Learning modules are useful when they fulfil some need. There’s no specific regulatory or business need being fulfilled here, near as I can tell, it sounds like they’re stopping everything for a week to pad a vanity metric.
What the article describes is more or less org-wide contempt for this initiative, which is as close to the bottom of the scale for “alignment” as you can get before people start quitting. This sounds like a morale nightmare, and cancelling 1:1s (where managers could do some damage control) just compounds the problem.
My thought when I read it as well. I've owned Nexus 4, 5, 6, Pixel 1, 2, 3, 4 and finally gave up. Half of these phones were purchased because the previous model crapped out. I am not a heavy phone user either. I think I stuck with them because there was always some integration with Google and iPhone that didn't make me happy, but whatever it is must have been solved by the time I got an iPhone because I'm on three years with mine. Probably won't replace it for another three years.
Google search has become nearly unusable, while Microsoft’s core consumer products still seem OK - you can still install Windows 11 without a Live account through a workaround.
I can run games on Linux and do work on a Mac. Search is still a problem, but I am increasingly turning to ChatGPT for searching anything non current event, with Bing increasingly.
I was a full Google stack, Android, Home, TV, everything, for a few years. I don’t know about trust, but Google products just flat out suck with constant disappointment, and search is no exception.
Part of the issue with search, I cannot 'totally' blame on Google. (Note: I blame them some. Made $300,000,000,000 last year. Have 140,000 employees. Their main product is search + ads. There should be an army of programmers working to make the experience relevant / pleasant / not unusable).
However, there's also an army that works to fill every single slightly "wrong" search result with 100's of answers (they're not even necessarily malicious).
I tried to search for HyperPhysics [1] the other day. Yet, for the life of me could not remember the exact name. Hypertextbook, Super Physics, Super Curricula, Super Simple Physics, ect... In some ways its just name collision. Only so many words that mean "hyper, super, awesome" and 10^10 humans that want them.
Google is fine if you're searching for restaurants or a Wikipedia article. I'm sure they handle the vast majority of their mundane queries well.
It's awful, much worse than it used to be, if you're looking for some specific piece of information. Put a word or phrase in quotes, and it will still just ignore it after the first 3 or 4 results and give you a bunch of irrelevant garbage.
Not as weird as this meme. You assume it’s some signal expression rather than that I would just pay Google money every month to provide search results that don’t prioritize advertisements over more accurate results that don’t calculate a margin.
Interesting way to put it. Almost like refusing to pay the local thugs for "protection", and seeing the consequences of not paying get worse every year.
Google increased ads on youtube to the point where it's now ugly and excessive. This doesn't make premium more valuable in its own right. It makes avoiding premium more uncomfortable, which is a lot different than your implication that people refuse or can't see the value of premium.
Just because you got something for free at the start doesn't mean it will stay that way. Other platforms like Netflix, HBO, Hulu, etc keep increasing prices year after year, even creating paid ad-supported tiers, and since most people pay YouTube by watching ads, ads are increasing commensurately too. Where's the confusion? The "refusal" refers to there being options where you don't have to see ads. I don't get to watch Netflix for free with ads; how is that better?
Youtube contains endless "generative fill" content made with all the care and effort of a vending machine. Lifeless, worthless, rinse/repeat content made by content spammers. A slap in the face in terms of value for money.
On Youtube's homepage recently I saw this video: "5 Tallest Building Demolitions in History". Worth a look, right? Wrong. Narrated with an artificial voice, and containing about 11 minutes of stock video clips, padding things out to reach the 12 minute length. The few seconds of demolition footage is fleeting and extremely low quality because the uploader doesn't own the footage.
Netflix isn't infected with such blatantly empty clickbait rubbish, so is a poor comparison if you're tying to say "but you pay $15 a month for Netflix, why not Youtube"?
While Youtube provides a "tip jar" called "super thanks", Google takes a 30% cut of whatever is tipped to the creator, ON TOP of what they take from advertising and premium fees. Google takes and takes. They increase ads as if there's no limit. Do you think advertising should have limits? Or are you fine with YouTube becoming wall to wall repetitive intrusive ads unless people pay the protection fee to not suffer the onslaught?
Where did YouTube enter the discussion? Also yes the things I search for would be in the minority of overall searches, but apparently finding Google unable to fulfill searches for these things despite it being able to do so 7 years ago is just memetic transference and not an actual critique.
Your comment was hard to read for me but I took it as you want a premium search that prioritizes results instead of ads. And I’m telling you that another popular product, YouTube, has premium and people don’t want to pay for it. So premium search would not change anything, except for a small minority of people like yourself.
The internet has changed drastically and become orders of magnitude bigger in the last 7 years. Your expectations may be unrealistic when there are so many parties that want to game the system.
