Comment by fragileScrump | Hacker News Reader

Comment by fragileScrump | Hacker News Reader

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Basically, when I ask for a role, whereby I expect to be placed in charge of the project, I expect exactly that. Not some fluffy title, with a cushy salary.

I expect to be able to destroy the scrum process, hang the scrum master. Toss agile in the garbage. Ask the product owner what they actually want. Do that, in about a month. Finish the project 6 months ahead of schedule single-handedly, because web apps are fucking easy.

At that point I get to make doing nothing look like my job, because I put myself ahead of the game. Finishing in weeks, what would have taken months of multiple people wanking a daily stand-up ritual every fucking morning. While other people waste time on acts of contrition, defending their thesis from hecklers in a public square, I'm getting shit done, making computers do my bidding. (not people)

But no. It doesn't always work like this. And sometimes you just have to quit so fast that you make some dipshit's head spin. Because he was so fucking caught up in how to make the perfect outlook invitation, by clicking the proper button in skype.

Fuck stand-ups. Fuck one-on-ones. Fuck code reviews. Fuck performance reviews.

Concentrate on working in a library as silent as a tomb, and fucking destroy shit. That's how programming works.

Could you please post civil and informative comments instead?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

That's one approach. I think its called 'cowboy'? And it can actually work, if the job can actually be done by one person. Still, its not clear where communication and documentation come into it? What if you're hit by a bus, proverbially.

Things are done different ways for a reason, sometime. The heavyweight process that essentially disrespects the individual contributor (agile et. al.) has a place in a corporate, accountability ecosystem where reporting is required. But it definitely turns the individual into a factory worker, on a line, putting screw A into slot B.

Your attitude (if not sarcastic, maybe I missed the clues) makes me think you have not ever worked at a large company or on software that is more complex than a CRUD application.

Young folks think, since they've only seen large projects done the Agile way, that its the only sensible way.

Yet so much got done, for decades, without agile's help. Even at large companies, sometimes. Even on large projects.

I imagine the vitriol above was a response to the dehumanizing effect that agile has on the individual contributor. They become, by design, a replaceable unit. "Hey get me a 6-pack of programmers for this project!"

And, I get it. Different strokes for different folks.

I've worked on more than just crud apps. And at this point, with the front-end/back-end false dichotomy, nobody works on simple crud apps anymore. Single page js frameworks have made interaction design so bloated, it's kind of a little bit awful.

But the real loss of traction is in third-party services, authorization and inter-departmental warfare over favor and jurisdiction. Who's on top? Who tops from the bottom?

Y'all have your way, and I have mine. Getting up at seven in the morning, to commute to a nine o'clock stand-up that goes nowhere, and does nothing is a waste of my fucking time. Grooming sessions? Planning sessions? Retrospectives? When the fuck am I going to get a chance to sit and fucking think?

Oh, this is supposed to be an eighty hour work week, isn't it?

Look, my setup works for me. Just add an option to disable agile/scum.

https://xkcd.com/1172/

Oh I'm with you. I've just quit a gig where we fought fires in a bloated source base of spaghetti that was 6 years and counting at a large corporation. But it was Agile! so those closed tickets meant progress and the budget kept coming. Even though there was no hope and no end.

I just try to be fair and balanced. But I feel with you.

Heck YEA. Get shit DONE. I've watched projects go in reverse because of process. I've watched people waste 5 hours a day in scrum. It's so corrosive, addictive to the scrum master/leads who benefit from tossing around their opinion, it favors the worst performers, isolates the best.

Handle process in a case-by-case basis. If something needs changing, change it, but move on and GET SHIT DONE. That's the only way to go. I don't care what people say, good programmers don't need to be babysat.

I agree that development processes can get in the way, especially when they aren't designed or managed properly.

However, the point of the process is to enforce consistency. If you have no process, then everything is dependent on the whims of the programmer in charge of the project.

No code review? Then I have to trust your code is spotless.

You want to be left alone in a library until the project is done? Then I have to trust you understand the product owners requirements perfectly.

You want to be in charge of the project? Then I have to trust you can handle that.

If I just hired you, why should I trust you?

Based on your comment, I wouldn't trust you at all. You sound like the kind of person who only learns lessons the hard way.

Well that was certainly an interesting read.

You sound like a horrible coworker and employee.

Personal attacks are not allowed here, regardless of how badly someone else behaves, so please remain civil. When another commenter behaves egregiously, flag the comments or email us (hn@ycombinator.com) instead.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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