so-you-want-to-onboard-a-devops-engineer
so-you-want-to-onboard-a-devops-engineer copied to clipboard
actionjack
Operations: Creating Brittle Infrastructure
https://www.zdnet.com/article/python-programming-language-creator-retires-saying-its-been-an-amazing-ride/
Dropbox said van Rossum has had a major impact on its engineering culture.
"There was a small number of really smart, really young coders who produced a lot of very clever code that only they could understand," said van Rossum. "That is probably the right attitude to have when you're a really small startup."
However, as Dropbox notes, when the company grew, new engineers could not understand the clever but 'short and cryptic' code written by and for earlier developers.
Van Rossum called this "cowboy coding culture" and educated the company about the value of maintainable code.
"When asked, I would give people my opinion that maintainable code is more important than clever code," he said.
"If I encountered clever code that was particularly cryptic, and I had to do some maintenance on it, I would probably rewrite it. So I led by example, and also by talking to other people."