Re:Where you can and cannot thrive on BS
by syntheweave on Tuesday January 10, 2023 @07:17PM
(#34333373)
Every formalization of a workflow is susceptible to this.
I recall how when Git started getting widespread adoption, a popular blogpost theme was discussion of cleaning up your commits...which is the kind of thing you can do if you're writing in small increments. But code that "moves mountains" in the architecture, as is often the case in a greenfield project where there's a lot of learning being done, tends to have dirty rip-off-the-bandage moments. If you clean up those kinds of commits, it's not really beneficial to future code archeology. But if you're clocking minimal effort and maximum CYA, it suddenly becomes hugely important to dot the i's and cross the t's, because that looks more professional than a commit log where you iterate on it a bunch and your log is like "maybe it's fixed now?"
I recall how when Git started getting widespread adoption, a popular blogpost theme was discussion of cleaning up your commits...which is the kind of thing you can do if you're writing in small increments. But code that "moves mountains" in the architecture, as is often the case in a greenfield project where there's a lot of learning being done, tends to have dirty rip-off-the-bandage moments. If you clean up those kinds of commits, it's not really beneficial to future code archeology. But if you're clocking minimal effort and maximum CYA, it suddenly becomes hugely important to dot the i's and cross the t's, because that looks more professional than a commit log where you iterate on it a bunch and your log is like "maybe it's fixed now?"