hello phone for function and hello dev
tips this is David mpj and I will try
out a small experiment where we
discussed two topics in two separate
videos on this channel and on the other
channel the topic were taken from the
Fun Fun forum the forum that function
function patrons have access to we think
this is and expect an interesting
experiment to to try out different
formats that coexist in both spaces we
really hope that you will enjoy this but
we’re very eager to hear your feedback
like is this something that you would
like to see more or less of you want us
to experiment more or less please write
your comment please comment with your
feedback and the reason I’m shooting
this is because MPD and I of course
forgot to shoot the proper intro that’s
just the way life is I’m gonna get back
and edit this and see you in the
okay first answer generally speaking
have a hard time dealing with authority
for Authority’s sake I think that if
you’re working for a start-up or a
business that started as a start-up but
now is a regular business but one of the
founders is still working there often as
a CEO or CTO yeah I think that is pretty
common that they still have their
technical know-how and they know how to
do things but the thing is that they
started the company 15 years ago yeah
and then they knew to do coding if it’s
in Visual Basic or if it is in Delfy or
whatever what was ruling at that time
but they have sort of like they don’t
want to let go of that technical I don’t
know the grip the technical grip of the
technology stack even though it’s worse
for them that they do you read like the
blog article that slack made I don’t
know if low years ago like they just
like oh we’re doing PHP it’s not so bad
and then like you I was almost sort of
convinced by it and then like it took
like six months or so and yet slack just
turned into this pile of incredible
slowness and bugginess and I just
realized like this might have been like
an after construction I think that this
was just the store like the founders
that just were PHP people they did it
they knew it and they just code it away
and then you just turned into this
unmaintainable ball of shite and also
when they started they didn’t have that
many users perhaps they’d have had a
couple of hundred thousand concurrent
users but now they have probably
millions and it’s a totally different
challenge yeah okay so but how do you
deal with them like so if you have a CEO
I was kind of about to just say leave I
have not been in a situation where I was
able to
so that have you know yeah you know the
story that I was working at this company
that had like this everything was built
around like Microsoft sequel server
stored procedures which is like a
function in sequel yeah this is a
company that wanted to hire you again
later for like where the founders wanted
to hire again for their new company yes
yes alright but so and store proceeds
they were good because they were pretty
like you could write them pretty fast so
in that way like the sequel server is
pretty efficient at doing what they
wanted to do so that was okay but it was
pretty unmaintainable you couldn’t
really test it and at that time they
didn’t have support like those
procedures didn’t have like transactions
so if something went wrong while they
were processing they couldn’t roll back
so they had processed like half of all
the customer database and it was yes but
that was because the CEO knew stored
procedures and he knew sequel so he
wanted to have that control and also all
the business logic is in those stored
procedures so I guess that was fine yeah
I think that was like a middle ground
sway if you like to figure out what part
it is that that like hippo I remember
this guy I I because I interviewed at
this company back in the day yeah I did
but yeah because you I don’t know how
related you were to it but either way I
was I was interviewing there and I was
surprised to like he was part of the
interview process and this was at the
time quite a big company like it was
several hundred people but he was still
involved in every interview which like I
was first impressed by wow this guy is
down on the floor and in in touch with
everything but put like the the
interview questions that he asked what
kind of shitty question yeah that’s a
interview
that’s a bad interview question so the
question was yeah because he does this
with everyone yeah he did that with
everyone so this question is in
Stockholm there are hundreds of way
stops yeah
how many subway carts like how many
wagons are there yeah like at peak hour
or something like that yeah and the
whole purpose of the that is to see that
you’re interviewing by you’re being
interviewed by the CEO and it’s like you
you have to do some maths but you don’t
have to do any advanced math then you’ll
have to do some estimates and everything
like the whole purpose of it is not to
solve anything or like figure out it’s
just to see how we work under stress
yeah that’s the purpose of it and
according to very specific type of
stress yeah and according to that
company lore some people had just liked
didn’t like the question again got up
and left and presumably that would be
like your bad hire I don’t know sure
yeah
that’s an interest all right oh yeah
yeah but it’s not like yeah like the the
brain like Google used to do these brain
benders for a while and they just
realized that it’s it’s kind of a it’s