Because most of the gravy is in getting those things wrong. The bank or the government will find more money to keep the work going.
I worked with a GC who bragged about tripling the budget of a highschool build. If you are doing large projects the only way you're going to win is to be way off on bid day and to be good friends with the people who figure out the financing.
Yeah this. One of my friends is a PM for mostly government contracts. He also gets serious commissions for any mid project add ons so they're incentivized to low ball and win contracts then get customers to pay more later.
I worked in construction for ten years and then worked at a construction management software startup for a year, where maybe I could see the writing on the wall better than others.
The problem is that nobody can align the incentives of the tradespeople and the office folks when it comes to integrating into an information system together. You have to cross multiple organizational boundaries between owner, builder, contractor, and subcontractor of which very few people have a bottom up understanding. Mostly the people with the incentive to put everyone on a single platform (owner / builder) think very low of the tradespeople, which is why tradespeople are beginning to make more money than the accountants and PMs.
>The problem is that nobody can align the incentives of the tradespeople and the office folks when it comes to integrating into an information system together.
Exactly this. What you describe is basically the same as every ERP and CRM problem. In the end most of them all somewhat converged to SAP or SAP equivalent.
It takes a very specific and special sets of skills to align and understand both, if not all parties interest.
Which is exactly why I always advocate for importing temporary labor from mexico. Letting the local tradespeople gain too much power is half the reason why building is so difficult in america.
Which is exactly why I always advocate for outsourcing engineering talent overseas. Letting the Silicon Valley software engineers gain too much power is half the reason why keeping a product from being cancelled is so difficult at Google.
See, throwing a lot of nonsequiters together does not make a convincing argument that you know anything about what you’re talking about!
Can't tell if sarcasm or not... Yeah, it's those local tradespeople living in their mansions and driving Lambos that is the real problem with building costs, so of course we should import desperate people in unstable situations to compete against them.
It works perfectly, government subsidies and cheap foreign labor creates happy american farmers. Housing and infrastructure are critical to the country, just like food. The only issue is the legal limbo of selective immigration, it would be less cruel to issue visas quicker for temporary workers with most resident benefits waived than the current under-the-table dealings with illegal and undocumented migrants.
Given that enforcing the law drives the labor away, and the conditions for the workers suck, the only way it's working is to find that making things suck for people is somehow good.
Most of the houses built from the late 80s through the 2000s housing bubble were built by foreign labor.
Ditto for most of the kitchen labor in big cities. Anthony Bourdain wrote about it extensively in the book that made him famous.
Both are the reason the middle class was able to eke it out for so long. Now the hacks aren't working and the money printer kept going brrrrrrrrrrrr and the average person can't afford jack.
Mexicans in construction can feel like wage slaves every day in Mexico. Those temporarily in the US get to feel like they’re making bank, absolutely just cleaning up. Typical roofer in the US makes $50k (BLS figure). Not sure what he makes in Mexico but the median income in Mexico is about $20k.
Why is the US based tradesperson superior to the Mexican? Why must we address his prosperity more than theirs? To “protect” the Mexican from making cash?
And remember that when construction is expensive, people have to pay for it. Maybe if you already have saved enough for your house, that’s fine for you, but if not? It absolutely makes it harder for young people (not in tech) to afford homes. And on the national scale we have a massive backlog in housing and can expect it will take decades before housing gets better.
US labor is neither morally superior nor economically sounder for the US or world economy. It is the specific laborer himself who benefits.
> Why is the US based tradesperson superior to the Mexican?
A better question to ask is why is the value of the Mexican’s labor so much higher once they step foot into the United States for the same exact work and exact same skill level.
Another question you can ask is why can’t I as an American move to Norway and partake in their healthcare system and sovereign wealth fund? Or why can’t I move to Switzerland and work as a barista?
Once you can answer the second question, you have your answer to the first.
It's not even close to the same amount of work, the construction worker in Mexico has to be far, far more resourceful than his American counterpart because things that we take for granted in the states like having on-site power, a constant supply of water, porta johns, working power tools, safety equipment and padding, nearby air conditioned restaurants and other public spaces to cool off in after the job or on lunch breaks, transportation to and from the site are largely absent in most Mexican construction circumstances. Things like sawbucks and and jigs for bending and shaping rebar are almost always just improvised on site.
The concept of the US style planned development (fraccionamiento, very loosely the MX counterpart) where basic service infrastructure is laid down first, and construction happens afterward, is very much the exception there, and most work is done ad hoc using whatever tooling happens to be available in the nearest small town.
Also Mexican construction is almost entirely cement and cinder block standards due to relatively little native timber, and those things are all hauled around the site manually with occasional wheelbarrow assistance. None of this tilt up, balloon frame stick built business we have here.
