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Re:Alan Kay's answer to ‘what are some forgotten books progr... by nine_k on Friday August 09, 2019 @09:41AM (#20654203)
It's usually the lack of breadth that hurts you.

IT is a fast-moving field. Solving business problems takes understanding which good ways to do that are currently available, what limitations and dangers each approach brings, how would it interact with other things, etc.

You still need deep knowledge, but the most efficient knowledge is that of key principles, general approaches and ideas. A specific technology does not matter much, and can be mastered quickly enough, if you already are acquainted with the principles behind it. E.g. learn about FRP, and you will see how React, Elm, and Excel all work along the same lines.

What you end up with after some time is like a normal distribution: deeper knowledge around some area and various levels of acquaintance with a wide range of other things.

There are still areas where you can polish the mastery of one narrow thing to utter perfection: making pizza or coffee, sports like running or weightlifting, etc. You can keep practicing them to counterweight the feeling from the view of the sheer and constantly moving IT landscape.

Re:Alan Kay's answer to ‘what are some forgotten books progr... by Roritharr on Friday August 09, 2019 @11:13AM (#20655092)
> There are still areas where you can polish the mastery of one narrow thing to utter perfection: making pizza or coffee, sports like running or weightlifting, etc. You can keep practicing them to counterweight the feeling from the view of the sheer and constantly moving IT landscape.

Hear Hear! When talking to Junior Devs i always point out that they should take into account the Lindy Effect and invest some of their learning time into things that were here for atleast a century so they can get enjoyment out of their accomplishment for the rest of their lives.

You don't want to die without making at least ONE perfect pizza.

Re:Alan Kay's answer to ‘what are some forgotten books progr... by Rerarom on Friday August 09, 2019 @09:43AM (#20654224)
What would be a good example of a slow-moving field?
Re:Alan Kay's answer to ‘what are some forgotten books progr... by kps on Friday August 09, 2019 @10:52AM (#20654896)
Management. Kay's list includes The Mythical Man Month, which, except for the technical details, could have been written yesterday.
Re:Alan Kay's answer to ‘what are some forgotten books progr... by ghaff on Friday August 09, 2019 @12:42PM (#20655995)
It is very waterfall-y as someone I know said in a talk and therefore you probably need to be a little careful what "rules" you take away from it. That said, the "mythical man month" discussion itself as well as the idea of a 9x difference in effort between a program and a programming system product are worth the price of admission.

The latter arguably runs somewhat counter to a lot of MVP, etc. approaches but recognizing the difference is still useful.

Re:Alan Kay's answer to ‘what are some forgotten books progr... by rhizome on Friday August 09, 2019 @01:30PM (#20656495)
I've heard an observation that Agile as practiced in the real world is often basically "tiny waterfalls."
Re:Alan Kay's answer to ‘what are some forgotten books progr... by kps on Friday August 09, 2019 @02:28PM (#20657078)
Agile™, as I've encountered it, is collectivized micromanagement.
Re:Alan Kay's answer to ‘what are some forgotten books progr... by DATACOMMANDER on Friday August 09, 2019 @11:10PM (#20659903)
Ahhh...

You just put into words what’s been bothering me about the way my team works. The “process” people—while well-intentioned—seem to think that by breaking inherently complex tasks up in just the right way, they can make the complexity go away.

Well, no. If that’s really the idea, why are you paying me so much?

Re:Alan Kay's answer to ‘what are some forgotten books progr... by 0x445442 on Friday August 09, 2019 @07:14PM (#20658964)
Exactly and it's almost perfectly orthogonal to engineering.
Re:Alan Kay's answer to ‘what are some forgotten books progr... by ghaff on Friday August 09, 2019 @01:41PM (#20656609)
There's probably some truth to that. That's what a sprint basically is, right?
Re:Alan Kay's answer to ‘what are some forgotten books progr... by kthejoker2 on Friday August 09, 2019 @02:39PM (#20657161)
If you run your sprints right then no, nothing's set in stone. If something comes up in the middle of the sprint that takes priority, you address it. You don't mindlessly stick to the schedule set (that would be a "tiny waterfall.")
Re:Alan Kay's answer to ‘what are some forgotten books progr... by ghaff on Friday August 09, 2019 @02:43PM (#20657192)
Fair enough. Although waterfalls usually weren't really set in stone either in my experience. Which had both good and bad points. (It's good to be adaptable but changing requirements all the time is also a good way to make a project late.)
Re:Alan Kay's answer to ‘what are some forgotten books progr... by rhizome on Saturday August 10, 2019 @02:03PM (#20663579)
This sounds is/ought-y? What is the prevalence of running sprints right in the real world? "As practiced" was the important part of my question/observation.
Re:Alan Kay's answer to ‘what are some forgotten books progr... by pjmlp on Friday August 09, 2019 @11:21AM (#20655160)
I feel that if there is a millennia old book or tablet from early days of mankind regarding management, many advices would still apply.
Re:Alan Kay's answer to ‘what are some forgotten books progr... by amelius on Friday August 09, 2019 @09:54AM (#20654299)
Physics.