> Someone got to say it so I will. Most of your comments comes across like you've gone of the rails and started replacing competency, not to mention humility, with narcissism. Being so cocksure and backing it up with statements that you need to be as brilliant as you to "understand" is such a laughingly large red flag that I'm not surprised people interpret it as satire.
Where did I say that, exactly? I’ve said nothing about intellect. I’ve mentioned tacit knowledge multiple times, because I have enough experience to recognize how ludicrous a lot of this sounds. It sounded that way to me at first until I experienced it and saw the pieces fit together. That’s how tacit knowledge works, especially when it is counter to average knowledge. It’s the same reason American industry smashed Japanese cars in demonstration instead of listening to them when they said large batches were bad (I’m simplifying here somewhat)
And which part, specifically sounds incompetent? I’m happy to discuss that.
By the way, it's decidedly difficult to challenge a common belief, dare I say, orthodoxy, without sounding insane, confident, or even cocky. Could I be better at it? Of course, and I work at it, but I also am not here to make friends. I'm here to provide a perspective that I believe is sorely lacking from the development community and is drowned out by the orthodoxy, its acolytes, and its beneficiaries.
> I really hope your colleagues are onboard with this and that this isn't your own dogmatic crusade dragging them along.
Given their tenure on the team and their other options, it’s a pretty safe bet. It’s not my crusade, btw, it’s our teams goal to manage a relatively complex project with a relatively small team.
Also, someone has to say it, so I will. You have now dropped this conversation, which was about the work, into ad hominem and straw man attacks. That’s one of the worst part about this industry: people’s inability to debate and discuss without attacking people or glorifying celebrities.
> into ad hominem and straw man attacks. That’s one of the worst part about this industry: people’s inability to debate and discuss
Let's see here:
> You have experienced what happens when web developers cosplay as software architects.
> That is, you experienced an average team doing average work misguided by average bad advice. It says absolutely nothing about software design. It only speaks to the fat part of the bell curve doing what it always does.
> because, unlike them, I have significant material experience in both camps.
> It’s hard to imagine worse advice.
> But please, by all means, continue to spread disinformation and keep us in the dark ages.
> Just read the author’s bio. This is a person that appears to have zero software design experience writing an article telling you to ignore software design and just respect your team configuration. I call this Conway’s Confusion.
That sets a good friendly tone huh? If you can't take push back, don't be an arse to begin with.
> And which part, specifically sounds incompetent? I’m happy to discuss that.
Your arrogance precludes a fruitful discussion. But I believe that this needs to be called out, if nothing else to nudge other people to also do it when they see it, or to, albeit much less likely, nudge you towards eating some humble pie.
> You have experienced what happens when web developers cosplay as software architects.
I agree that this is overly snippy to the point of being counter-productive. It represents a particular emotional frustration with the state of our industry. We knew what ended up being microservices (web API servers making web API calls to other web API servers) was a failure mode. We knew you couldn't just introduce network hops and call it "architecture". So yes, I'm annoyed about that such that I'm willing to call out nameless "web developers", but I understand how that can create discomfort.
> That is, you experienced an average team doing average work misguided by average bad advice. It says absolutely nothing about software design. It only speaks to the fat part of the bell curve doing what it always does.
Indeed, and the person I was responding to effectively acknowledged this. The sooner we can recognize that the skill curve/technology adoption curve are real things, and crossing the chasm takes hard work, the sooner we can stop leaving people behind said chasm. It's not easy. Nothing I said here is untrue. If it is, please point it out.
> because, unlike them, I have significant material experience in both camps.
Again, I'm pointing to a material difference. Most people who are attempting to refute what I am saying have never done what I am saying. They are doing it from a position of fear, uncertainty, and doubt, or worse. I've been where they are. I've fought the fight they are fighting and, thankfully, I lost, and was introduced to new ways of doing things and seeing things. If a person has done what I'm discussing, I would expect them to say that and tell me why it failed. Instead I get people telling me it can't work and I'm incompetent, etc.
> It’s hard to imagine worse advice.
> Just read the author’s bio. This is a person that appears to have zero software design experience writing an article telling you to ignore software design and just respect your team configuration. I call this Conway’s Confusion.
Putting these together because they are about the OP article and the OP. "hard to imagine worse advice" is hyperbole, but it is bad advice. You can't force fit concepts to teams. I mean, you can try, but you'll always end up with unnaturalness.
The actual OP's bio talks about their career. None of it mentions software design. If a person with zero surgery experience started writing about how to properly set up operating rooms, you can darn well bet they will be called a charlatan and called to the carpet. If they aren't people may die. Software isn't that serious usually, but it's not hard to imagine that there have been billions upon billions of dollars flushed down the toilet for the sake of poor software design that no one speaks out against.
> But please, by all means, continue to spread disinformation and keep us in the dark ages.
Yes, overly cynical and unnecessary. I made my point prior to this and I didn't need to add this.
