wpietri

8 ms·

121.
by wpietri 9mo ago
As a former Wikipedia administrator, I think one of the things that Wikipedia has done exactly right is to strongly prioritize readers first, editors second, and administrators third. The unofficial Wikipedia administrator symbol is a mop,
122.
by wpietri 9mo ago
Have you considered that the problem here is not insufficient explanation of policy? There's this thing that some programmers do a lot, where it's the users who are wrong. Using it wrong, approaching it wrong, thinking about it wr
123.
by wpietri 9mo ago
Right? It's a perfect example of the problem. In college, I worked tech support. My approach was to treat users as people. To see all questions as legitimate, and any knowledge differential on my part as a) the whole point of tech supp
124.
by wpietri 9mo ago
Are these really separable? Even a an individual I generally have multiple motivations for an action. That has to be even more true for whole nations. And I don't think there's any reason to be doubtful of Trump's motivations
125.
by wpietri 9mo ago
I'm not proposing anything. I'm pointing out that in a complex world simple rules, however appealing they are cognitively, aren't sufficient.
126.
by wpietri 9mo ago
I think the last part of my post makes it clear that I do. But if not, let me just make clear that we have to struggle through the Harding administration as best we can, but better days are ahead.
127.
by wpietri 9mo ago
Agreed. Honestly, I think of those as two very different needs that should have very different systems. To me a bug tracker is about collecting user reports of problems and finding commonalities. But most work should be driven by other info
128.
by wpietri 9mo ago
I think you have some good points, but you take it too far. The UN charter is the way it is not because it's the optimal approach, but because non-democratic countries had too much power for it to be otherwise. As an example, the Ameri
129.
by wpietri 10mo ago
Is the distinction arbitrary? It sounded like issues are used for clear, completable jobs for the maintainers. A mysterious bug is not that. The other work you describe is clearly happening, so I'm not seeing a problem with this approa
130.
by wpietri 10mo ago
If there's somebody out there advocating for "unprotected sex with large numbers of people", you should go post at them, because I don't see that here. The biggest barrier to disease transmission reduction, at least here
131.
by wpietri 10mo ago
I sometimes vouch for incorrectly flagged posts. You got me curious, so I took a look. What I found was a blog from an anonymous conspiracist vaccine opponent claiming to be a doctor. He's a decent writer but in my estimation a loon. S
132.
by wpietri 10mo ago
If we look back over the last century or so, I think we've made excellent progress on that. The main current barrier is that we've lately let people with various pathologies run wild, but historically that creates enough problems
133.
by wpietri 10mo ago
I suppose it's appropriate that you hallucinated an argument I did not make, attacked the straw man, and declared victory.
134.
by wpietri 10mo ago
I think we have different definitions of "actual value". But even if I pick the flaccid definition, that isn't proof of value of the thing itself, but of any placebo. In which case we can focus on the cheapest/least harm
135.
by wpietri 10mo ago
This is not a great argument: > But it is hard to argue against the value of current AI [...] it is getting $1B dollar runway already. The psychic services industry makes over $2 billion a year in the US [1], with about a quarter of the
136.
by wpietri 10mo ago
A clinical diagnosis isn't the only way to look at what's going on here. We can have differences that aren't medical problems. Differences that are measurable and nameable, even. Those categories can overlap with or be congru
137.
by wpietri 10mo ago
This is an important point. To a first approximation, the DSM is about what a majority thinks is wrong. Sometimes this is pretty close to universal. Sometimes it isn't: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_i
138.
by wpietri 10mo ago
I should add that the bond between relational databases and spinning rust goes back further. My dad, who started working as a programmer in the 60s with just magtape as storage, talked about the early era of disks as a big step forward but
139.
by wpietri 10mo ago
As a friend described the first generation: they're way worse than hand vacuuming, but way better than not vacuuming. So they're really only valuable for people who don't enjoy cleaning and don't have servants clean for
140.
by wpietri 10mo ago
And that's such a good summary of the toxic dynamic around estimates!
141.
by wpietri 10mo ago
Look, software estimates are a whole studied field and have been for decades. Barry Boehm comes to mind here, as well as McConnell. When I talk about estimation, I'm talking about that. And I'm also talking about the bullshit-prod
142.
by wpietri 10mo ago
I have to keep responding to your posts because you keep grossly mischaracterizing what I'm saying. I have great relationships with my stakeholders. Just this we we delivered something greatly desired by the organization. We are being
143.
by wpietri 10mo ago
I am always fascinated when people tell me it is impossible to do something I have done. That plenty of people have done. For decades. But I shouldn't be surprised. Kuhn was not kidding around. And yes, I strongly believe in accountabi
144.
by wpietri 10mo ago
Yes, this sounds very familiar to me. I started with dates and went to story points used to estimate dates. Then as we turned up the release cadence, we eventually dropped estimating altogether, even in points, because it wasn't really
145.
by wpietri 10mo ago
It is not a schedule, it's a standard. One I normally try to exceed. We ship when things are ready, which for my current team is ~2-3x/week, but in the past I've had teams that were faster. We know that there will be things t
146.
by wpietri 10mo ago
This is a gross and misleading caricature of what I'm saying. I prefer this approach precisely because it increases accountability. If you'd like to learn what I'm actually suggesting, I'm happy to answer questions. Or
147.
by wpietri 10mo ago
I want to be clear that I am being entirely practical here. This is not navel-gazing. I am describing something that works. That has worked for me and others for decades. And yes, if you are in an environment where people with power want th
148.
by wpietri 10mo ago
I'm not upset. But as far as I can tell you've wandered off into some sort of philosophical space when I'm speaking of practicalities, without apparent recognition of the transition. I thought that was a bit ridiculous, somet
149.
by wpietri 10mo ago
I addressed the rest elsewhere, but done well a lack of estimates makes people more accountable. If I am shipping something every week (or as is common for my teams, more often), stakeholders can directly evaluate progress. There's no
150.
by wpietri 10mo ago
None of which requires estimates. And the bit about working software as the primary measure of progress is specifically targeted against the estimate-driven culture of the time, where people would treat GANTT charts, "percentage comple

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