Re: You know it's going to be a long night ...

Post #418,106 by mvitale 5/11/17 7:36:58 PM 5/11/17 7:36:58 PM Reply	Re: You know it's going to be a long night ... I have an Agile Coaching friend who calls pizza "the flavor of failure" -- for pretty much precisely that reason. When it's time for "all hands on deck" and "all night coding", we order pizza. All night coding sessions are, of course, the definition of failure on an agile project, because that's the anti-definition of "sustainable pace." I've never quite heard of the Depends, though... -Mike @MikeVitale42 "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin, 1759 Historical Review of Pennsylvania
Post #418,107 by drook 5/11/17 10:16:53 PM 5/11/17 10:16:53 PM Reply	Last time I was on a death march ... They'd been bringing in lunch for the dev team every day for several weeks (including Saturdays) rotating among pizza, wings and Chinese. One day we were about to order from the pizza place again. I looked up their menu and said, "I desperately need a salad." -- Drew
Post #418,109 by static 5/12/17 1:05:28 AM 5/12/17 1:05:28 AM Reply	I am so glad I don't work in a place like that. Pretty sure I lost my tolerance for doing "all-nighters" many years ago. I work to live, not live to work. Closest this place gets is to match devs to the skill required. For instance, there's a not insignificant portion of our codebase that I know better than anyone else. For urgent work in there, I'm fastest. Noticeably so. Wade.
Post #418,113 by mvitale 5/12/17 7:11:47 AM 5/12/17 7:11:47 AM Reply	High bus factor* there... Code should be "owned" by everyone. Program in pairs (or mobs.) Spread knowledge. Test-drive development. It's ok to be fastest in some areas, but it shouldn't be because you're the only one who knows that part of the program. * "Bus factor": What happens to the code/project/company if Wade gets hit by a bus? Or its more optimistic cousin: What happens if Wade wins the lottery? -Mike @MikeVitale42 "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin, 1759 Historical Review of Pennsylvania
Post #418,129 by static 5/12/17 9:01:49 PM 5/12/17 9:01:49 PM Reply	No, others can code in it. The reason I'm fastest in those parts is a) I know the language the best b) I've been with the company the longest c) I probably wrote it. Not all, admittedly, but a good proportion of my colleagues can and do code in those areas. Wade.
Post #418,118 by pwhysall 5/12/17 10:34:09 AM 5/12/17 10:34:09 AM Reply	In bid-world, it happens We work to avoid it, of course, but competitive tendering means working to the hardest of hard deadlines. For just about any other deadline in business, you can slip it, look bad, take a financial hit, have a difficult conversation with the client, whatever. Tender submission deadlines don't slip and if you miss one, that's it. 0%. Fail. Boom. Done. Potentially months or even years of work, most of which is pretty much non-reusable, down the crapper. So yeah. Late and all-night sessions happen. OTOH, we do the work hard/play hard thing. So what goes around comes around, and is often beer-shaped.
Post #418,142 by CRConrad 5/15/17 3:31:29 AM 5/15/17 3:31:29 AM Reply	Unintended annoying consequence for developers: Guys like PeeWee need to tick all the boxes on some bid, go "Do we have anyone who knows [whatever tool]? No? Quick, send some guys to take a course in it!" Bunch of devs get sent to take a course in [whatever tool], bid falls through anyway, [whatever tool] isn't heard about -- at least not by those particular devs -- for a year or five. Now you have a bunch of devs who "know" [whatever tool] to the extent of having taken a course in it years ago, zero practical experience of using it for real --> actually don't know it at all any more. I have a few of those in my resumé. (Guess I oughta take 'em out of it.) -- Christian R. Conrad Same old username (as above), but now on iki.fi (Yeah, yeah, it redirects to the same old GMail... But just in case I ever want to change.)
Post #418,156 by pwhysall 5/15/17 3:37:52 PM 5/15/17 3:37:52 PM Reply	Nah In our field, in addition to the actual solution you're proposing, competitive tendering is all evidence-based. With references. So your prospective client can, with you very much not present or able to manage the meeting, ring up your old client and go "When CRC Corp delivered that thing, did it do $list_of_stuff_in_proposal? It didn't? Well, isn't that just fascinating? kthxbai!"
Post #418,184 by CRConrad 5/16/17 9:19:51 AM 5/16/17 9:19:51 AM Reply	I don't think they tried to sell us as "has X years practical experience in Y", just "knows Y." Or direct me to the part of my post where I wrote "...tries to sell devs as 'has X years practical experience in Y'..." OTOH, phuck knows, maybe they did try just what you're ~~suggesting~~ implying. -- Christian R. Conrad Same old username (as above), but now on iki.fi (Yeah, yeah, it redirects to the same old GMail... But just in case I ever want to change.)
Post #418,186 by pwhysall 5/16/17 12:47:25 PM 5/16/17 12:47:25 PM Reply	I wasn't contradicting you just pointing out that my field doesn't work with "...knows Y", it's "...knows Y and implemented it for customer Z, and here's their phone number."

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