Mastodawn

Patricia Aas May 23, 2024

Ok, I’m sorry, I’m going to ruffle feathers here but… I’m trying to read some newer development process books and… oh my… even super popular ones are so immensely long winded and unconvincing in their dogmatic argumentation: this is bad, this is good, because I said so that’s why.

Recent examples that I’m struggling to finish: “Team Topologies” and “Data Mesh” - I mean they might be great but I’m getting strong “this should’ve been a blogpost” feels.

Patricia Aas May 23, 2024

The worst part of Agile and Lean etc has been the wave of folks earning their living telling you confidently how to build while they themselves have barely ever shipped anything.

Patricia Aas May 23, 2024

I mean… get that money I guess… but it sucks to be continuously refactored *cough* reorged because someone who can’t build read the executive summary of a book by someone who can’t build.

Patricia Aas May 23, 2024

Jeez this was hash, Patricia. Eat your dinner.

Patricia Aas May 23, 2024

I’m dying. “If people are talking with each other of their own accord that’s a bad sign because…” I don’t even know.

Patricia Aas May 23, 2024

Dear lord are they reinventing silos but with fancy words?

Patricia Aas May 23, 2024

I ate. And it didn’t help.

Patricia Aas May 23, 2024

“Monolith bad!” “Micro services good!” “People talking bad! People talking is basically a MONOLITH 👻”

Patricia Aas May 23, 2024

I think maybe I shouldn’t be allowed to read.

Patricia Aas May 23, 2024

Seriously so far the good parts of Team Topologies are the parts they have taken from other peoples work.

Patricia Aas May 23, 2024

I suddenly remembered the Agile Coach I pissed off a few years ago that angrily told me he had actually been a dev for two years fifteen years ago!

Patricia Aas May 23, 2024

Omg these people are ridiculously condescending

Patricia Aas May 23, 2024

Help. Why do folks love this book?

Patricia Aas May 23, 2024

Please. It is a mashup of 10 other pieces of original work.

Patricia Aas May 23, 2024

If only the mashup made sense. But it doesn’t.

Patricia Aas May 23, 2024

I can’t. “This is how you simplify things for these silly dev folks who struggle to understand even basic stuff.”

“How to break down large domains”

If you think that there is a Perfect Org Breakdown for all the things I believe you don’t know anything about anything.

Patricia Aas May 23, 2024

Fuck it. I will refuse to listen to anyone saying “team cognitive load” to my face.

Patricia Aas May 23, 2024

I posit that this book is result of a bunch of folks who are personally struggling to understand how anything is ever built by anyone.

Patricia Aas May 23, 2024

“Here is example number four of a team who struggled to keep up with requests after a lot of people started to use, love and depend on the thing the team had built”

“They are struggling because… actually… they are extremely dysfunctional and not actually… extremely successful”

Grrrrr 😡

Patricia Aas May 23, 2024

I’m sure they TALKED WITH THEIR USERS ☠️ fuck that monolith behavior.

Patricia Aas May 23, 2024

You should break them up right now. This is the death of software.

Patricia Aas May 23, 2024

Ok, they are ripping off everyone, but they don’t even understand the stuff they ripped off.

Patricia Aas May 23, 2024

“Here is someone else saying you shouldn’t introduce bottle necks. WELL ACTUALLY, that means PEOPLE SHOULDN’T TALK WITH EACH OTHER”

Patricia Aas May 23, 2024

I can’t. Sometimes they stumble into something I agree with and then five seconds later “ah, yes, someone else’s idea”

Patricia Aas May 23, 2024

They are not even internally consistent because they’re ripping off everyone else: you should have stable long running teams, but you should definitely split up the teams because of this fucking number someone else made up which is unfortunately completely different than this other number someone else came up with which you should definitely also use. Except it is an order of magnitude bigger. So. Do that. Right? Get it?? COGNITIVE LOAD!!!