> That sets a good friendly tone huh? If you can't take push back, don't be an arse to begin with.
Some was unnecessary yes, thanks for calling it out. The rest represents what I think is healthy push-back against an orthodoxy that causes more harm than good. We can achieve more as an industry and make our way out of the realm of hobbyists and into something more serious. Many of us call ourselves engineers, but nothing we do resembles anything that people who are actually classically trained engineers do.
> > And which part, specifically sounds incompetent? I’m happy to discuss that.
> Your arrogance precludes a fruitful discussion. But I believe that this needs to be called out, if nothing else to nudge other people to also do it when they see it, or to, albeit much less likely, nudge you towards eating some humble pie.
Just to be clear: you said that what I was saying sounded incompetent. I asked you about that, and you're telling me I appear to be too arrogant for you to tell me why I sound incompetent? Please, tell me what I said that sounds incompetent. Let's move past the ad hominem portion of the discussion now and talk about the actual substance. I'll do my best to refrain from hyperbole and unnecessary snark.
Answered somewhat what I mean by at least the "code smells" and idiosyncrasies (competency was probably too harsh with given the amount of info) in a reply to another user.
> Your arrogance precludes a fruitful discussion.
This was specific to the tendencies in other replies to defer to your (or your team's) brilliance/experience as the answer to why your setup is not suspicious, but excellent. Not sure what can come out of a discussion when that's the answer to everything, well nice for you, but a setup that doesn't scale with employee count (and thus competency/experience/interest differences) isn't exactly something that you can go around bragging about.
> This was specific to the tendencies in other replies to defer to your (or your team's) brilliance/experience as the answer to why your setup is not suspicious, but excellent.
I touched on this in my reply to the other user, but at this point, I believe you may just not know what tacit knowledge is. You continue to think that I am pointing to our own brilliance. I'm not. I'm calling a spade a spade. I recognize what it takes to gain particular types of knowledge (tacit, or subtle knowledge), and I recognize that it's this reality that prevents most conversations about techniques from being fruitful.
Each participant will put their own experience behind the meaning of their words (and worse, their conversation partner's words) and it will prevent them from recognizing what one another are saying. The only way to have a fruitful discussion is for both sides to be capable of recognizing when that is happening. Since, in my experience, most people aren't -- they'd rather die on their hill than recognize that the person they are talking to is simply on the same hill but sees it differently, or they are on a different hill that really is better, but it cannot be seen as such yet, because it is over the horizon of their knowledge.
I don't actually know if you are interested in understanding this more or if you joined the conversation just to try to put me in my place, but if you are, here are some articles that may help:
Once you can recognize that there is subtle knowledge you might actually see my pointing to it as attempting to keep the conversation from devolving into exactly the type of thing that it tends to devolve into. Or not.
> I believe you may just not know what tacit knowledge is
Not sure where you got that from, haven't said anything about it nor did I include that in my quotes.
I'm well aware of it. But if I have one comment on it would be that I see it more as something an experienced person (or someone with a natural knack for it) makes use of under-the-hood, the resulting quality of the output however can usually be recognized by everyone, not something reserved for the "blessed ones". Take the redis source code for example (quite a few years since the last time I read it though). The author clearly has this skill, but one doesn't have to possess that to recognize the code quality (and btw, iirc without any mentions of a pile of design patterns/methodologies, just "doing it", but to each their own).
So therefore I'm a bit suspicious of anyone that claims that their idiosyncratic setup is actually simple if you just have experience enough to be able to judge it. I'm not saying that everything can be obvious at first glance but the vagueness triggers my radar after being worn down by experiencing way too much over-engineering motivated by self-serving vagueness and/or word salads ("baffle them with bullshit").
That said, if a code base keeps requiring you to make the correct design decision using subtle knowledge, that's a fragile situation and something seems off. You've probably already made the code base too complicated, my prejudices (somewhat confirmed by the language used in one the articles you linked [1]) would be through a pile of design patterns inspired abstractions that now everyone needs to be able to juggle at all times.
[1] "For example, the Tell, Don’t Ask principle can’t be expressed directly in terms of Push, Don’t Pull, which has a more common name: encapsulation. And each one of these qualities reflects cohesion and coupling. And furthermore, cohesion and coupling are inter-related and affect each other. Afference and efference are kinds of coupling. Afference is inbound coupling, and efference is outbound coupling"
> Not sure where you got that from, haven't said anything about it nor did I include that in my quotes.
I got it from here:
> This was specific to the tendencies in other replies to defer to your (or your team's) brilliance/experience ...
and
> Being so cocksure and backing it up with statements that you need to be as brilliant as you to "understand" is such a laughingly large red flag...
Given that at no point did I point to our "brilliance", I assumed you refererring to my pointing to tacit knowledge:
> It's honestly a hard question to answer because the real answer requires tacit knowledge...