opening a it’s just a bad bad way of
judging people’s thinking because it’s
so much related to luck in thinking yeah
it’s just that you happen to fall into
the elec during that tuck short time you
need to be lucky to fall into like the
right way of thinking at this like at
the specific time just doesn’t it’s just
not bad especially if like but if he
does the same interview question with
everyone then it will eventually spread
so that you can prepare for the
interview as well like with the ruger
questions that there are companies that
just train people to try to get tired by
yeah yes I’ve been actually being
coached by such a company yeah and
you’ve been coached by me for the maths
parts of that thank you yes yes
pretty cool it was interesting like I’ve
been interviewed by cool for you like
what the viewers I’ve been interviewed
by Google and Facebook during one time
where there was an acquisition pending
we didn’t get it but I don’t know if
what it was me or if it was anyone else
as a team because we were rejected as a
team I’m kind of frustrated that I never
got that feedback I kind of think it did
well three of the four interviews but
one of them was really well yeah because
you don’t have like the engineering like
the proper like university engineering
math background no precisely I don’t
have a computer science science degree
but I’m kind of I’m very satisfied with
how I like could amass quite a bit of it
Eike at least the parts that were
required for interview questions in like
the two months or something that we had
to prepare for that thing yeah okay so
back back on track so the this like a
CEO or someone that claims technical
expertise but doesn’t have it so with
the CEO example that I was telling he
had all these stored procedures yeah I
thought it was okay because because he
had the business logic and he wanted to
control that that’s fine so we just like
built everything so he could do that but
then other things that weren’t like
front-end stuff and all that yeah well
those things like that they didn’t he
didn’t care about that yeah so we could
do whatever but I had I was what was
kind of like the consequences of that
the consequences of that was that it
broke down from time to time because he
worked nights sometimes and then he like
made changes and then you could come in
at work and something didn’t work and
that was because everything was just
nested in like just one big everything
was connected in a bad way yeah so
perhaps the like your application didn’t
work because he was running all his
queries so the database was working hard
so and all all the queries were
depending on the database so then like
work stopped for an hour perhaps because
things were running what’s he aware of
the consequences of his behavior yes all
right but he thought that yeah like the
company was doing really well and it was
acquired and yeah I think he did I think
he sort of did made the correct decision
in one way because the other thing is
that they’re often like when a developer
has sort like this super fancy idea like
they wanna build so like yeah oh I have
this thing like we build an interface
with classes and stuff and then he
inherits and then extends and blah blah
blah and then all of a sudden you need
to have like a PhD degree to understand
the code because it’s so clever
sure and then the CEO or someone else
can’t understand it probably not even
some of the like peer developers can
understand it and that is sort of like
the other part of it sure maybe
sometimes some some sometimes you need
to have a pitch like PhD in order to
understand code because it is it is
structured in a way because it’s it is
highly calm
and we need to like break it apart and
have like a modular structure in order
to deal with it like if you just pile
things in a like where it’s just a mess
then like you can’t deal with it at all
like there’s a often a reason for like
having like all that fancy stuff often
has our sometimes has a reason yeah
like often it doesn’t like I totally get
that sometimes like people that has just
learned about the concept of inheritance
just do a lot of crazy inheritance stuff
and the same goes for functional
programming but like sometimes they they
that seemingly complex things are there
to deal with complexity in a structured
way instead of you’re spoiling it in I’m
in a mess but was he aware what what I
want to know was he aware about like the
negative consequences that he had on it
has to make you feel like less
autonomous as you feel like you as an
employee you don’t have control over
your own destiny like the team has this
thing like Oh things break because the
CEO is coding things and we can’t fix
that we don’t have the power to do that
it would make me feel like less
autonomous and less well I think I don’t
know because so when I was there it was
sort of like at the end part of the like
exit process like they sold and then
they were not to be there for five years
and I was there for two of those years
like the two last years and when they
eventually got like fully acquired oh
and the founders left after one week and
then soon after one month because I
still like the founders okay so you
arrived in like the two last years of
the best in peace period so to speak yes
so they didn’t think about what what was
to come they only wanted to like make it
as good as possible so they didn’t tweak
