I had to come back to this after vacation. It's a good thread. I've argued with Oscar about agile principles in the past. But I know he and I look for the same outcomes. We used to work together. It feels like I run into more and more people who aren't impressed with scrum.
Oscar hits on something really important here. But it requires a bit more context. He says "good engineers" know how to adjust scope. Instead I would frame that as a core skill that a good product engineer needs to develop.
I'm using the loose term "product engineer" to describe devs who build products at companies that usually need to iterate and ship new features quickly. There are other kinds of dev jobs where maybe this kind of advice doesn't apply.
More importantly, we really need to shift the way we talk about "good" and "bad" devs. We've had lots of discourse the last few years to help us understand the harm that is enabled by that framing. It's much more constructive to talk about learning and building new skills.
I've been thinking a lot about education lately. On many different levels. I'm on record saying that our industry does a poor job of training the talent that we need. And that's for the obvious skills like coding. We haven't even gotten to a bunch of other stuff.
There are many people out there who still think coding is the job. There are so many other skills that you need to bring to the table in order to be the kind of product engineer that is in high demand. The code is just the baseline.
The fact that we're giving people incomplete information about what the job is, and also not training them, drives a lot of poor outcomes too. Both for tech companies and for the individuals that work for them. No one is being served particularly well.
I would be interested in people doing work in learning and development for professional web engineers. I haven't seen many people focusing on that. But with the right model, I think you could get companies to invest a lot in making their engineers better.
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It's so wild how when you ask any random white person, they do SO MUCH for Black people. Sending us to college and everything. And yet somehow we still can't seem to make it. SMH.
8 out of 10 white people I talk to are adamant that they do their part to help the blacks. That should be highly visible no? I mean when you go to Black neighborhoods, they must be teeming with well meaning white people. Hang on, I'm gonna look outside and see.
Hm. I don't see any right now. Maybe it's an off day. It's still early though. Maybe they'll show up later.
The GOP is watching their political power diminish in an increasingly diverse nation. They built a base on top of fomenting white supremacy. And they're realizing that leads to ever-escalating extremism. The GOP leadership is morally and ethically bankrupt. It's a broken party.
We managed to dodge a bullet with this presidential election. I still believe things would've accelerated towards fascism and authoritarianism had Trump won a second term. But we are not out of the woods. The rot didn't start with Trump and won't end with him.
"A middle-class lifestyle is defined as: owning a home, having two kids, saving for retirement, saving for college, going on modest vacations several weeks a year, and retiring in one's early 60s."
The way white people get to ignore race as a real factor in behavior is jaw dropping. Also, nobody said anything about "personality". And using that word betrays to a very shallow understanding of what we're actually talking about.
I keep talking about culture, and it's so clear that most white people don't see culture as a thing that happens to them.
FWIW, I believe it's *possible* that white people like Fergus are legitimately confused about what we're talking about. When they hear "race" they literally think "skin color".
Like he thinks I'm saying "a lack of melanin in your skin puts thoughts in your head". 🥴🥴🥴
I've been feeling this as well. I keep waiting for the victims to be centered and they never are. Even while we talk about #StopAsianHate we aren't giving these people names that would humanize them beyond the fact that they were Asian. Culturally we don't know how to do this.
I don't wanna start some shit. But I am interested in whether any Asian communities are working to humanize the victims. This feels like a moment to understand why the Black community works so hard at that. That's why we have to #SayHerName. Nobody else is gonna do it.
Part of this is on me as well. I need to work to connect with Asian communities. I need to understand better what's happening there and how I could be a better ally. I feel like I've been successful at that with other communities on here. I'm not sure what's different with this.
Me and @operaqueenie have been talking about this a lot lately. I'm backing into this realization on my own.
The default in America in "fuck you". You have to earn the right to matter by gaining power and influence. We see this consistently reflected in our govt and policies.
I starting to understand this is at the root of the way individualism impacts our society at large. People are not taught how to value the collective citizenry. Everybody is on their own and you can only "care" about individuals.
The most recent example from just this morning. This guy is literally like "why should I care if other people are getting scammed?"
Americans are conditioned to let anything happen to each other. We shrug and call it "freedom".