3 ms·

I had an interesting chat with a colleague the other day (team lead) who asked me to pair up with a permanent employee rather than a contractor on a development

by junto 12y ago

I had an interesting chat with a colleague the other day (team lead) who asked me to pair up with a permanent employee rather than a contractor on a development task, so that my knowledge of the particular system I was working on would stay in the company. I noted that in reality, the only member of staff I could safely count on to stay at the company was called 'wiki'.

mgkimsal 12y ago
I kept a daily blog at a company I was at - I kept all my notes in there about what was said at meetings, why certain code was done certain ways, etc - far more than you could put in a commit message, for example. I got (a bit) laughed at by teammates. After I left, one thanked me because it was a huge help for trawling through the mess of stuff I left behind (which I'd inherited from someone else in an undocumented state). Did I leave it in a perfect state? Of course not, but all the external factors that played in to why things were done certain ways was searchable (meeting notes, pointers to tech articles, bug reports, etc).
kps 12y ago
> I noted that in reality, the only member of staff I could > safely count on to stay at the company was called 'wiki'. True, but that flies in the face of Agile™ dogma: “The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.” Plato similarly argued against literacy. He didn't tell me that face-to-face; someone wrote it down.
- lotsofmangos 12y ago
  It was Socrates that argued against literacy and Plato who wrote it down. "Nothing that has ever been written whether in verse or prose merits much serious attention." I also think that Plato writing it down was one of the earliest post-modern jokes.
  - kps 12y ago
    I've always thought of this Socrates as a character in Plato's works inspired by the person, with the degree of fidelity unknown.
    - lotsofmangos 12y ago
      That is a reasonable interpretation, especially since Plato was not present in the dialogue between Phaedrus and Socrates, so the whole thing is either fiction or a dramatised retelling. However, this lends credence to the idea that Plato was being partly humorous about his own work, when he wrote down the section dealing with writing.

by junto 12y ago

mgkimsal 12y ago

I kept a daily blog at a company I was at - I kept all my notes in there about what was said at meetings, why certain code was done certain ways, etc - far more than you could put in a commit message, for example. I got (a bit) laughed at by teammates. After I left, one thanked me because it was a huge help for trawling through the mess of stuff I left behind (which I'd inherited from someone else in an undocumented state). Did I leave it in a perfect state? Of course not, but all the external factors that played in to why things were done certain ways was searchable (meeting notes, pointers to tech articles, bug reports, etc).

kps 12y ago

> I noted that in reality, the only member of staff I could > safely count on to stay at the company was called 'wiki'. True, but that flies in the face of Agile™ dogma: “The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.” Plato similarly argued against literacy. He didn't tell me that face-to-face; someone wrote it down.

lotsofmangos 12y ago
It was Socrates that argued against literacy and Plato who wrote it down. "Nothing that has ever been written whether in verse or prose merits much serious attention." I also think that Plato writing it down was one of the earliest post-modern jokes.
- kps 12y ago
  I've always thought of this Socrates as a character in Plato's works inspired by the person, with the degree of fidelity unknown.
  - lotsofmangos 12y ago
    That is a reasonable interpretation, especially since Plato was not present in the dialogue between Phaedrus and Socrates, so the whole thing is either fiction or a dramatised retelling. However, this lends credence to the idea that Plato was being partly humorous about his own work, when he wrote down the section dealing with writing.