For example, once you have a good grasp of the codebase, and an overview of the future requirements, you can perform low-risks, local refactorings, so as to ease implementing both current and later features/bugfixes/etc.
The requirements aren't systematic though. Meaning, as a dev, you're not always, at least explicitly, allowed to get a bird-eye view, nor to act on it.
I don’t think it does - it only says badly designed is a more stable state. You can roll a boulder uphill in very small steps, as long as you can also keep it from rolling back down (analogous with other devs in your team/new requirements to implement).
I think we can look into the notion from complexity theory of attractor states. If you want to make a change, you need to shift your system enough that it moves into another state.
In more normal words - the codebase will fight your changes. And that means that small incremental changes may not be enough, and you will need at least a few big leaps.
"The lesson you should draw is not that object-oriented is bad, but rather that whatever is the current trendy technique and trendy idea, is likely grossly overrated."
This article and related discussion might be relevant. It addresses more or less exactly this sentiment:
> This is the reason why I get a bit frustrated whenever I see somebody in tech dismisses the EU as just trying to protect European companies from competition with their glorious and wonderful US companies.
Because it sets up incentives for whoever benefits from the labor to lobby for stricter crime laws regardless of whether those stricter laws lead to less crime in the long term.
I joke, but a lot of people just want to show up and do the bare minimal until quitting time. Disturbingly, many seem employed in customer facing positions.
To be fair, if they’re paying minimum wage, the employer has the same attitude towards the employees.
Or you're working in companies that basically stop you from being productive.
Managers questioning the developer's decisions, focus on the sales topics instead of fixing the existing product and colleagues taking shortcuts and exponentially increasing the technical debt is something I basically have to work with every day.
I now have worked on multiple projects on the side, both alone and with others who know their stuff and I've never had any of those issues there.
That's why I'm currently in the process of starting a company with a few of those "good guys" to get out of this madness.
Political harmony is a problem if forced, but a common vision shared by much of society is a strength if arrived at through healthy, intellectually honest debate.
Political debate is fine and healthy, but it should not be possible to end a debate by being louder, more obnoxious and more ready to do violence than the other debaters.
Of course, but having lived in a lot of “politically harmonious countries” I’ve noticed it’s not harmonious due to some universal belief in the political system, but a combination of political apathy, learned helplessness, political oppression (often subtle) or some cultural belief that you don’t question leaders or that they possess some special attributes that no one else does.
Why is the direct flight to LA more expensive than the flight to San Jose with a stop in LA? You'd think the price for the San Jose flight would be the price of the LA flight plus the price of the LA to San Jose flight.
That's when greed meets reality. Except for reading this through the prism of maximizing profit, it makes absolutely no sense.
They will pay extra landing fees, burn more fuel, fly further, and have one more cycle on their very costly engines to bring you from A to B, so by all metrics, it should be more expensive.
But hey, people are "willing" to pay more for the direct flight, so why not charge them as much as they can, while suing the skiplaggers for "costing" them money..
I disagree with this, it is certainly possible to improve the state of some system without starting from scratch.