things too much because what if like we
lost a lot of revenue because
was doing like this whole like
infrastructure project and see so I
think that was also he was just clever
yeah and the short-sighted and for good
reasons sure but it was frustrating hmm
and I think that the consequences are
that like probably good people will quit
because they can’t stand out yeah and
again I I rejected that yeah of job
offer from them and I think perhaps
that’s that’s the way to deal with it
like to just I don’t know if you can do
that at this as an employee still being
there but to convince your em you’re
like you appear the coders to just leave
so that you can reap the benefits when
they finally realize that this is a
really really really bad way of running
things yeah but I think that when people
start leaving they sort of figure that
out that has happened to me at another
company that I left them then a bunch of
other sort of like pretty good and
please left and now they have changed
their business culture because they
realized that that didn’t work ok but we
were talking about if it was like the
CEO or perhaps the CEO but what if it’s
like Software Architect oh yeah and they
are making bad decisions how do you deal
with that ah I actually had a friend of
mine asked me about that just a few days
ago he was in a situation where he I got
the sense that he was about to refactor
and improve some piece of code and the
architect and this was a really small
place it was like the team is basically
him and this other dude and some other
dude and the architect told him to I
cannot do that and just leave it be so
that it doesn’t break and like what do
you mean that it doesn’t break like yeah
it would break if he would reflect oh he
was afraid that if he were to refactor
it exactly would break like the code is
working it wasn’t working and don’t
touch it yeah exactly
it’s sort of work
don’t touch it and like because this is
and I asked like okay let me guess this
this company does not have a continuous
integration suite does not have unit
test doesn’t have like integration test
doesn’t have mandatory code review and
he said yes yes yes and yes so it’s a
company that it probably just the
startup that has just gone and they’re
not experienced in building like they
have not worked on projects that are
main maintained on for a long period of
time so they are not used to building
software where you optimize for change
yeah when when you’re building like a
startup project you optimizing for like
getting to an MVP fast like you you’re
optimizing for output but after a while
once you like once you have a like
mature product that where it’s important
that it works for customers and it’s
reliable and it’s it’s functional then
you need to be able to make changes
safely and effectively on your software
and then you need to have like readable
code you need to have you need to have
unit testing place and stuff like that
and that person was probably not used to
that but what he did I he was very close
to quitting actually which was of course
my knee-jerk reaction was yeah like just
just quit like you’re a developer you
can find it like you can find a job very
easily you have lots of work experience
you don’t really have to take this we
have this luxury but he I actually and
and he was like debating whether or not
he should quit you know silently because
it was an external consultant thing he
could you silently like he would just
not show up and say someone noticed
nobody was like just make an excuse and
say oh no no no he would show us but not
do anything that would be silent
quitting that is yeah
actually yes actually yes I love it
that’s another interesting question
perhaps we should talk about that later
but he ended up actually bringing up
the issues with his with that person
over lunch and said this was what do you
ask me to do there was not I didn’t feel
quite okay and they he felt he said that
he felt listened to I think if you just
if you talk to people and like a if you
think about how you communicate
something to to a person then you very
well might get get a good response and
like don’t do it in a passive-aggressive
way like the person is well-meaning and
understand where that person is coming
from but like bring it up and and if
they still don’t adopt to what you think
or perhaps what the community of
developers think Daniel leave ya advice
I would say so like try to make a best
effort in changing the situation perhaps
a and and also perhaps they have reasons
that you don’t know about yeah they
could be business business reasons that
you that you shouldn’t know because it’s
yeah for you to know too much because
you would lose focus or something yeah
exactly you like they might just be
using their like as a product owner or
something they might be just using their
umbrella to protect you from
things but that might also be like
sometimes it’s it’s bad to know too
little because you don’t get the whole
picture and then you just why the hell
are we doing this but in the end it’s
very important that you feel like you
have autonomy over your own situation
like that is it will be very own
motivating and you should really avoid
being in workplace that does that and
and either that it’s very possible to
find a place where you have a high
degree of autonomy over your work you
don’t have to suffer through that in most areas of the world as a developer
