• Pista (unregistered)

    This is a premature submission. Gary should've waited a little longer and then submitted the resulting WTFs. Based on the conversations, that would've been a real collection of gems!

  • Jim (unregistered)

    We didn't have enough budget today for an experienced frist commenter today so I got two junior frist commenters But an experienced frist commenter would be at least twice as funny as 2 junior Fristers. ok, my nephew is a Thrid Frist Commenter, he will help you on the project as well.

  • amomynous (unregistered)

    Each time I read one of those I feel like hunting the stupid moron and banging his head on the desk until it breaks (the head or the desk, whatever gives in first).

    Maybe I'm poisoning myself with hate, but at least it reassures me that I'm still sane and not one of them.

  • Lead developer (unregistered)

    Reading these stories is painful. A reminder of the number of people in companies producing software that have as much of an idea of what it takes as they have an idea of what it takes to build a car that won't break in the first week it is used.

  • chreng (unregistered)

    It is spelled first. No, do not change anything, continue to spell frist.

  • (cs)
    the experienced engineer will generally out-produce them by way more than 2:1.

    IIRC, the ratio between best and worse can be 20:1: the best can do the same useful work in one afternoon that the worst take 2 weeks to do.

  • anon (unregistered) in reply to Pista
    Pista:
    This is a premature submission. Gary should've waited a little longer and then submitted the resulting WTFs. Based on the conversations, that would've been a real collection of gems!

    Maybe he got out in time?

  • (cs)

    Which italicised texts are engineers and which are managers?

    The way I see it (and based on stuff I've seen on this site as well), the first three could be either, but are more likely developers, the last three are more likely to be managers, especially the very last one, and the one in the middle is undecidable.

  • (cs) in reply to Raedwald
    Raedwald:
    the experienced engineer will generally out-produce them by way more than 2:1.

    IIRC, the ratio between best and worse can be 20:1: the best can do the same useful work in one afternoon that the worst take 2 weeks to do.

    Yes, but that doesn't answer the same question as experienced versus inexperienced. But even there, I'd expect the experience-derived difference to be bigger than 2:1 unless the inexperienced guys are extremely good at what they do.

  • sir_unwtf (unregistered)

    What's so bad? The fact that people are even having these rational discussions and debates about how to move forward is good. Sounds like a great environment where people care about code and aren't afraid to raise their concerns and objections.

  • sir_unwtf (unregistered) in reply to Raedwald
    Raedwald:
    the experienced engineer will generally out-produce them by way more than 2:1.

    IIRC, the ratio between best and worse can be 20:1: the best can do the same useful work in one afternoon that the worst take 2 weeks to do.

    In the optimal situation, over time the net ratio can work out as well over 100:1. Experienced devs don't just do more in less time but make more reliable and maintainable code, not to mention systems for managing what they are doing. However, generally it will linger at around 10:1 on average partly because experienced devs have to do basic stuff as well. Basically anyone can limbo under a goal post. On the other hand, experienced devs can often do stuff other devs really can't do at all.

  • Pista (unregistered) in reply to anon
    anon:
    Pista:
    This is a premature submission. Gary should've waited a little longer and then submitted the resulting WTFs. Based on the conversations, that would've been a real collection of gems!

    Maybe he got out in time?

    Yeah, maybe... Good for him, bad for us :D

  • gnasher729 (unregistered) in reply to Raedwald
    Raedwald:
    the experienced engineer will generally out-produce them by way more than 2:1.

    IIRC, the ratio between best and worse can be 20:1: the best can do the same useful work in one afternoon that the worst take 2 weeks to do.

    The ratio between best and worst is 1 : -2. In one week, the worst can cause damage that takes the best two weeks to undo.

  • first (unregistered)

    I'm willing to bet none of those comments were by Engineers. Programmers / Developers sure.

    Stop stealing our title, code monkeys.

  • (cs) in reply to first
    first:
    I'm willing to bet none of those comments were by Engineers. Programmers / Developers sure.

    Stop stealing our title, code monkeys.

