Re: A meditation on the Antithesis of the VMS Ethos

On 2024-07-22, Craig A. Berry <craigberry@nospam.mac.com> wrote:

>
On 7/22/24 7:48 AM, Simon Clubley wrote:

 
BTW, I found this while trying to find out more about the company and
I wonder if they are planning to update it anytime soon to tone it down:
 
https://www.crowdstrike.com/careers/diversity-equity-and-inclusion/
 
They talk a lot about how they make people feel good about themselves,
but nothing about how they cultivate people to produce robust reliable
software.

>
I think it's the other way around.  They have a bad reputation for how
they treat their employees so have made efforts to correct that image.
>
None of which is relevant to policies around testing a new configuration
before deploying to the entire world all at once.

If they have an engineering culture, you are correct.

If they have a feelings-based culture, the situation is more complicated.

Part of an engineering approach is that you push back on shortcuts and
daft ideas. In a feelings-based culture, you may be afraid to push back
on something because you don't want to be accused of "causing offence"
or some other nonsense because the people you are addressing don't know
how to handle negative feedback.

One of the things I say to people, when I take part in discussions about
some new thing or idea I am responsible for, is to push back on me if you
think the idea is daft or if you can see something I have missed. I tell
people I will not be annoyed if they actively disagree with me, but I will
be annoyed if they see something and don't say anything.

And yes, sometimes people see something I have missed or see a better way
of doing something and _that_ is part of the engineering approach.

Simon.

--
Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Walking destinations on a map are further away than they appear.