Ok. That’s it. If you say Hot Desking is Good Actually… no.

Patricia Aas May 23, 2024

This book is made for cherry picking quotes to support whatever you want. Just make sure no one else can be bothered to read it.

Patricia Aas May 23, 2024

I think maybe there isn’t a single thought that anyone has ever written about in tech that they haven’t taken into this book. But the only times they make logical sense is when they’re literally quoting other people’s text.

Patricia Aas May 23, 2024

Seriously. I am going to become a software process Luddite after reading this. “Google big, Google scale, Google smart” “You not smart” “Make silos and don’t talk to anyone” “make API call to George, but not too often!”

Patricia Aas May 23, 2024

Dear lord they have now said that Netflix-Spotify-Nokia-Ericsson-Google-dhh-Amazon (and basically everyone else) do stuff and you should do stuff too. But don’t bother the pretty little heads of your cognitively struggling/overloaded teams of some size between 5 and 50 or something.

Patricia Aas May 23, 2024

Breakdown silos by breaking up your long running teams! And… break up the team building database software because that’s basic stuff probably.

Patricia Aas May 23, 2024

We are not allowed to use the words Software Engineering before we stop reading these books.

Patricia Aas May 23, 2024

I will never be allowed to work with any Agile Coach ever

Patricia Aas May 23, 2024

I need to make a T-shirt with this
https://social.vivaldi.net/@Patricia/112491591208560983

Patricia Aas (@[email protected])

I’m sure they TALKED WITH THEIR USERS ☠️ fuck that monolith behavior.

Vivaldi Social

Patricia Aas May 23, 2024

This is completely true and also the most devastating burn: this book would’ve been an order of magnitude better if it was written by a large language model.

Patricia Aas May 23, 2024

This is basically just re-making the most dysfunctional orgs pre-DevOps but now with CLOUD! And Ops goes under 5 different names because the ideas have been taken from at least 5 other places. And for goodness sake: don’t talk, but also talk serendipitously while hot desking! And do stuff like Amazon and Google and Nokia and Spotify and… all of the orgs that have ever written about whatever they do.

Patricia Aas May 23, 2024

And I sound smart and deep because AND THIS IS AN ACTUAL LITERAL QUOTE: “a stream should flow unimpeded”

I am deceased 💀

Patricia Aas May 23, 2024

Why do I ever get imposter syndrome? I probably talked to people like a fucking monolith

Patricia Aas May 23, 2024

I know why this couldn’t have been a blogpost: it doesn’t make sense and you can’t hide that in a blog post, people might actually read it all.

Patricia Aas May 23, 2024

I’m gonna try one of these talks… maybe they’re… something
https://mastodon.cloud/@grymt/112491761784898442

Gry (@[email protected])

@[email protected] not sure what's worse, but it's useful to have a look so you know when someone have been too inspired https://teamtopologies.com/talks

mastodon.cloud

Patricia Aas May 23, 2024

I feel bad. I’m sure these folks are perfectly nice people. I probably shouldn’t be allowed to read. But then it would only be fair that no one was ever allowed to quote these books at me.

Patricia Aas May 23, 2024

Ok, it’s been ages since I read about “the Spotify model” but iirc they have written later about changes they made because some stuff didn’t work, but most importantly I seem to remember that a central part was to try stuff and continue with stuff that works for you and drop stuff that don’t? Am I totally misremembering this? Any Spotify people out there?

Patricia Aas May 23, 2024

Oh no the talk doesn’t seem to be better

Patricia Aas May 23, 2024

Ok, I need to know, is it me? Am I just really bad at understanding? What the hell is he talking about? Explain it to me like I’m five in 5 sentences. Please.
https://youtu.be/lj71GcOnIW8?si=hb6TUrdKn38MSMBd

Beyond the Spotify Model: using Team Topologies for fast Flow and Organisation Evolution

YouTube

Patricia Aas May 23, 2024

I feel like the kid in “The Emperor's New Clothes” … am I completely disconnected from reality here?

