Re:Developer inequality and the technical debt crisis
by aetherson on Tuesday July 08, 2014 @12:26PM
(#8005313)
Could we admit some nuance here?
When we want to stigmatize people who plan too heavily for the future, we call it "overengineering." When we want to stigmatize people who plan not enough for the future, we do whatever you're doing above. The line between those two failure modes is relatively narrow and not at all obvious. There aren't simple heuristics that will infallibly put us onto the line, and acting like this is all black and white doesn't help anyone.
Re:Developer inequality and the technical debt crisis
by dllthomas on Saturday July 12, 2014 @03:43PM
(#8025592)
Even "line" is probably an oversimplification. Some projects probably have a large region, some a narrow line, and some might non-obviously have no such path.
When we want to stigmatize people who plan too heavily for the future, we call it "overengineering." When we want to stigmatize people who plan not enough for the future, we do whatever you're doing above. The line between those two failure modes is relatively narrow and not at all obvious. There aren't simple heuristics that will infallibly put us onto the line, and acting like this is all black and white doesn't help anyone.