If you only read one thingMeasuring Developer Productivity via Humans (25 minute read) “Somewhere, right now, a technology executive tells their directors: ‘we need a way to measure the productivity of our engineering teams.’” Indeed. Yes, the article is partially an ad for the company of the author. But the points are good, “Advocating for qualitative metrics”. A deep dive into productivity. Bookmarked. https://martinfowler.com/articles/measuring-developer-productivity-humans.html Tweet of the week
From https://twitter.com/Carnage4Life/status/1767527635297722786 Comic of the week
Stories I’ve enjoyed this weeks Return To Office Mandates suck. (24 minute read) RTO does, and the website has a long list of reasons. And I’ve read somewhere else, Dell wants to use promotions as a lever for RTO (and others probably too, also salary). This is misguided and happens because managers manage people with tasks instead of goals. I understand it’s difficult to manage people remotely by tasks. If they’d manage people by goals, RTO would not be a topic of discussion. So we have RTO and people leaving. https://returntoofficemandate.com/ Working Hours (10 minute read) Work hours have been going down. And Germany is at the bottom, those lazy Germans! Joke aside, recently someone told me, people at successful companies work longer, when I’ve mentioned I send people home. Is the reason startups in the US are more successful, that they work more? Should I be wrong? https://ourworldindata.org/working-hours#are-we-working-more-than-ever A Few Words on Testing (10 minute read) Good points. “Too many flaky tests. Too much time spent getting the tests to pass after making a tiny change that I knew was correct but the tests didn’t. Too many integration tests that made people wait 20, 30, 40 minutes “ Myself I’ve changed my testing approach. More pure unit tests, some E2E tests that run fast without mocking. But microservices and a tech zoo make this hard. Me with only Postgres, a breeze to test. https://registerspill.thorstenball.com/p/a-few-words-on-testing Can You Replace Your Software Engineers With AI? (11 minute read) Well can you? There is this new tool on the block, Devin, an AI software engineer. What I found most intriguing, “Cognition’s website also includes a link to a waiting list for those wishing to “hire” Devin.” I’ve read this somewhere else, AI companies no longer want to sell you a SaaS service, but an AI person, where they can charge $10/h not $100/month (a 70x markup - only for one “engineer”, do you need more?). Genius! And oh so transparent in the greed for money. https://www.htormey.org/can-you-replace-your-software-engineers-with-ai/ Coding Sucks Anyway — Matt Welsh on the End of Programming (15 minute read) I ❤️ coding. It’s the combination of creativity and engineering that is unique to writing code. So of course I disagree - not with the End of Programming though. And I do think he is wrong here too, developers should become “product managers or code reviewers, the two human roles he thinks are relatively safe from the robots.” Code reviews for sure will fall first, and it’s not clear what the role of product managers are with AI. Most PMs in current companies are not very visionary. I don’t believe that role survives. Indeed I think AI well replace everyone working in tech with a small amount of people maintaining the AI systems. Like plumbers. I ❤️ coding. https://thenewstack.io/coding-sucks-anyway-matt-welsh-on-the-end-of-programming/ Take Ownership of Your Future Self (4 minute read) Great insights. "” Despite awareness that our past self is clearly different than our present self, we tend to think that who we are right now is the “real” and “finished” version of ourselves, and our future self will be basically the same as who we are today.” I have changed so much, but too thought the today me is the real me. It will change again. You will change too. https://hbr.org/2020/08/take-ownership-of-your-future-self Alternating between Extremes - A Phenomenon in Software Engineering?! (Part 1) (11 minute read) We’re going in circles, “Server-side rendering → Client-side rendering → Hybrid rendering” → Server side rendering (HTMX!). It’s a wonder that we go somewhere at all. Articles has some reasons why we do this all the time (I’m happy with server side rendering today like I did 30 years ago ~1993). https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/alternating-between-extremes-phenomenon-software-part-neubauer-yy1ze/ Why software projects fail (20 minute read) Projects, bah! We don’t do projects, we do Agile and Lean. But if you’re do B2B customer onboarding or third party integration with partners, it’s better with project management (I urge people to hire project managers in this case), and if you have projects, those are the reasons they fail (Psssst! Also the reaosns you Agile B2B customer development fails are the same). https://vadimkravcenko.com/shorts/why-software-projects-fail/ So you messed up. Now what? (9 minute read) Everyone is late. So what to do “The most important lesson here is communicate lateness early.” Indeed! And many more good points in the article. Wonders are not going to happen, “Late projects stay late.” I might add, best if you need to give estimates, make them as good as you can, add a risk buffer for illness and holidays and stick to it. Most project-late mistakes are made before the project starts because you lower your estimates because of pressure. Don’t. https://jacobian.org/2021/jun/8/incorrect-estimates/ How web bloat impacts users with slow devices (5 minute read) Interesting read on the CPU consumption of different CPUs (M1 Pro e.g.) on different websites. We do not have enough hardcore engineering content with numbers I feel, so this is highly welcome. https://danluu.com/slow-device/ Why code quality matters (8 minute read) Don’t compromise on code quality. Why? Many reasons, the main one for me, if developers should take responsibility for things, you can’t dictate low quality for dubious performance gains. BUT this article is written for CEOs, so if needed, forward that article. https://madewithlove.com/blog/why-code-quality-matters/ Create More Than You Consume if You Want to Worry Less and Feel More Fulfilled — OMAR ITANI (11 minute read) Works for me, when I create less I feel bad. This happens also to CTOs. As a developer you create every day. As a CTO you do meetings. Get back to write some code. Two of my coachees are excellent CTOs with great tech departments, both write code as spike prototypes. Create more! (like this newsletter). Join the CTO newsletter! | |
