matfil

11 ms·

61.
by matfil 8y ago
Precisely.
62.
by matfil 8y ago
There is no agile, no source control, no meetings If you stop there, it really doesn't sound so bad... Is there a way to present this as an opportunity for reasonably experienced introverts to "own" something without too m
63.
by matfil 8y ago
The suggestion that managers should have >10 direct reports doesn't convince me. Maybe 30-person reporting groups can work in places where everything else is precisely right, but in most environments this will be a recipe for a pow
64.
Dumb Rules That Make Your Best People Want to Quit (2017)(medium.com)
56 points by matfil 8y ago|77 comments
65.
by matfil 8y ago
To an extent, yes, but I'm pretty confident that it's not actually the coding that's the issue, in that I can work solo on something (even something exciting and all-consuming) and context-switch into social or family mode
66.
by matfil 8y ago
Software development scales poorly. This was noted a long time ago, an I’ve not seen anything that fundamentally falsifies the Fred Brooks view. So to make the expected cost of software lower, shouldn’t we be looking to smaller-scale, mor
67.
by matfil 8y ago
Yes, I've encountered them. It seems really hard to do them in a way that doesn't touch heavily on style. To the extent that the preferred solution to trying to shift the focus back to deeper issues is to go one step further a
68.
by matfil 8y ago
I might agree with you in the sense that sometimes there's a worthwhile discussion to be had and of course in such cases it's good to talk to someone who's opinion you trust. That's different from mandatory code review,
69.
by matfil 8y ago
I suspect this may not be too well received, but I've thus far managed to avoid regular formal reviews, and I'd advise others to think twice before imposing them. They seem like a big step towards treating programmers like cogs i
70.
by matfil 9y ago
The “software is a team sport” mentality. At the start of a project, people saying “this needs a team”, even if you can already see a clear path to getting the thing working. In the middle, “stakeholders” who want to set schedules and defin
71.
by matfil 9y ago
I’ve seen them become unfashionable over the past few years. Is it the implied individualism that gives these words “terrible company” associations? Is there a good word for an experienced person who is better at shutting the door and wo
72.
by matfil 9y ago
It's real. Not so much online, but within organizations. Goes hand in hand with insisting that all successes and failures are down to "the team", and being reluctant to give much thought to what individuals can and do achie
73.
by matfil 9y ago
Yes to both of these, but there are other options as well. The frustrating ones are those who talk a good talk about "doing things right" (and, generally, talk a lot...), but then work on something for an age and come back with a
74.
by matfil 9y ago
"The Soul of a New Machine", by Tracy Kidder. Solving hard problems, dealing with (and balancing) both technical and business concerns, but with emphasis on getting things done over process and organisational concerns.
75.
by matfil 9y ago
In terms of books to (gently) influence colleagues... I generally find myself looking for pretty-much the opposite. Something that emphasises the joy of stealing fire from heaven. Old-school sci-fi (lots to choose from) could be pretty goo
76.
by matfil 9y ago
It's certainly an interesting read. But very oriented towards big, conservative organisations. To me, the message was just how operations-focussed and, above all, anti-individualistic big chunks of our field have become.
77.
by matfil 9y ago
20 year programmers fairly often get to "lead teams of programmers". In some ways, it's staying hands-on that can be difficult. At least if you want to be recognised and valued as someone who's experienced and can take
78.
by matfil 9y ago
It's unfortunate that we try to measure this kind of thing on a single dimension. There's certainly a type of developer/mentor who does do a good job of setting helpful directions in a large-team setting. At the other extre
79.
by matfil 9y ago
Any idea why the expectation of autonomy for professional programmers seems to be so much lower than for professional novelists?
80.
by matfil 9y ago
I find joy in solving problems with computers. Sometimes a lot. The frustration around dealing with core tools (like your semicolon example) has never particularly bothered me. After all, the rules are learnable, and are usually there fo