Re:Product-building articles by PMs at major tech companies
by simonw on Thursday January 31, 2019 @03:49PM
(#19048693)
> "why don't you just rip out Mongo?"
Related tip: ban the word "just" from your vocabulary. As an engineer, hearing a non-engineer say "can't we just X" is never a positive experience. Just that one word carries so much baggage - it's the shortest way possible to say "I don't value your expertise or expect you to have thought this through".
Sentences with "just" in them always work better if you drop the word.
"Why don't you rip out Mongo?" - now we can have a conversation.
"Why don't you just rip out Mongo?" - you've just started a much more hostile conversation entirely by accident.
Related tip: ban the word "just" from your vocabulary. As an engineer, hearing a non-engineer say "can't we just X" is never a positive experience. Just that one word carries so much baggage - it's the shortest way possible to say "I don't value your expertise or expect you to have thought this through".
Sentences with "just" in them always work better if you drop the word.
"Why don't you rip out Mongo?" - now we can have a conversation.
"Why don't you just rip out Mongo?" - you've just started a much more hostile conversation entirely by accident.