←back to thread

-2000 Lines of code (2004)

(www.folklore.org)
510 points xeonmc | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.206s | source
Show context
vodou ◴[] No.44382622[source]
A long time ago I was working in a big project where the PLs came up with the most horrible metric I've ever seen. They made a big handwritten list, visible for the whole team, where they marked for each individual developer how many bugs they had fixed and how many bugs they had caused.

I couldn't believe my eyes. I was working in my own project beside this team with the list, so thankfully I was left out of the whole disaster.

A guy I knew wasn't that lucky. I saw how he suffered from this harmful list. Then I told him a story about the Danish film director Lars von Trier I recently had heard. von Trier was going to be chosen to appear in a "canon" list of important Danish artists that the goverment was responsible for. He then made a short film where he took the Danish flag (red with a white cross) and cut out the white lines and stitched it together again, forming a red communist flag. von Trier was immediately made persona non grata and removed from the "canon".

Later that day my friend approached the bugs caused/fixed list, cut out his own line, taped it together and put it on the wall again. I never forget how a PL came in the room later, stood and gazed at the list for a long time before he realized what had happened. "Did you do this?" he asked my friend. "Yes", he answered. "Why?", said the PL. "I don't want to be part of that list", he answered. The next day the list was gone.

A dear memory of successful subversion.

replies(2): >>44383738 #>>44386753 #
1. Cthulhu_ ◴[] No.44386753[source]
> "I don't want to be part of that list"

Simple, to the point, love it. "I'm not playing your stupid management games".