Amitai Schleier
@schmonz@schmonz.com
If your business makes software, I might be good for your business.
In January I ordered a fancy mandolin from Japan. The “nice” one that hadn’t been redesigned just to cut costs. It was actually cheaper, but I had to wait an unknown amount of time before it would ship.
…8 months later…
It arrived!
How long until I cut myself on it?
About 5 minutes. 🤦 (Nothing major.)
@schmonz right! This one came with a good plastic thing to keep fingers away from the blades. And I bought special gloves to use with it. And yet… 😂
What does this feedback reveal about the giver? Would you expect them to be a skilled leader or manager?
@schmonz Need more context to judge. Was it a real "maybe", as in, the manager is acknowledging that the recommendations are only a heuristic, and the rest of the feedback was positive or neutral? Or was it a sample of overall negative feedback to the employee? My assessment of the manager would largely depend on that parameter.
@schmonz then it comes off as a gratuitous, non-substantive, non-technical and non-actionable demeaning attack (and not a very good one either since it kinda implies the manager is just as bad as the employee) and I would not like to be working with that manager.
@schmonz sounds like giving with one hand and taking with the other. No matter how good their other leadership skills, creating this kind of un-safety will reduce their team's effectiveness.
@schmonz they said this to someone directly? If so, I would expect them to be a terrible manager who needs to learn that words matter.
@schmonz That comment raises a lot of questions for me.
- Do they prefer people who aren't admired for their abilities?
- What is their relationship with their "network" that they don't trust the recommendations?
- Does they have any observations of their own?
All of these aspects undermine my expectations of them as a leader or manager. I would keep my eyes open.
@schmonz This is incompetence either way, IMO. Either:
1. Their shared network is actually a mutual admiration society, and THEY CULTIVATED THAT NETWORK AND TOOK ITS ADVICE; or
2. The recommendations from the shared network were correct, but the manager either hired the person for a job for which they are unsuited, or the manager is blind to what the employee is actually accomplishing.
Either way, the statement adds nothing of value if their objective is to improve the performance of the employee or the team, and probably makes things worse. It also dodges responsibility for the hiring decision.
Based on learning this about someone, I would update my Bayesian about them towards "bad leader".
If you do this while claiming to be an #XP expert, that’s clownshoes.
Leaders are not obligated to value such feedback.
But if they don’t, they oughtn’t claim to value #ExtremeProgramming. They value something incompatible.
If influential developers of the highest caliber keep not meeting your expectations, you have much more to learn about #EngineeringLeadership.
Not all “XP” jobs, authors, experts, or leaders are what they claim. Before applying, ask around your network.
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Ocean view from our table
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Whole Spelt K’nockers
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debian/ packaging automation alongside code, but not accustomed to seeing upstreams ship BSD packaging automation. As a packager, my experience of pkg_create is indirect. Very cool that you wrestled it into submission. Have you seen folks use your supplemental BSD package repositories?(I intend in the fullness of time to package nosh, and to figure out what to do with djbwares -- possibly treat it as the new upstream for all its constituent packages. But @notqmail@social.notqmail.org is also in dire need of a fresh batch of my attention.)
My fault assuming the existence of a published 1.5 tarball meant it was fully cooked. (I also saw FreeBSD Ports using it, so my fault accepting social proof as sufficient, too.) But also it's generally troublesome for packagers when published tarballs change size/checksum/etc. in place. Better to not publish until the URL contents can be stable, and/or publish new changes under new URLs.
Also, I was surprised to see your build wanting to know how to generate its own binary package. I guess that's typical for Debian and others, but unusual for pkgsrc and I imagine other ports-style trees. No harm done, of course, but I've given pkgsrc that part of the job.
Progress on getting shairport-sync cross-built, but not there yet.
I'd prefer #NetBSD: https://schmonz.com/2024/06/07/small-arms/
Staged latest shairport-sync for #pkgsrc. Builds on NetBSD, #macOS. Normally I'd commit, wait for evbearmv6hf-el binary package, forget.
Trying something new today: https://cdn.netbsd.org/pub/pkgsrc/current/pkgsrc/doc/HOWTO-use-crosscompile
- Less principled, coherent, systemic
- More expedient, forgetful, surprising
In short: even riskier.
If there were such a thing as expertise in managing software risks, you’d want that, right?!
After — no, during! — I knew it was forever.
Today I paid my respects to the musician who made me a musician.
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Sergei Rachmaninoff’s gravesite
1. More coherent code is cheaper to change, sometimes by an order of magnitude
2. The average change reduces overall coherence
Economic constraints on augmented coding:
1. Same
2. Saaaaame
If your business makes software, I might be good for your business.
1. Technical breadth and depth
2. Proven delivery experience
3. Thoughtful communication and teaching
4. Bridge-building across roles, silos
5. Team culture and developer happiness
6. Respected industry voice