Bottom line being that the typical Mexican construction laborer is going to be much more well-rounded, flexible, and industrious then the typical American construction worker, and as such is worth far more to an American crew, where these traits stand out, than to a Mexican crew where they are the norm.
The reason for the first is that the US has a much, much better environment for conducting business, compared to Mexico. This is on many levels, starting with education, continuing along to infrastructure, but also things like “low levels of official corruption” and “effective and consistent application of the rule of law,” especially least where business is concerned. For all our troubles (you needn’t raise them, I know) chances are that no one you know will ever be stopped by a cop claiming you were speeding and asking for a bribe; this would be business as usual and fairly unremarkable in Mexico.
It would be good if Mexico could improve and avoid these problems. Until it does so, trapping the Mexican laborer in Mexico to earn his wage, when he could go elsewhere, is like making a farmer farm in the desert.
It is not a natural-resource ownership allocation problem like you allude to with Norway.
> It is not a natural-resource ownership allocation problem like you allude to with Norway.
This is false in the general sense but also you can just ignore the natural resource ownership allocation problem and still use Norway as an example, or a different country (the Netherlands? New Zealand? Japan?).
The answer someone has to provide is why an everyday American barista can't wake up and move to Switzerland, Norway, etc.
> Trapping the American laborer in America to earn their wage, when they could go elsewhere, is like making a farmer farm in the desert.
Japan is notoriously xenophobic with regards to matters of immigration. Many analysts speculate that this attitude will cost them dearly as their demographic trends continue and the population ages, or expect attitudes to change. The same is true for much of East Asia. Some recent coverage from within the past week: https://www.economist.com/leaders/2023/07/06/the-new-asian-f...
We don’t need to be stuck in a rut of malaise like Japan. We could prosper instead.
Mexicans in computer engineering/science feel like wage slaves every day in mexico. those temporarily in the US get to feel like they're making bank, absolutely cleaning up. Typical computer scientist/programming in the US makes $93,000. Not sure what he makes in mexico but the median income in mexico is about $20k.
Why is the US based computer scientist superior to the mexican? Why must we address his prosperity more than theirs? To "protect" the programmer from making cash?
And remember, development is expensive, people have to pay for it. Maybe if you already have enough saved for your application, that's fine for you, but if not? It absolutely makes it harder for young people to create businesses. And on the national scale we can use more mexican app developers.
US developers are neither morally superior nor economically sounder for the US or world economy. It is the specific laborer themselves who benefits.
PS Your argument is that the country you live in shouldn't value the citizens of that country over some other country's citizens - its basically the end of the social contract and of society in general. Its a bad idea but I guess if it saves you $15/h on a construction worker its now moral in your eyes?
> Typical roofer in the US makes $50k (BLS figure). Not sure what he makes in Mexico but the median income in Mexico is about $20k.
If you were a roofer would you rather make 20K in Mexico us 50K in the US?
I don't know, but I doubt it is clear cut answer.
The insane US health care costs alone would eat up much of that if you're unlucky. I'd guess a young healthy single guy should take the 50K in the US but as soon as there is a family to support, 20K in Mexico may go farther.
If you're under 50k in the US healthcare is literally free. What country do you live in? Have you ever visited healthcare.gov?
Your get an extra $400/child/month at that income. If you're Mexican and you're weighing working in Mexico, you should absolutely go file and then go to the doctor and get your head checked.
I guess you just solved the US healthcare crisis with a single comment? Since US healthcare is literally free, there can't be huge numbers of medical bankrupcies (but there are) and there can't be insanely high levels of uninsured and underinsured people (but there are) and low-income families have nothing to worry about regarding access to care (but they do). Closer to the HN demographic, individuals who wish to start startups can freely do so without worrying how to get healtcare if they leave their FAANG job (but they can't).
The other possibility might be that it's not that simple.
When I was playing around with startup ideas, not employed by any large corporation, your so-called free healthcare was costing me well over $3K/month in the US (not including out of pocket expenses, of course).
Average costs of healthcare in the US per person is roughly $560/mo. That's a little more than most European countries based on tax breakdown. Yes, in the US rich FAANG workers that decide to go startup are required to pay for poor bus drivers making less than $50k. That's called socialized healthcare. I don't see a crisis. I see the news pedaling whatever garbage they need to slander the other party, including painting crazy pictures about the US "crisis" where lifespans are strikingly similar to everywhere else. Next time fill out your forms on time. You get Cobra when you leave and if you really are under $50k the following year, then yes it's really free. Unless you're too lazy to fill out your forms, or your startup took off, you are just fine.