Patricia Aas May 23, 2024

I’m either having some kind of cognitive break or this is just a org-agile-tech-wordsoup

Brandon Rohrer May 23, 2024

@Patricia you are Dorothy pulling back the curtain and discovering that the Emperor is just a small ridiculous man

Kancept May 23, 2024

@Patricia I am so glad I'm not the only one who feels this way.

Chris Petrilli May 23, 2024

@Patricia I think you are amazingly grounded here.

anthony May 23, 2024

@Patricia All those Engineering Managers need something to engineer because they certainly don't help the people they manager.

Darrel Miller Jun 26, 2024

@Patricia I always take my advice on software development from folks who get on stage to sell their wares, haven't practiced their talks and can't manage their time. It gives me that extra level of confidence. And where else are you going to learn about this incredible new discovery called Conway's law?

Maciej L May 23, 2024

@Patricia Spotify model mostly was an aspirational diagram, not a case study.

https://www.jeremiahlee.com/posts/failed-squad-goals/

Spotify’s Failed #SquadGoals

“The Spotify model” got a bunch of companies talking like Taylor Swift about startup culture, but four former Spotify employees reveal the truth: its eponymous way of working failed before it scaled.

fabs();May 23, 2024

@Patricia I have lived through a Team Topologies transformation. I suspect the reason for its apparent failure was that they read the book differently to me.

I kept seeing the benefits of keeping those with the right skills near the work and not allowing work to be passed over any walls to different teams. In effect, building teams to solve problems completely with no rework and quick iterations.

I think they liked drawing circles around people.

Patricia Aas May 23, 2024

@fabs tbh in my experience and opinion: if we’re not talking to people we are probably making lots of stuff, but it will be lots of stuff where most of it is probably not useful/valuable. So optimizing for reducing interactions is optimizing for the worst thing.

fabs();May 23, 2024

@Patricia yes, and also no. Optimising for reduced interactions is bad. But removing unnecessary handover of tasks, now that's great. I think the team topologies book can be read as "don't speak to each other" but I ignored that interpretation and stuck with "limit pointless back and forth" because I still try to bring a vintage devops philosophy to my work. That is, software oriented TIMWOODS thinking, striving to reduce waste. And building the wrong thing is an incredible waste.

Patricia Aas May 23, 2024

@fabs given the fact that I feel the book is incredibly impenetrable language wise, I can definitely see how folks could read into it basically anything. But tbh, in my reading, it is completely the opposite of DevOps. It reintroduces Ops and reintroduces handoffs, but now with other language and pretty colors. But it is imo so badly written it is extremely hard to be sure what they are actually trying to say, which is great because then we can all make that up for ourselves, because they keep on contradicting themselves about everything. So we can find quotes supporting basically any interpretation.

fabs();May 23, 2024

@Patricia so, you're saying that it should sell well? 😬😁😉

(rainynight65) has moved May 24, 2024

@Patricia it sounds to me like if these people actually knew what they were talking about, they'd be working in software orgs and successfully reshaping/optimising the way things are done, actively making things better.

Patricia Aas May 24, 2024

@rainynight65 from the text and talks I got the impression they do reorg consultancy which isn’t a great role for learning, because you mess around and then you never get to find out.

Arne Brasseur May 23, 2024

@Patricia thank you for this entertaining thread.

Mark vW May 23, 2024

@Patricia The 2001 monolith was quite effective.

Arne Mertz May 23, 2024

AAAAAAAAAhgile

Mrs Beanbag May 23, 2024

@Patricia a steam??

Patricia Aas May 23, 2024

@mrsbeanbag fuck. Stream. I fix.

