Things to say when you're losing a technical argument
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from agilob@programming.dev to programming@programming.dev on 01 Dec 2023 08:10
https://programming.dev/post/6648708
from agilob@programming.dev to programming@programming.dev on 01 Dec 2023 08:10
https://programming.dev/post/6648708
#programming
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Didn’t read all, however, thanks for sharing. Made me laugh and I certainly needed a good laugh today
Entry 71.
An incredibly valid consideration that too often goes ignored.
Oh, this one stings. My company uses a proprietary platform for it’s most critical records but we require a technical certification to even use its API. Pretty much an entire division said, “Fuck you! We’re not tying up our people for 3 months to study and acquire a certification. We just won’t use it!”
“I’m afraid that isn’t according to best practices”
Let’s do it for real then
We’ll never get it certified if we do it that way.
are you losing because youre wrong or because someone wants to do something a different way and they have more buy in from the rest of the team?
If it’s the first thing just admit youre wrong and move on. If it’s the second thing either bring the data to show your way is better or just go with the other proposal. Having disagreements drag on for too long is going to make everybody unhappy.
edit: ah this is a joke article and not a question from op
Yea, a good developer, especially a senior developer, will fight like hell for the right answer… and if they realize their answer was wrong they should concede the point and maybe self-examine why they’d overlooked that possibility.
Me, giving a two hour presentation on why Jira is hot garbage at my performance review for three years straight:
Me, giving a six hour presentation on why Jira is hot garbage at my next job interview:
Me, explaining to the judge why Jira is hot garbage at my murder trial:
My last words on death row, reciting my self published book on why Jira is hot garbage:
I think I might have said this verbatim before
That one feels too cruel. If you said that to some junior dev they’d likely do it… and probably in their free time.
That said with fellow senior devs if someone suggests something completely off the wall I will occasionally respond with, essentially, prove it first.
“It’s* better** to do things*** by this approach.”
Always throw a spanner in there with:
*: [citation needed]
**: According to who exactly?
***: Please specify exact use cases
It’s more Pythonic.
With a senior engineer it’s perfectly reasonable to just say “ok, implement it and let me know how it works.”
Like the whole point is that they should be relatively independent and capable of taking ideas from paper to product.
I was told to write my idea into an article to share internally with engineers. Then someone internally reached out to post it on our company tech blog. Then it got published on the tech blog. So I guess that’s something?
“your mom”
do it
As a started reading I thought “Hmm, some of these remind me of [coworker x]”. As I continued I realized all of these remind me of [coworker x].
I might have to turn some of these into bingo cards.
Most of the entries were just funny, the last one is a nuke:
power tripping legislators when someone mentions encryption
Gonna use this next time someone suggests using excel as a database
I’ve got one to add that should be used more often than it is.