    "This was a badly engineered comment."

    • unnamed software engineer
  • Litaris Bokov (unregistered) in reply to Raedwald
    Raedwald:
    the experienced engineer will generally out-produce them by way more than 2:1.

    IIRC, the ratio between best and worse can be 20:1: the best can do the same useful work in one afternoon that the worst take 2 weeks to do.

    No, that's the ratio between the best and the average. The ratio between the average and worst is 1:-20.

    CAPTCHA: distineo. A huge distineo exists between the best and the worst.

  • (cs)

    "Junior vs. Senior" has nothing to do with "Best vs. Worst"... (Nearly) Every project has a significant amount of "rote work". Having a Senior (translation expensive, and limited) resource performing this work is a budget breaker, when a Junior (much less expensive) can do the same work in nearly the same amount of time.

    Triads are a great organizational pattern. One person leading 3, and directly handling only the "hard stuff" where there is a significant differential in the time or quality has saved many a budget (and the resultant project)

  • (cs)

    Well, of course, the managers are in italics. They can be identified by their fantastic, challenging suggestions.

    Foreign keys are bad, because they make database restores more difficult and because they're slow and inefficient. Not only that, but they silently delete things you don't want deleted. It's much better to implement key relationships in the code, where you have full control over the strategy. I don't know why you developers won't listen to my advanced development experience.

    Deciding after the application is finished means the rounding problem is phase II. Not only does that mean another project to manage, but we don't have to throw of the schedule on this project to do it. Even if there are a few problems, it's better to finish the current project on time.

    Controlling privileges by groups of users means we can't give each and every user a different set of privileges. That reduces management control, which must be able to operate at the finest level. You're trying to interfere with my authority.

    It's always better to push any changes to phase 2. That means the current project gets done on time, and guarantees another round of employment for everyone. That means my kingdom will prosper and expand.

    Yes, I know we were going to stop work on the legacy system. But the customers keep asking for changes and the customer is always right. Just be sure that any changes you make to the legacy system are also made to the new system; they're new requirements. Besides, the longer this project runs, the more desperate the customers will be for the new product.

    From where I sit, a developer is a developer. You can't tell there's any productivity anyway; I don't know what you advanced developers are doing for sure, but it's not productivity. Let the other developers fix their own problems. My positions all need to be drop-in for replacements, so of course it's better to hire cheap. Only management positions justify high pay.

    (Just trying my hand at self-promotion. How did I do?)

  • (cs) in reply to Steve The Cynic
    Steve The Cynic:
    Which italicised texts are engineers and which are managers?

    The way I see it (and based on stuff I've seen on this site as well), the first three could be either, but are more likely developers, the last three are more likely to be managers, especially the very last one, and the one in the middle is undecidable.

    I've thought about this some more, and I'm wrong on one point. The fifth one (about unit tests) is more likely to be an engineer, or rather a developer (an engineer would know better). The clue that it isn't a manager's statement lies in the idea of displacing the work to phase II. Any true PHB-style manager wouldn't acknowledge the possibility of the system having become too cumbersome to be able to be modified, and would therefore not even think of displacing the work.

  • (cs)

    The name must be fake, since we don't have a Gary in IT at my company.

    Also, pedanticism for the point of pedantry, not for the sake of actually pointing out anything useful.

  • Norman Diamond (unregistered) in reply to Raedwald
    Raedwald:
    the experienced engineer will generally out-produce them by way more than 2:1.
    IIRC, the ratio between best and worse can be 20:1: the best can do the same useful work in one afternoon that the worst take 2 weeks to do.
    No, the ratio between best and worst is about 1:-20. The worst can wreak 20 times as much destruction in the same amount of time as the best can build stuff. I'm probably off by a few orders of magnitude here.

    The ratio between best and AVERAGE is more likely 20:1.

  • Cheong (unregistered)

    I sense Death March when heard about "we'll see what the data looks like and decide if things need to change", that's going to be the tip of iceberg.

    A PM who don't care about locking down specification isn't doing his job. The schedule will surely go out-of-control later.