tips this is David mpj and I will try
out a small experiment where we
discussed two topics in two separate
videos on this channel and on the other
channel the topic were taken from the
Fun Fun forum the forum that function
function patrons have access to we think
this is and expect an interesting
experiment to to try out different
formats that coexist in both spaces we
really hope that you will enjoy this but
we’re very eager to hear your feedback
like is this something that you would
like to see more or less of you want us
to experiment more or less please write
your comment please comment with your
feedback and the reason I’m shooting
this is because MPD and I of course
forgot to shoot the proper intro that’s
just the way life is I’m gonna get back
and edit this and see you in the
okay first answer generally speaking
have a hard time dealing with authority
for Authority’s sake I think that if
you’re working for a start-up or a
business that started as a start-up but
now is a regular business but one of the
founders is still working there often as
a CEO or CTO yeah I think that is pretty
common that they still have their
technical know-how and they know how to
do things but the thing is that they
started the company 15 years ago yeah
and then they knew to do coding if it’s
in Visual Basic or if it is in Delfy or
whatever what was ruling at that time
but they have sort of like they don’t
want to let go of that technical I don’t
know the grip the technical grip of the
technology stack even though it’s worse
for them that they do you read like the
blog article that slack made I don’t
know if low years ago like they just
like oh we’re doing PHP it’s not so bad
and then like you I was almost sort of
convinced by it and then like it took
like six months or so and yet slack just
turned into this pile of incredible
slowness and bugginess and I just
realized like this might have been like
an after construction I think that this
was just the store like the founders
that just were PHP people they did it
they knew it and they just code it away
and then you just turned into this
unmaintainable ball of shite and also
when they started they didn’t have that
many users perhaps they’d have had a
couple of hundred thousand concurrent
users but now they have probably
millions and it’s a totally different
challenge yeah okay so but how do you
deal with them like so if you have a CEO
I was kind of about to just say leave I
have not been in a situation where I was
able to
so that have you know yeah you know the
story that I was working at this company
that had like this everything was built
around like Microsoft sequel server
stored procedures which is like a
function in sequel yeah this is a
company that wanted to hire you again
later for like where the founders wanted
to hire again for their new company yes
yes alright but so and store proceeds
they were good because they were pretty
like you could write them pretty fast so
in that way like the sequel server is
pretty efficient at doing what they
wanted to do so that was okay but it was
pretty unmaintainable you couldn’t
really test it and at that time they
didn’t have support like those
procedures didn’t have like transactions
so if something went wrong while they
were processing they couldn’t roll back
so they had processed like half of all
the customer database and it was yes but
that was because the CEO knew stored
procedures and he knew sequel so he
wanted to have that control and also all
the business logic is in those stored
procedures so I guess that was fine yeah
I think that was like a middle ground
sway if you like to figure out what part
it is that that like hippo I remember
this guy I I because I interviewed at
this company back in the day yeah I did
but yeah because you I don’t know how
related you were to it but either way I
was I was interviewing there and I was
surprised to like he was part of the
interview process and this was at the
time quite a big company like it was
several hundred people but he was still
involved in every interview which like I
was first impressed by wow this guy is
down on the floor and in in touch with
everything but put like the the
interview questions that he asked what
kind of shitty question yeah that’s a
interview
that’s a bad interview question so the
question was yeah because he does this
with everyone yeah he did that with
everyone so this question is in
Stockholm there are hundreds of way
stops yeah
how many subway carts like how many
wagons are there yeah like at peak hour
or something like that yeah and the
whole purpose of the that is to see that
you’re interviewing by you’re being
interviewed by the CEO and it’s like you
you have to do some maths but you don’t
have to do any advanced math then you’ll
have to do some estimates and everything
like the whole purpose of it is not to
solve anything or like figure out it’s
just to see how we work under stress
yeah that’s the purpose of it and
according to very specific type of
stress yeah and according to that
company lore some people had just liked
didn’t like the question again got up
and left and presumably that would be
like your bad hire I don’t know sure
yeah
that’s an interest all right oh yeah
yeah but it’s not like yeah like the the
brain like Google used to do these brain
benders for a while and they just
realized that it’s it’s kind of a it’s
opening a it’s just a bad bad way of
