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388 points replyifuagree | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.205s | source
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nmstoker ◴[] No.37966119[source]
I get the point, and with irresponsible parties (as is fairly widespread in most companies) there's a real risk here.

However the analogy of a meteorologist seems poor as that job is focused on predicting the weather - the typical dev is focused on operating in that weather and comparatively inexperienced in predicting with great accuracy.

What's frustrating as a stakeholder is ludicrous estimates, which don't even start with the work time, let alone end up with a realistic duration. This is particularly true (and frustrating) at the micro task level, an area I'm often requiring items that take at most 30 minute to complete and are usually things I could do in less time if only I had access... You get a weeks long estimate back, even when it's incurring a serious cost in production and falls in the drop everything category (which obviously one wants to avoid but does come up). I get that none of those 30 minute tasks will take 30 minute alone as there's testing and documentation to add but the more bs level the estimate, the more it damages the trust relationship.

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kayodelycaon ◴[] No.37967117[source]
I feel this pain, I really do. I want to turn around to fix quickly.

The problem is unless you have fully-automated continuous deployment, 30 minutes is not 30 minutes. That 30 minute task needs to be vetted to ensure it doesn’t affect other departments, then it needs to be scheduled, announced, and deployed, which may involve 2 to 3 other people. As a scheduled task it’s closer to 2 hours across multiple people. As a hotfix or support ticket, it which becomes 4~6 hours of lost productivity for a hotfix if there is any kind of QA process beyond automated tests.

Add in six other people asking for “30 minute tasks” that have unknown impact on other people in the company and nothing will ever get done.

My team has workflows for hotfix changes, but it truly needs to be a drop-everything emergency that stops the company from operating. For all but the blindingly obvious, a department, head or higher, must make the request.

Not being able to turn around every urgent ticket is far less damaging than having a fix for one person cause problems for several other people or not delivering on large strategically-critical projects.

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1. iimblack ◴[] No.37969531[source]
This is way too true. So many quick changes or fixes at my company have caused incidents, confusion, and more. That 30 minute fix quickly balloons into days of work and unhappy clients.

Even things that don’t blow up on those have so many hidden costs people don’t think about.