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by Pannoniae 240 days ago
Amazing presentation, the real gold is buried somewhere in the middle:

"To paraphrase Kent Beck, professional software development is about...

Communication and collaboration between large numbers of people with different perspectives."

This is why large organisations suffer, communication;)

People say it a lot that the code isn't most of the value but the auxiliary stuff is, which is true - but the conclusion from that shouldn't be that the work itself isn't that important, it's just that you'll see way less of it in a large organisation.

This is also why a well-aimed startup can easily blow the socks off companies with thousands of employees - the communication overhead is high, accountability is very diffused and everything is codified.

In an ideal world, you'd spend 100% of your time with either the work or something adjacent (like research), but of course, that's completely unrealistic. But if you aren't doing work but something else, it's probably a good idea to ask yourself, does this matter? Does it help my goals?