judging people’s thinking because it’s
so much related to luck in thinking yeah
it’s just that you happen to fall into
the elec during that tuck short time you
need to be lucky to fall into like the
right way of thinking at this like at
the specific time just doesn’t it’s just
not bad especially if like but if he
does the same interview question with
everyone then it will eventually spread
so that you can prepare for the
interview as well like with the ruger
questions that there are companies that
just train people to try to get tired by
yeah yes I’ve been actually being
coached by such a company yeah and
you’ve been coached by me for the maths
parts of that thank you yes yes
pretty cool it was interesting like I’ve
been interviewed by cool for you like
what the viewers I’ve been interviewed
by Google and Facebook during one time
where there was an acquisition pending
we didn’t get it but I don’t know if
what it was me or if it was anyone else
as a team because we were rejected as a
team I’m kind of frustrated that I never
got that feedback I kind of think it did
well three of the four interviews but
one of them was really well yeah because
you don’t have like the engineering like
the proper like university engineering
math background no precisely I don’t
have a computer science science degree
but I’m kind of I’m very satisfied with
how I like could amass quite a bit of it
Eike at least the parts that were
required for interview questions in like
the two months or something that we had
to prepare for that thing yeah okay so
back back on track so the this like a
CEO or someone that claims technical
expertise but doesn’t have it so with
the CEO example that I was telling he
had all these stored procedures yeah I
thought it was okay because because he
had the business logic and he wanted to
control that that’s fine so we just like
built everything so he could do that but
then other things that weren’t like
front-end stuff and all that yeah well
those things like that they didn’t he
didn’t care about that yeah so we could
do whatever but I had I was what was
kind of like the consequences of that
the consequences of that was that it
broke down from time to time because he
worked nights sometimes and then he like
made changes and then you could come in
at work and something didn’t work and
that was because everything was just
nested in like just one big everything
was connected in a bad way yeah so
perhaps the like your application didn’t
work because he was running all his
queries so the database was working hard
so and all all the queries were
depending on the database so then like
work stopped for an hour perhaps because
things were running what’s he aware of
the consequences of his behavior yes all
right but he thought that yeah like the
company was doing really well and it was
acquired and yeah I think he did I think
he sort of did made the correct decision
in one way because the other thing is
that they’re often like when a developer
has sort like this super fancy idea like
they wanna build so like yeah oh I have
this thing like we build an interface
with classes and stuff and then he
inherits and then extends and blah blah
blah and then all of a sudden you need
to have like a PhD degree to understand
the code because it’s so clever
sure and then the CEO or someone else
can’t understand it probably not even
some of the like peer developers can
understand it and that is sort of like
the other part of it sure maybe
sometimes some some sometimes you need
to have a pitch like PhD in order to
understand code because it is it is
structured in a way because it’s it is
highly calm
and we need to like break it apart and
have like a modular structure in order
to deal with it like if you just pile
things in a like where it’s just a mess
then like you can’t deal with it at all
like there’s a often a reason for like
having like all that fancy stuff often
has our sometimes has a reason yeah
like often it doesn’t like I totally get
that sometimes like people that has just
learned about the concept of inheritance
just do a lot of crazy inheritance stuff
and the same goes for functional
programming but like sometimes they they
that seemingly complex things are there
to deal with complexity in a structured
way instead of you’re spoiling it in I’m
in a mess but was he aware what what I
want to know was he aware about like the
negative consequences that he had on it
has to make you feel like less
autonomous as you feel like you as an
employee you don’t have control over
your own destiny like the team has this
thing like Oh things break because the
CEO is coding things and we can’t fix
that we don’t have the power to do that
it would make me feel like less
autonomous and less well I think I don’t
know because so when I was there it was
sort of like at the end part of the like
exit process like they sold and then
they were not to be there for five years
and I was there for two of those years
like the two last years and when they
eventually got like fully acquired oh
and the founders left after one week and
then soon after one month because I
still like the founders okay so you
arrived in like the two last years of
the best in peace period so to speak yes
so they didn’t think about what what was
to come they only wanted to like make it
as good as possible so they didn’t tweak
things too much because what if like we
lost a lot of revenue because
