4 ms·

What's really lovely is when you take the electrician's attitude (professionalism), and always do the tests and documentation anyway, and then find that you are

by sixbrx 12y ago

What's really lovely is when you take the electrician's attitude (professionalism), and always do the tests and documentation anyway, and then find that you are avoided for new jobs because of your "perfectionist" attitude and longer job estimates. Eventually some of the management may learn how unwise this is, but it can take a long time, especially when many projects don't end up being successful/used by intended users anyway (which is its own drag on morale). I don't work in this environment anymore, thankfully.

sanderjd 12y ago
I'm ambivalent about this. The idea of professionalism is innately appealing, but in many cases I think programmers are too unwilling to put themselves in the project manager's or customer's shoes and try to understand why they believe they need things yesterday. Most of the time they aren't just meanies, but rather have very real constraints they are attempting to work within, things like "will I even be able to pay all these salaries if this doesn't get to market in the next two weeks?" or "will I have to lay people off because our budget for next year is cut if we don't meet our goals?", which they are insulating people from.
- iopq 12y ago
  What? No, 99% of the time it's just "if I ask for it faster the guy will work harder" Maybe it's because I've worked in smaller teams but there was no real pressure to deliver a month earlier. When we presented to other people in the company they don't really care if we covered 38% of cases this month or 42%, they simply don't know what those numbers mean.
  - sanderjd 12y ago
    I guess your mileage may vary? I have yet to come across people who are pointlessly cruel, but have come across a few who were thought to be, but actually had understandable motivations that very few people bothered to wonder about.

4 ms·

What's really lovely is when you take the electrician's attitude (professionalism), and always do the tests and documentation anyway, and then find that you are

by sixbrx 12y ago

sanderjd 12y ago
I'm ambivalent about this. The idea of professionalism is innately appealing, but in many cases I think programmers are too unwilling to put themselves in the project manager's or customer's shoes and try to understand why they believe they need things yesterday. Most of the time they aren't just meanies, but rather have very real constraints they are attempting to work within, things like "will I even be able to pay all these salaries if this doesn't get to market in the next two weeks?" or "will I have to lay people off because our budget for next year is cut if we don't meet our goals?", which they are insulating people from.
- iopq 12y ago
  What? No, 99% of the time it's just "if I ask for it faster the guy will work harder" Maybe it's because I've worked in smaller teams but there was no real pressure to deliver a month earlier. When we presented to other people in the company they don't really care if we covered 38% of cases this month or 42%, they simply don't know what those numbers mean.
  - sanderjd 12y ago
    I guess your mileage may vary? I have yet to come across people who are pointlessly cruel, but have come across a few who were thought to be, but actually had understandable motivations that very few people bothered to wonder about.