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by anonymousguy 3614 days ago
The primary problems in that article are nothing to do with technology.

Consider these statements:

* "Tom is a genius", which implies the Tom solution is a trusted asset beyond improvement, doubt, or questioning. It also implies the solutions provided by Tom are golden unimproveable truths.

* The various statements from Scott suggest an indisputable faith in process and convention.

Clearly there are failures at multiple levels here. First of all Tom sounds like a whiny bitch. These personality types are inherently defensive and typically seek to reinforce an individual's position of self triumph in a small pond. Toxic.

Secondly, Scott has a lot of faith in process and conventions. Processes and conventions are the absolute enemy of creativity. I understand processes are necessary to establish a certain level of security, but they more typically exist to satisfy some OCD insanity where there is comfort in doing things in a particular way without consideration for why they are done in that way. Many developers cannot tell the different between security and superficial stupidity. Many technology abstractions enable that stupidity thereby convolute the differences between security and OCD stupid which only enables additional stupidity.

All of the prior mentioned failures are allowed to exist because the management doesn't want to be involved until there is a problem, such as Tom crying. This is called enabling.

Most important of all is that all technology should be questioned, doubted, and challenged. Obviously this sort of continuous improvement is utterly absent, because everybody has a competing agenda.

2 comments

Process is the preventative of 'bikeshedding'. It's not so much about security as consistency, and it also prevents having the "why are we doing it this way" discussion every single time.
I think bikeshedding could exist irrespective of processes. Bikeshedding is the behavior of miss-prioritizing trivialities with greater imperative than core concerns because they are easier to think through. The solution for bikeshedding is prioritizing tasks in alignment to a written mission or plan. A documented plan described achievement of the plan where processes are the requirements to attain a certain level of conformance to a sub-goal. In other words the processes, of a well designed system, are the minimal number of barriers to get in the way just enough to prevent mission failure.
When engineers start acting like religious people it's time to run...
Please replace the term "religious people" with "people of color" and understand the harm you are doing in your discourse. It is blatant prejudice.
What I'm suggesting is that in engineering is better to test truths by applying logic and not just take them for granted by faith.

Please don't generalize my words and don't use them to activate your own prejudice..

> your own prejudice..

Which is?

By the way, I agree completely with the wording "not just take them for granted by faith." It is much more precise and to the point.

> > your own prejudice..

> Which is?

A desire to feel offended and outraged?

Weak tea, my friend. Even if it were true... that's not a prejudice. Please try again. I'm patient.
True, though this story sounded more like one engineer convinced of his godhood and a bunch of clueless managers who ensure that the only way you can keep your job is to believe in the greatness of the solution and its author...