Mrs Beanbag May 23, 2024

@Patricia ok that makes marginally more sense but it does raise issues about oxbow teams

Patricia Aas May 23, 2024

@mrsbeanbag It makes grammatical sense but it’s just meaningless drivel that “sounds deep”. I feel like I’m sitting at a party when I was 17 trying to parse the drivel coming out of the pot smoking guy playing stairway to heaven on classic guitar. And I posit that that is a 10x better metaphor. I am a sucker for anyone that can play music but… even I couldn’t pretend that was anything other than a mashup of random stuff he’d thought he’d heard from other people while he was high.

Mrs Beanbag May 23, 2024

@Patricia you know i do occasionally encounter a person who seems to have no connection to reality whatsoever beyond the words we made up to describe it. and i read somewhere that there are people who are of very low general intelligence but with a high verbal intelligence who can apparently get on very well in life. and then ChatGPT came along and it made me think about those people in a whole new way.

Patricia Aas May 23, 2024

@mrsbeanbag oh. wow.

Zirition May 23, 2024

@Patricia Without context, I can see it meaning “leave the smart people keeps everything up until they burn out”. The success case of those books is people just doing their thing despite their bosses.

Owlet of Minerva May 23, 2024

@Patricia Echoes of “How can I grow if you won’t let me blow” 🙂

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Vt83zQdunBo

Friends: Rachel Reads “Be Your Own Wind Keeper” (Season 2 Clip) | TBS

YouTube

(moved)Galbinus Caeli 🌯May 23, 2024

@Patricia thank you for this thread.

Yeah. Everyone has been reinventing Gilbreth for a century.

Kensan May 23, 2024

@Patricia Dear Lord, crushingly honest @Patricia dishing Truths! We want more! We want more!

D2 May 23, 2024

@Patricia maybe it was? Reading your narrative, feels like it was.

Patricia Aas May 23, 2024

@InkomTech I think unfortunately it came out before the LLMs

D2 May 23, 2024

@Patricia well, then by a mediocre/stoned/fish-out-of-water mba. Which you gotta admit, LLMs sound like.

Alex Gantman May 24, 2024

@Patricia the fact that there's so much horrible [nonfiction] writing from the pre-LLM era implies that we live in one of two possible dystopias: either genAI eventually develops time travel and goes back to the past to poison human knowledge, or humans, on average, make no more sense than LLMs.

Patricia Aas May 24, 2024

@againsthimself I mean… they got it from somewhere

Antifascista)May 23, 2024

@Patricia My take on people with "education" in "Agile": they have no clue what Agile really means, lest having done something Agile-ly themselves.

Talks instead of deeds.

Arne Mertz May 23, 2024

@Patricia their loss tbh.

Alun Jones May 23, 2024

@Patricia Anyone who declares "developers are fungible" should be exiled to somewhere they can't hurt anyone.

Pseudo Nym May 23, 2024

I really want "Patricia reviews tech books". I would so hit that subscribe and like button.

As a former dev for decades, turned security nerd, this kind of babble infuriates me.

One can develop and ship code. One can work on a team. Teams can deliver.

The book's hodge-podge of quotes sounds like #AI generated "slop". Individual nuggets of sanity, pasted together with insufficient context.

They needed a bigger token window, and to add "keep the result logically consistent"

Patricia Aas May 23, 2024

@pseudonym that would’ve been an improvement

Pär Björklund May 23, 2024

@Patricia I must say I enjoy Spicy Patricia book reviews 🤣

Chip Collier May 23, 2024

@Patricia I formed my own one-person SPL chapter a few years ago.
I think, I'm just seen as the cranky old guy who isn't particularly incredible at his job so we don't need to listen. But at least I have a cause.

Steven Willems May 23, 2024

@Patricia damnit, that book is on its way to me. If you posted this a few days earlier, I could have saved a few bucks
Thx for the *cough* *cough* executive summary though :)

Patricia Aas May 23, 2024

@willemsst read it and do the world a favor and make a reading list of all of the other people’s original thoughts they have squashed together in there.