was doing like this whole like
infrastructure project and see so I
think that was also he was just clever
yeah and the short-sighted and for good
reasons sure but it was frustrating hmm
and I think that the consequences are
that like probably good people will quit
because they can’t stand out yeah and
again I I rejected that yeah of job
offer from them and I think perhaps
that’s that’s the way to deal with it
like to just I don’t know if you can do
that at this as an employee still being
there but to convince your em you’re
like you appear the coders to just leave
so that you can reap the benefits when
they finally realize that this is a
really really really bad way of running
things yeah but I think that when people
start leaving they sort of figure that
out that has happened to me at another
company that I left them then a bunch of
other sort of like pretty good and
please left and now they have changed
their business culture because they
realized that that didn’t work ok but we
were talking about if it was like the
CEO or perhaps the CEO but what if it’s
like Software Architect oh yeah and they
are making bad decisions how do you deal
with that ah I actually had a friend of
mine asked me about that just a few days
ago he was in a situation where he I got
the sense that he was about to refactor
and improve some piece of code and the
architect and this was a really small
place it was like the team is basically
him and this other dude and some other
dude and the architect told him to I
cannot do that and just leave it be so
that it doesn’t break and like what do
you mean that it doesn’t break like yeah
it would break if he would reflect oh he
was afraid that if he were to refactor
it exactly would break like the code is
working it wasn’t working and don’t
touch it yeah exactly
it’s sort of work
don’t touch it and like because this is
and I asked like okay let me guess this
this company does not have a continuous
integration suite does not have unit
test doesn’t have like integration test
doesn’t have mandatory code review and
he said yes yes yes and yes so it’s a
company that it probably just the
startup that has just gone and they’re
not experienced in building like they
have not worked on projects that are
main maintained on for a long period of
time so they are not used to building
software where you optimize for change
yeah when when you’re building like a
startup project you optimizing for like
getting to an MVP fast like you you’re
optimizing for output but after a while
once you like once you have a like
mature product that where it’s important
that it works for customers and it’s
reliable and it’s it’s functional then
you need to be able to make changes
safely and effectively on your software
and then you need to have like readable
code you need to have you need to have
unit testing place and stuff like that
and that person was probably not used to
that but what he did I he was very close
to quitting actually which was of course
my knee-jerk reaction was yeah like just
just quit like you’re a developer you
can find it like you can find a job very
easily you have lots of work experience
you don’t really have to take this we
have this luxury but he I actually and
and he was like debating whether or not
he should quit you know silently because
it was an external consultant thing he
could you silently like he would just
not show up and say someone noticed
nobody was like just make an excuse and
say oh no no no he would show us but not
do anything that would be silent
quitting that is yeah
actually yes actually yes I love it
that’s another interesting question
perhaps we should talk about that later
but he ended up actually bringing up
the issues with his with that person
over lunch and said this was what do you
ask me to do there was not I didn’t feel
quite okay and they he felt he said that
he felt listened to I think if you just
if you talk to people and like a if you
think about how you communicate
something to to a person then you very
well might get get a good response and
like don’t do it in a passive-aggressive
way like the person is well-meaning and
understand where that person is coming
from but like bring it up and and if
they still don’t adopt to what you think
or perhaps what the community of
developers think Daniel leave ya advice
I would say so like try to make a best
effort in changing the situation perhaps
a and and also perhaps they have reasons
that you don’t know about yeah they
could be business business reasons that
you that you shouldn’t know because it’s
yeah for you to know too much because
you would lose focus or something yeah
exactly you like they might just be
using their like as a product owner or
something they might be just using their
umbrella to protect you from
things but that might also be like
sometimes it’s it’s bad to know too
little because you don’t get the whole
picture and then you just why the hell
are we doing this but in the end it’s
very important that you feel like you
have autonomy over your own situation
like that is it will be very own
motivating and you should really avoid
being in workplace that does that and
and either that it’s very possible to
find a place where you have a high
degree of autonomy over your work you
don’t have to suffer through that in most areas of the world as a developer
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