  • Cheong (unregistered) in reply to gnasher729
    gnasher729:
    Raedwald:
    the experienced engineer will generally out-produce them by way more than 2:1.

    IIRC, the ratio between best and worse can be 20:1: the best can do the same useful work in one afternoon that the worst take 2 weeks to do.

    The ratio between best and worst is 1 : -2. In one week, the worst can cause damage that takes the best two weeks to undo.

    Agreed.

    And actually I've seen a case that have an inexperienced developer working on code one year takes an experienced developer (the original author of code) 3 years to fix. (They can't just undo the changes as some changes has been deployed to client, and there are database schema change required to fix issue on inadequate fields gathered)

  • asryh rtj tyklsmkdgh (unregistered) in reply to TheCPUWizard
    TheCPUWizard:
    "Junior vs. Senior" has nothing to do with "Best vs. Worst"... (Nearly) Every project has a significant amount of "rote work". Having a Senior (translation expensive, and limited) resource performing this work is a budget breaker, when a Junior (much less expensive) can do the same work in nearly the same amount of time.

    Triads are a great organizational pattern. One person leading 3, and directly handling only the "hard stuff" where there is a significant differential in the time or quality has saved many a budget (and the resultant project)

    Agree.

    I have been in the opposite situation - where our boss is set on getting Senior Developers when we just need some code monkey to follow instructions, and would be far better served by fresh unspoilt graduates who we can mould into what we want, and who might see potential for advancement, rather than Senior Devs who think they're too important to do work, and assume that because they have significant technical knowledge they also have the business knowledge to immediately make decisions without consulting the client.....

    I have also met/seen/experienced many very capable Junior Developers, and many Senior Programmers who would struggle with "Hello World" in the language they claim is their ultimate expertise....

    just sayin'

  • Sebastian Ramadan (unregistered)

    Best of luck with your escape clause, Gary. Perhaps you could put things in place that allow you to branch out into different career options, such as consultancy. I'd suggest that teaching would be another option. There's no better way to improve the efficiency of the junior workforce than to ensure they're trained properly.

  • Bernie The Bernie (unregistered)

    Why only managers and engineers? What about sales among each other? "We have some 200 contacts left over from the last trade show which we haven't yet elaborated further. On the trade show next week, we'll gather some more 300 contacts. Whom shall we serve frist?"

  • TroelsL (unregistered)

    I agree with almost everything here, but why would you stop writing tests because you lack some requirements from the users?

    If anything, shouldn't you stop implementing it? And exactly what are they testing if they have no requirements?

  • (cs) in reply to anon
    anon:
    Pista:
    This is a premature submission. Gary should've waited a little longer and then submitted the resulting WTFs. Based on the conversations, that would've been a real collection of gems!

    Maybe he got out in time?

    Or maybe he didn't and these were just his notes that were found near the edge of the crater.

  • :-( (unregistered)

    No, keep writing tests. If we have enough of them and it becomes too cumbersome to change it all, the users won't be able to make changes to this iteration of development, and it will all get pushed to version 2.0!

    Sadly, this actually makes perfect sense

  • Anon (unregistered)

    I'm looking at the kind of discussions in this WTF and comparing them to the kind of non-discussion and forward planning I've had to deal with and I'm crying a bit on the inside.

  • (cs)

    At least your (lack of) planning is comprehensible. I would swear that the last set of development requirements I had to fumble through were written in some sort of Not-English, and I am almost positive that the native English speaker on the requirements team was the worst offender of the three.

  • Andrew (unregistered)

    This sounds like a good place ... to be a consultant.

  • CaptSometimes (unregistered) in reply to Raedwald

    On top of that, a focused person can achieve the high levels of proficiency in 2-3 years so by no means that makes one a "junior", not to mention, that the level of douchebaggery with which it was delivered is nothing but an indicative of own inexperience.

  • CaptSometimes (unregistered) in reply to TroelsL
    TroelsL:
    I agree with almost everything here,

    that's scary...

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