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Be Aware of the Makefile Effect

(blog.yossarian.net)
431 points thunderbong | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.226s | source
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mcdeltat ◴[] No.42663837[source]
At my work I've noticed another contributing factor: tools/systems that devs need to interact with at some point, but otherwise provide little perceived value to learn day-to-day.

Example is build system and CI configuration. We absolutely need these but devs don't think they should be expected to deal with them day to day. CI is perceived as a system that should be "set and forget", like yeah we need it but really I have to learn all this just to build the app? Devs expect it to "just work" and if there are complexities then another team (AKA my role) deals with that. As a result, any time devs interact with the system, there's a high motivation to copy from the last working setup and move on with their day to the "real" work.

The best solution I see is meet the devs halfway. Provide them with tooling that is appropriate simple/complex for the task, provide documentation, minimise belief in "magic". Tools like Make kinda fail here because they are too complex and black-box-like.

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1. IgorPartola ◴[] No.42669136[source]
Make is one of the simplest build tools out there. Compared to something like Grunt, Webpack, etc. it’s a hammer compared to a mining drill.

The solution is to not use tools used by large corporations because they are used by large corporations. My unpopular opinion is that CI/CD is not needed in most places where it’s used. Figure out how to do your builds and deploys with the absolute fewest moving pieces even if it involves some extra steps. Then carefully consider the cost of streamlining any part of it. Buying into a large system just to do a simple thing is often times not worth it in the long run.

If you really do need CI/CD you will know because you will have a pain point. If that system is causing your developers pain, it isn’t the right fit.