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Software development topics I've changed my mind on

(chriskiehl.com)
873 points belter | 3 comments | 05 Feb 25 09:50 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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latexr ◴[05 Feb 25 11:39 UTC] No.42947128[source]▶
> Most won't care about the craft. Cherish the ones that do, meet the rest where they are

> (…)

> People who stress over code style, linting rules, or other minutia remain insane weirdos to me. Focus on more important things.

What you call “stressing over minutiae” others might call “caring for the craft”. Revered artisans are precisely the ones who care for the details. “Stressing” is your value judgement, not necessarily the ground truth.

What you’re essentially saying is “cherish the people who care up to the level I personally and subjectively think is right, and dismiss everyone who cares more as insane weirdos who cannot prioritise”.

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1. aswerty ◴[05 Feb 25 12:17 UTC] No.42947445[source]▶
In my opinion, I think the author is criticizing bike shedding [1] rather than meaningful decisions. Of course some people will differ on whether a decision is one or the other. But as a whole, not sweating the details is a good quality to have whatever road in life you are on.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_triviality

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2. The_Colonel ◴[05 Feb 25 13:20 UTC] No.42948090[source]▶
Everyone dislikes bikeshedding. But people disagree on which questions are bikeshedding and which aren't.
3. bluGill ◴[05 Feb 25 14:25 UTC] No.42948865[source]▶
Details are important though. Some bikeshed type ideas spiral into very expensive changes. This is a large part of why US transit construction is so much more expensive - people asking for lots of little details which add up (large monument stations, bike paths done with the project... those things all add up) - the important safety details are left to experts, but only after they are told to build something far more expensive than needed. (this isn't a plea for brutalism architecture there are nice things you can do that are only minimally more expensive)