The unions aren’t that bad, but if there was any kind of accountability on budgets, they would be crushed or, more likely, just be better and faster. Between ZIRP and infinite debt, I can’t blame them for getting their cut.
Also yes, I assume most of American buildings in the next 20-30 years will be built by foreign contractors using foreign labor.
Having worked in climate tech for a few years and also following the VCs in that space intently, I believe you've completely nailed it. Seriously, this comment is worth two trillion dollars.
I figured a modern stack would involve modern tools and not be a head first dive into enterprise SaaS contracts and integration hell, but what do I know.
At this point I’m diversified enough in my investments to just start agreeing. “Yes, you’re right, we’ll all be drinking our meals and everyone who uses Postgres will be fired”
On the subject of modules, I often recommend “Composite / Structured Design” and/or “Reliable Software Through Composite Design” by Glenford Myers.
It’s old. The examples are in PL/I. But his framework for identifying “Functional Strength” and Data Coupling is something every developer should have. Keep in mind this is before functional programming and OOP.
I personally think it could be updated around his concepts of data homogeneity. Interfaces and first class functions are structures he didn't have available to him, but don’t require any new categories on his end, which is to say his critique still seems solid.
Overall, most Best Practices stuff all seem either derivative of or superfluous to this guy just actually classifying modules by their boundaries and data.
I should note, I haven't audited his design methodologies, which I'm sure are quite dated. His taxonomy concerning modules was enough for me.
"The Art of Software Testing" is another of his. I picked up his whole corpus concerning software on thriftbooks for like $20.
The analogy is apt in at least defining a separation between the overall complexity of what SpaceX produces compared to NASA, to say something of how the two different models of R&D work, but maybe off in degrees as you discussed.
"NASA makes precision scientific instruments and SpaceX makes precision scientific instruments that have higher tolerances with a higher focus on throughput, and there are rapidly diminishing returns in how much funding can be used to close the gap" is probably the right take if not as fun.
What works: A lead who plans out the project and works with engineers or engineering teams with different specialties to scope out the required components. Lead puts together a plan that is path dependence aware, engineers / teams work iteratively and communicate status.
Leads often don’t know how to lead, scrum hides this.
Management is supposed to be understanding the organizational needs of completing such projects i.e. making sure the right personnel are on the team, on the right teams, that the right teams exist, and that individuals are capable (technically, as a matter of attitude, incentives, conflicts of interest).
Management often doesn’t know how to manage and scrum hides this.
Product is supposed to be coming up with the projects. It gets more complicated as there are “technical” products where the PMs are maybe the leads of Engineering teams, and other ones, but overall, someone is supposed to be responsible for defining what to do next as a discrete goal.
Product often doesn’t know how to do this and scrum hides this.
The thing everyone gets wrong with agile / scrum is that you just keep hacking away until “something” gets done. Without getting into how “agile isn’t scrum” and really just meaning “the death march of ill-specification and low accountability that often gets described as scrum or agile”, you’re supposed to actually start and stop stuff. You can start, fail, and restart. But you need to complete stuff, then look at what was planned versus what was delivered. You need to make specific people responsible for specific things getting done. If people can’t handle their assignments, they need to be given different assignments or removed.
This all sounds really simple, but at dysfunctional orgs, it gets way off track. Being somewhere where nobody is responsible for anything is practically a right of passage in this industry.
You perspective is interesting. Do you have an opinion about to help management know how to manage? I'm personally in a constant struggle to improve my management skills but struggle to weed through the sudo-science of management training resources.
Hot take: “management skills” are bullshit. A good manager is empathetic, logical, and organized. Easier said than done of course but that is the only “signal” required — the rest is just noise.
I've been managing for a long time, and where I always seem to land are to ask stakeholders and the engineering team what a successful engineering org looks like to them, and I start from there. The almost universal answer from stakeholders is consistency and some measure of predictability. For Engineers, it's usually consistency and feeling like their making valuable contributions and shipping products.
People tend to gravitate towards Scrum because they know it, but it's usually implemented because a process is deemed to be required, not that specific goals are trying to be met. By starting with the goals, I can at least start from a position of agreement, and develop a Scrum or other process that can provide some measure of success for stakeholders while meeting the needs of the engineers. It's also a forcing function for me to say that if you want X from the Engineering team, we need Y from you.
I'm also very upfront that a hill I'll die on is that velocities and story points are great planning tools and signals around process health, but they're never goals nor are they tools for judgement and reviews.
I think clarity on what “level of leadership” (link, Netflix presentation) is expected is a good thing and also helps people understand that such a hierarchy exists. It gets people thinking about just handling things for you.
Otherwise, I dunno, my best managers had their own way of waxing philosophical about leadership and my role, the product, company, etc to make me more autonomous.