> ... because much of what we do requires tacit knowledge to see the benefit of ...
So if I'm mistaken, I apologize, but please do point out where I claimed brilliance. I am certainly claiming experience, and expertise, but those are earned, as they are in any profession. It's also true that no one in this conversation (including you) other than me have actually seen our code, and therefore would be ill-equipped to judge it. That is, they do not have the experience of our code base. Rushes to judge it based on pre-conceived notions only reflect a lack of dilligence, integrity, and/or awareness.
> the resulting quality of the output however can usually be recognized by everyone...
Have you seen our code? Or have you seen a few mentions of some of the things that we do and you are using that to fabricate an idea of what our code is?
> So therefore I'm a bit suspicious of anyone that claims that their idiosyncratic setup is actually simple
You are of course free to be suspicious. A significant part of the experience necessary to judge it would be to actually see it. We are, at the end of the day, dancing about architecture. You cannot see our code, you cannot see our actual set up, which typically would mean that one would have essentially nothing to say about it. If you'd like to refute particular practices I mention, that's fine. But please, keep your presumptions to yourself, or at least ask them in the form of a question (e.g., "artificial partitioning").
> ...would be through a pile of design patterns inspired abstractions that now everyone needs to be able to juggle at all times.
We have relatively junior developers on our team. There are a small handful of common patterns that are used repeatedly throughout our code base. We strive to eliminate special (unnecessary) variatation so there are always exemplars and/or documented norms. We don't have 10 varieties of "service objects". We don't have callback hell. They do not struggle with these things. They struggle with other things, as they are relatively junior, but we support them. Again, frankly, you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about and you are continuing to attempt to make up for your ignorance (of our code base and what I am saying) with hubris and presumption.
I just saw this edit from you:
> That said, if a code base keeps requiring you to make the correct design decision using subtle knowledge, that's a fragile situation and something seems off.
You and I have two different ideas of expertise and software design and they are irreconciable. Maybe in 15 years you can look back on this conversation and recognize that there was always land beyond the horizon. Or maybe not. You are the doctor that is refusing to wash his hands before surgery because you still believe in bad humors. There are things you do not know, and you are stubbornly refusing to recognize them. You have probably worked on some pretty horrific code bases, and you can probably back up every one of the things you are projecting onto me with personal experience, but you have drawn the wrong ultimate conclusion. You have drawn the conclusion that software design does not exist and does not have consequences and that anyone who claims to do it is a charlatan. That may even be true much of the time (goodness knows that's what I'm saying about many people who claim to be doing software design). Judge me as harshly as you wish for making this assessment. Thankfully, we do not work together and we will be unlikely to cross paths again in the future.
> Given that at no point did I point to our "brilliance", I assumed you refererring to my pointing to tacit knowledge
I deduced it from your general tone. But you're probably right that the tacit was part of it.
> Have you seen our code?
No, but it was a general comment, hinted by providing the redis source code as an example.
> and presumption.
Yes, it was prejudicial, as stated. I hope I'm wrong.
> You and I have two different ideas of expertise and software design and they are irreconciable.
Agree.
> Maybe in 15 years you can look back on this conversation and recognize that there was always land beyond the horizon. Or maybe not. You are the doctor that is refusing to wash his hands before surgery because you still believe in bad humors. There are things you do not know, and you are stubbornly refusing to recognize them.
And here's why I said your arrogance would make it unfruitful. Because in the end you're of course objectively right, and I'm objectively wrong and will see my errors in due time. Sigh.
> Thankfully, we do not work together and we will be unlikely to cross paths again in the future.
Where did I say that, exactly? I’ve said nothing about intellect. I’ve mentioned tacit knowledge multiple times, because I have enough experience to recognize how ludicrous a lot of this sounds. It sounded that way to me at first until I experienced it and saw the pieces fit together. That’s how tacit knowledge works, especially when it is counter to average knowledge. It’s the same reason American industry smashed Japanese cars in demonstration instead of listening to them when they said large batches were bad (I’m simplifying here somewhat)
And which part, specifically sounds incompetent? I’m happy to discuss that.
By the way, it's decidedly difficult to challenge a common belief, dare I say, orthodoxy, without sounding insane, confident, or even cocky. Could I be better at it? Of course, and I work at it, but I also am not here to make friends. I'm here to provide a perspective that I believe is sorely lacking from the development community and is drowned out by the orthodoxy, its acolytes, and its beneficiaries.
> I really hope your colleagues are onboard with this and that this isn't your own dogmatic crusade dragging them along.
Given their tenure on the team and their other options, it’s a pretty safe bet. It’s not my crusade, btw, it’s our teams goal to manage a relatively complex project with a relatively small team.
Also, someone has to say it, so I will. You have now dropped this conversation, which was about the work, into ad hominem and straw man attacks. That’s one of the worst part about this industry: people’s inability to debate and discuss without attacking people or glorifying celebrities.