ago
  This almost seems to be a weird artefact of capitalism. Ive worked on several projects which at some point became obviously doomed to almost everybody in the trenches but management/investors/owners kept believing. Perception of reality did not permeate the class divide. I wish I could make $$$ off this insight somehow but im not sure it's possible.
  - breppp 1y ago
    Create a revolutionary movement, take over the state and steal the money of the lower classes
  - disgruntledphd2 1y ago
    I think this is driven more by hierarchy and power games rather than capitalism. Basically, if your superiors don't want to hear bad news, then either you'll tell them good news only or you'll be replaced by someone who will. Source: I've been replaced by this process a number of times.
  - adwn 1y ago
    > This almost seems to be a weird artefact of capitalism. I don't see how this would be causally linked to capitalism in any meaningful way.
    - lanstin 1y ago
      Because hundreds of years after multiple things have proven that systems with free and open flow of information, skills, and techniques beats any system where information is walled off, capitalism (or corporatism really) still insists, all too often, on favoring feudal style top down methods of control instead of bottom up “empower the teams and facilitate the flow of information”; they don’t merely suppress the flow of information they actively ignore information; and they prefer people idle rather than work on non-approved priorities. Many people use capitalism to mean the system of multinational corps and their secretive, hierarchical, and morally offensive ways, rather than anything to do with free market economics (which are predicated on the free flow of information in the market).
david-gpu 1y ago
I once saw something like that where there was an existing codebase and a different business unit in the company wanted to add a large new feature. The contractors simply wanted to get paid, naturally. The people who paid them didn't understand the original codebase, and they did not communicate with the people who designed and built the original codebase either. The people who built the original code were overworked and saw the whole bruhaha as a burden over which they had no control. It was a low seven figure contract. The feature was scrapped after two or three years while the original product lived on and evolved for many years after that. I hope that management learned their lesson, but I doubt it.
pjc50 1y ago
The trick with waterfall is that discovering issues is deferred until the very last phases of test and user acceptance, at which point it's too late to do anything.

pjmlp 1y ago

As participant in many kinds of similar projects, lets put it this way, the crew already knows that the ship has a few holes while at the harbour, but captain decides for sailing anyway. Eventually you will find yourself on deep waters, with the ship lower than it should be, routinely taking out buckets of water, whishing for the nearest island, only to repair ship with whatever is on that island, and keep sailing to the nearest one, with the buckets ready. After a couple of enterprise projects, one learns it is either move into another business, or learn to cope with this approach. Which might be specially trick given the job landscape on someone's region.

fredrikholm 1y ago
My suspicion is that all type of work is this; a universal issue where quality and forethought are at odds with quantity and good enough (where good enough trends towards worse over time). Before SE I had a bunch of vastly different jobs and they all suffered from something akin to crab bucket mentality where doing a good job was something you got away with. I've had jobs where doing the right thing was something you kept to yourself or suffer for it.
pydry 1y ago
This almost seems to be a weird artefact of capitalism. Ive worked on several projects which at some point became obviously doomed to almost everybody in the trenches but management/investors/owners kept believing. Perception of reality did not permeate the class divide. I wish I could make $$$ off this insight somehow but im not sure it's possible.
- breppp 1y ago
  Create a revolutionary movement, take over the state and steal the money of the lower classes
- disgruntledphd2 1y ago
  I think this is driven more by hierarchy and power games rather than capitalism. Basically, if your superiors don't want to hear bad news, then either you'll tell them good news only or you'll be replaced by someone who will. Source: I've been replaced by this process a number of times.
- adwn 1y ago
  > This almost seems to be a weird artefact of capitalism. I don't see how this would be causally linked to capitalism in any meaningful way.
  - lanstin 1y ago
    Because hundreds of years after multiple things have proven that systems with free and open flow of information, skills, and techniques beats any system where information is walled off, capitalism (or corporatism really) still insists, all too often, on favoring feudal style top down methods of control instead of bottom up “empower the teams and facilitate the flow of information”; they don’t merely suppress the flow of information they actively ignore information; and they prefer people idle rather than work on non-approved priorities. Many people use capitalism to mean the system of multinational corps and their secretive, hierarchical, and morally offensive ways, rather than anything to do with free market economics (which are predicated on the free flow of information in the market).

david-gpu 1y ago

I once saw something like that where there was an existing codebase and a different business unit in the company wanted to add a large new feature. The contractors simply wanted to get paid, naturally. The people who paid them didn't understand the original codebase, and they did not communicate with the people who designed and built the original codebase either. The people who built the original code were overworked and saw the whole bruhaha as a burden over which they had no control. It was a low seven figure contract. The feature was scrapped after two or three years while the original product lived on and evolved for many years after that. I hope that management learned their lesson, but I doubt it.

pjc50 1y ago

The trick with waterfall is that discovering issues is deferred until the very last phases of test and user acceptance, at which point it's too late to do anything.