Dent, Arthur Dent
Thomas Cherryhomes39 years as a software engineer, and every single gig, large or small, is literally Wallace and Gromit and the f***ing train tracks.
Thomas Sturm@tschak 100% true.
patrick m.
Will Richardson@tschak I think the industry-accepted term is "agile" 😆
Marty Fouts@tschak I started in 73. Many jobs were not like that all and others were only like that at “crunch time”, a short period before product release.
Crunch times grew longer over the years and jobs without the problem grew fewer. By 2003 only a handful of jobs were not like that and crunch time had become continuous in most product development.
It is clear that programmers need unions and clear that too many have been suckered by the anti union propaganda.
That needs to change
@MartyFouts I started advocating for software unions more than 20 years ago, and was always "laughed out of the room."
@tschak As late as 2014 when I retired after 40 years it was still impossible to get programmers to have a serious discussion about unions. I suppose it is just as bad now.
2xfo@MartyFouts @tschak
I'm in school for engineering again after twenty years. They're still telling people that they don't have to outrun the bear if they can run faster than the person standing next to them.
I thought it was a strange quirk that a teacher might say that once, but to hear it again in the same context twenty years later and two thousand miles away, i kind of think there's a real social current that keeps this crap around
Simon EI3JDB@MartyFouts @tschak I suspect it depends where you live and who you work for. I live in Ireland and work for a European multinational - and we have a union.
Tim Hergert
Sir David Nielsen@tschak @lisamelton it’s almost as if software project management is the problem.
r0k@tschak yep, always building the plane while flying it
f♯ a♯ ∞
Gerard@r0k @tschak A friend once worked on a _very_ large codebase that was originally written with very many cooperatively multitasking threads running on a single CPU core.
A project was begun to make *some parts* of that codebase run in parallel across multiple cores, the idea being to gradually increase performance over time.
Apparently the project was officially referred to internally as "changing the engine in mid-flight".
A project was begun to make *some parts* of that codebase run in parallel across multiple cores, the idea being to gradually increase performance over time.
Apparently the project was officially referred to internally as "changing the engine in mid-flight".
Sarah Sammis@tschak My husband (also a software engineer) refers to this scene regularly too.
Johanna, CanCon variety@tschak OMG that feels like my whole life in deployment/integration.
@tschak except someone sometimes handed me an empty box mid-run.
Morten@tschak This is also how new train tracks are laid irl though
mjr@tschak a gif of this exact scene is saved in the memes folder on my work PC, and see regular use!
⁂ Fish Id Wardrobe@tschak This, although the problem is management, not (entirely) the IT folks.
Sometimes it's *also* the IT folks.
adaddinsane (Steve Turnbull)Same, dude, same.
LR@tschak that's why money is involved
MBR@tschak it's called "agility"
Jesse Spielman@tschak so like...extremely adorable?
GezThePez@tschak yes; yes it is;
Dudula the Dud@tschak it's a classic
Feoh@tschak Welcome to Capitalism :)
Extract maximum velocity using minimum investment and resource allocation.
Shitty way to live, isn't it? :)
Academia is a BIT easier in many ways.
@feoh tell that to the hundreds of adjunct professors with no path toward tenure.
@tschak You're making broad sweeping generalizations that don't always apply.
People make an unfortunate mistake in assuming academia = [ teaching | research ].
You can be support staff, too. That's what I do.
@feoh it doesn't change the fact that academia itself has fallen to the same traps as the private sector.
with that said, I am glad you found a nook.
Sami Lehtinen@tschak Kind of funny. I listed common project pitfalls, bad specifications, unclear requirements. Customer doesn't even know what they want and or need, etc. - And someone just said, that sounds like a really bad project, that shouldn't happen. But you just made it sound like, it's the norm. Should it' be clearly defined beautiful waterfall. Step by step, on schedule, and it's done! - Or maybe not?
Cardboard!@tschak y'know i have a sheer amount of respect for Aardman's animators. claymation really is a lost art, and it's good to see they're still making silly little claymation shorts after all these years.
pinguino@tschak I beg to disagree. Gromit here is able to focus in a clear, obvious single goal.
In real life modern software development, coders must perform non-sensical rituals, attend pointless meetings, study the latest tech fad, praise it's company every other week and then try to build the railway in a very vague direction hoping to satisfy the customer.
Bruno Alla@tschak It's in the name: "soft". No way you can do that with hardware
A blessing that became a curse