

Ask HN: Have you ever been fired for making a version control "mistake?" - joe8756438


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flavmartins
No. But you should.

Part of successful development teams is to build within the newest and least
experienced members an insane FEAR of failing so that it drives them to build
better things rather than be casual about what they do and release garbage.
Too many young developers today are growing up with the mentality that they
can be casual about their work. That mistakes don't matter. That getting it
right isn't the most important thing. That's because they have massive support
systems built around them with people who actually answer for when things go
wrong, when these young naive developers release crap, break things, and these
same people also FIX the crap and garbage that gets released, all because of
naive programming.

So, please tell EVERY developer that a version control mistake is grounds for
termination and you'll make sure that they REALLY dedicate time and attention
to their work.

~~~
kohanz
_Part of successful development teams is to build within the newest and least
experienced members an insane FEAR of failing_

Not sure if serious, but I completely disagree.

An environment of "insane fear of failing" is also an environment filled with
fear of trying new things. Of course you should carefully select and then
mentor your junior devs appropriately so that they will produce quality
results, but you should also have a reasonable amount of safety nets in place
such that mistakes can be rectified relatively easily. I find the attitude
that version control mistakes are intolerable to be ironic, considering that
one of the very benefits of version control is that, when properly used, it
eliminates or reduces the impact of many development "mistakes".

I have many times witnessed junior engineers (some under my supervision) come
up with inventive solutions that in some way improved existing development
practices. Many of these solutions would likely never had been discovered, had
these engineers been instilled with an _INSANE FEAR_ of failing.

------
ibotty
no

