Do you have a suggestion how else to handle the situation I described?

Man, I probably say no to like 40% of the requests I get as a dev. Often we will come up with a better way of doing things by just spending 15-30 mins talking to the business about the actual problem they are having.

Some are just flat out refused as they are just too stupid and will cripple the system in some way.

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jiggawatts 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

There’s a magic word that can be used in scenarios like this: “No.”

Failing that, interpret the requirements.

Nobody can watch a bunch of videos at once that don’t even show up until you scroll! That’s a nonsense requirement and the dev’s failure to push back or redirect in a more viable direction is a sign of their incompetence, not that of the non-technical manager that saw YouTube’s interface and assumes that that’s normal and doable.

It is! You’d have to know about lazy loading and CDNs, but neither is black magic.

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sublinear 7 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> You’d have to know about lazy loading and CDNs, but neither is black magic.

I suppose you've never experienced the corporate hell that can happen with a CDN. The dev could submit a dozen servicenow tickets only to see half of them rejected by those same incompetent non-technical managers, or they could just make the thing work now and move on.

The next project will be better after the dust settles and those rejections have been reviewed and escalated into proper discussions. Nobody tells the story of that project because it does the things everyone expects. Guess who led those discussions and fought to get the meetings on the calendar? The "incompetent" devs of course!

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monkey_monkey 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It's not a sign of their incompetence, it's a sign of the realities of many corporate environments.

But hey, if you want to rail against incompetent developers who exist in a make-believe world where they hold all the power are simply too lazy and incompetent to 'do the right thing' then go ahead!

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FridgeSeal 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

There’s nothing “make believe” here, incompetent devs, and devs (regardless of competence) who don’t push back against silly requirements _absolutely_ exist.

	▲	sayamqazi an hour ago \| parent [-]
		I have tried push back but then the other guy that says "I can do it" gets the ticket handed to him. Me: we cant do X bceause it has Y and Z implcations for end users Manager: It fits our brand and we have to do it. Dev: I can do it and the implications are mitigated by (handwavy explanation) Maanger: sounds good. (To me) Maybe you can make a (useless) diagram for this featuer that will be realy handy for KT --Days later-- Feature is delivered and the Y and Z were ethier not mitigated or there was a attempt-ish to mitigate them

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jiggawatts 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> realities of many corporate environments

Stop making excuses and start taking ownership and responsibility of your craft.

I work in huge government departments, large financial orgs, and other "enterprise" places that are the poster child for the "realities of corporate environments".

Automatically saying "yes" to everything makes you a useless meat robot.

If you do everything that the customer asks, without push back, negotiation, or at least a deeper understanding, then you will produce broken garbage.

I see this all the time: "The customer asked for X, so I pressed the button!" is the cry of the incompetent junior tech that will never be promoted.

Nobody wants a uselessly slow website. Nobody wants to piss of their customers. Nobody wants angry rants about their online presence to make headline news.

What the customer wanted was multi media content. That's fine. The technical specifics of how that is presented is up to the engineering team to decide. You're not advisors! You own the technical decision making, so act like it.

If you make the decision to shove nearly a gigabyte down the wire to show the landing page, then that's on you. The manager asking for "video clips" or whatever as the feature probably doesn't even know the difference between megabyte and gigabyte! They shouldn't have to in the same way that I shouldn't have to know about my state's electrical wiring standards if I get a sparky out to add a porch light. If my house burns down, that's the electrician's fault, not mine as the customer!

Similarly, if someone asks for lights inside their pool, an electrician that strings ordinary mains cabling through the water should be jailed for criminal negligence. Obviously, only special low-voltage lighting can be used in water, especially near people. Duh.

Act like an electrician, not like a bored shopkeer who's memorised the line "the customer is always right" without realising that the full quote ends in "... in matters of taste."

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11 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

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