I think it's important to understand the domain to know if those edge cases are likely to happen. If no one on payroll is ever on call, then no need to design for that. Solution works as intended. If it turns out we need a more robust calculator later, then we can design for that. But adding that complexity before the domain requires it seems unnecessary to me.
But also, just because there is complexity in the domain doesn't mean there needs to be complexity in the software. An elegant, simple solution could be implemented for calculating payroll or adding infinity. That's the hard part though.
I've been person B and got promoted to staff engineer once.
I'm back to being a senior in a new org and I try to be person A, but be extra communicative of what I'm working on and how it impacts and why it's important.
I find I spend more time trying to understand how to explain the value my work has to the business (screenshots, demos, docs) than trying to actually do my work. But I think it's important though, otherwise I'll be the person A who never gets promoted.
> I find I spend more time trying to understand how to explain the value my work has to the business (screenshots, demos, docs) than trying to actually do my work.
I relate to this a lot. I was a product owner for a while and made sure we could always explain the value of what was being delivered to stakeholders in language they would understand and matter to them. We spent a lot of time on preparing the demo, running it through internally, providing feedback, tweaking the wording, gathering metrics, etc. In many cases the developer was really interested in the technicality of a certain function, but we’d push them to shift focus to the value that was being delivered to the people we were presenting to. The last thing we want is for people to tune out, because someone is deep diving into code no one understands or really cares about seeing.
In my view, it doesn’t matter what you do if no one understands what you did or why it matters. If we can tell the story well, we will be valued. As a result, the team got great feedback, was highly valued, and our management felt we were miles ahead of every other team.
Fast-forward to now… I chose to move back to an engineering role. We don’t do demos anymore, despite protests from the team. No one knows what we do. We’ve seen multiple people laid off from the team and our direction is all over the place. It feels like we can never catch up, which is a far cry from the days when my boss was telling me to take a 3 month vacation, because of how far ahead we were.
This small shift in focus and opinions around things like demos has dramatically changed the team, how the work is viewed, and the team’s morale. It’s been very upsetting.
The only useful thing I remember about the touch bar was the DJ trying to play some beats on the touch bar. That was just weird imo.
Barring removal of Esc key, I think the touch bar was useful because it showed contextual actions. But not every app used it so it didn't really get a chance to shine.
Wait, they throw them away, not sell or give to employees? I feel like as long as the computer is reset, indeed it is stupid to just throw it away instead of giving or selling it to someone who wants it.
They could resell, but maybe another way to phrase this, tying the screen to the obsolete computer greatly reduces the useful lifespan of the screen. But at that time, DisplayPort didn't do enough bandwidth to have that kind of display externally anyway.
I think this could go equally for Windows as well, and many other software (not just OS). I purpose refrained from Tahoe because I didn't like the design but I wanted to know what the consensus was on it before upgrading. Apparently it's bad!
Win 11 is bad compared to Win 10 as well. I'm fairly new to Linux so I can't really form an opinion there.
> I think this could go equally for Windows as well
Absolutely. Why are all the buttons centred on the task bar for Windows 11? Violation of so many design rules. Literally the worst part of MacOS they took there which contradicted other reasons for the design. Throwing the mouse to the corner for a start button no longer works. I could go on.
> I'm fairly new to Linux so I can't really form an opinion there.
Gnome is great if you want something that gets out of your way. Some folks lament that its not as UI feature rich as KDE, but for me thats a bonus. The minimal UI combined with concentrating on UI features such as better mixed monitor scaling, etc. Love it.
KDE is extremely flexible, and featureful. You don't like the Windows default look and feel, make it a dock. Make it similar to Windows 8. Go wild. Not my thing these days but I can completely understand the draw to not be beholden to other peoples design choices if they don't fit your style.
I haven't used XFCE for a long time, as it didn't keep up with my high resolution monitors. But it was fast and flexible, and I hear that they are addressing this stuff now.
i3 was great. I drifted away during the great Wayland migration when i had to upgrade my laptop, found a bunch of neat updates to Gnome for my hardware, and just haven't found the time to return.
But the main point is that you are not forced into any one person/corporate point of view.
Very few people email me except for endless newsletters that I accidentally signed up for. I try to un sub to a few every day but it seems never ending.
In the event that you actually do end up emailing me, it's contingent on me actually checking my personal email, which I never do when I'm not working, and only sometimes do during work hours.
If it's you asking me a favor that I'm not in the mental space for, I'll mark the message unread as a reminder to get to it later.
Maybe I just have weird email habits, but I can get away with this because email is not a heavy part of my job.
That being said, one guy was pitching me on something several times a month for several months. I just recently responded to him and apologized because of x y z. He said don't worry and we had a fruitful conversation later.
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