Measuring engineering productivity

A few months ago, I came across a Hacker News discussion and they were sharing what resources they used for learning tech and keeping up with the industry. One person recommended the Pragmatic Engineer newsletter, so I signed up for the weekly free one.

A few weeks ago they published an article about measuring developer productivity, something I, and many others, have struggled with for a long time. It is very hard to measure this, as nearly any metric you can come up with will be optimized for by the developers, but not necessarily add any actual value while doing so (and frequently will actually hurt productivity). Of course, board members and fellow executives don’t like hearing that, as other groups are relatively easy to measure.

Anyway, the article is fantastic, and I highly recommend reading it. After going through part 1 and part 2, I subscribed to the paid version of the newsletter – this is really good stuff.

Part 1:
https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/measuring-developer-productivity

Part 2:
https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/measuring-developer-productivity-part-2

In Part 1 there is a reference to measuring certain development metrics and the impact it had on behavior (it was not the desired impact!). When stuff like this comes up, I always bust out this comic the Dilbert comic where an announcement is made that the company is going to pay a bonus for each bug found and fixed, and Wally immediately says he’s going to write himself a minivan this afternoon (I would post a link to it, but Scott Adams has taken Dilbert private). You can find copies of it by searching for Dilbert Minivan.


Great blurb in Part 2:
Understand what the real need is. When someone asks how to measure developer productivity, it is never the true question. To discern what’s really being asked, consider these things: who is asking, and what is their real goal? The real topic will be something like:

“I need to decide which areas to invest more headcount in. Which allocation will give the business the best return?”
“I want to do performance management and identify low and high performers.”
“I want to pinpoint problematic teams, debug and fix them.”
“Our investors want us to reduce costs and I need to figure out how much I can cut without significantly impacting the business.”
“I need to justify the cost of engineering to the CEO who thinks we’re too expensive.”


There is another response at : https://tidyfirst.substack.com/p/measuring-developer-productivity-440

The part that matters in that one is headlined: How do you decide how much to invest in engineering?

Combined it’s a lot of reading, but very valuable if you need to justify how hard it is to justify just how productive your engineering resources are being, or maybe rethink some things you’ve already put in place.

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Search Half a Million Github Repos quickly

https://grep.app

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InfoCon – Hacking and Security Conference Archives

https://infocon.org/

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Virtualization of Classic Computers

As my friends know, I’m a huge fan of classic computers (and LEGO, but that’s a whole ‘nother blog post). My personal collection includes an original Macintosh, an IBM PC Jr, Atari 600, Timex Sinclair 1000, a new-in-box TI 99/4a, several Radio Shack Color Computers, two Coleco Adams, a 20th Anniversary Macintosh and many more.

In light of having too many toys and not enough space, I ended up getting rid of the two CRT displays that I had in the game room (errr, guest room), which left me with just our rather large OLED TV’s to use. While it’s great fun to connect a computer from the 80’s, such as the Color Computer, to a 65″ OLED TV, the reality is it doesn’t work well – a text resolution of something like 24×20 characters means really huge letters, and of course the games / apps from those days are archaic.

While I do dream of someday setting up a wing of a mansion with ancient computers, attached to time appropriate monitors, that dream depends on winning the lottery, which is by no means guaranteed. So in the meantime, messing around with emulators for a few minutes every now and then manages my classic computer urges, without requiring me to rewire things in the house and question my life choices.

For your enjoyment, here are some links to emulators and other goodies that can be fun to play with. They’re all browser based, so no effort needed to get started!

ZX 81 (Timex Sinclair T1000)

https://zx81stuff.org.uk/zx81/jtyone.html

ZX Spectrum

https://jsspeccy.zxdemo.org

Atari ST

http://jamesfriend.com.au/pce-js/atari-st/

Commodore 64

https://c64emulator.111mb.de/index.php?site=pp_javascript&lang=en&group=c64

Commodore VIC 20

https://www.mdawson.net/vic20chrome/vic20.php

A Big Pile of Emulated Apps and Resources

This site has emulators for a ton of apps, ranging from Oregon Trail, Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Windows 1 (!), all the way through a TI-57 Programmable Calculator!

It also has a large library of public domain software and shareware.

https://www.pcjs.org

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Clean Windows 11 Installs

A lot of people are upset by the advertising and misc junk that clutters up Windows 11 immediately after install.
Here are two tools to help remove that clutter:


OFGB

OFGB is described as: A GUI Tool To Removes Ads From Various Places Around Windows 11

OFGB will disable:
  • File Explorer Ads
  • Lock Screen Tips and Ads
  • Settings Ads
  • General Tips and Ads
  • “Finish Setup” Ads
  • “Welcome Experience” Ads
  • Personalized Ads
  • “Tailored Experiences”
  • Start Menu Ads
  • “Notification Suggestions”
  • Bing Results In Search
  • Edge Search Bar Widget

Download It

OFGB can be found at: https://github.com/xM4ddy/OFGB?tab=readme-ov-file


Wintoys

Wintoys is described as: “Experience Windows in your way and keep it fresh every day. Set up, debloat, optimize, repair, and tweak your operating system in a simple, time-saving, yet safe approach. Maintain it in a clean, healthy and productive state while having everything you need in one place.”

Wintoys Features

Speed up your Windows and increase the framerate in certain games just by tweaking some settings.

  • Keep your Windows clean and free up your storage using the built-in cleaner feature.
  • Run the most advanced repair tools available in Windows in a few clicks. Bye bye terminal!
  • Take control over ads and privacy related settings.
  • Personalize your desktop and learn cool new features that are worth using in Windows.
  • Uninstall any app, even those apps that don’t have an uninstall option in Windows.
  • Find out which services you don’t need and safely disable them with only two clicks.

Download It

Wintoys can be found at: https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9p8ltpgcbzxd?hl=en-us&gl=US

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Mapping the AI mind of Claude

I find it fascinating that we really don’t understand how AI (aka LLMs) really work!

https://www.anthropic.com/research/mapping-mind-language-model

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mRNA Cancer Vaccines Show Great Hope

A lot of people were resistant to mRNA vaccines for Covid 19. I wonder if they will feel the same if it can save them from guaranteed death?

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-05-mrna-cancer-vaccine-triggers-fierce.html

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Republicans in congress are warning that some of their members are compromised by the Kremlin

Just sticking this here for future reference.

https://thinkbigpicture.substack.com/p/gop-russia-kompromat-putin-congress

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Blockchain: Innovation or Illusion

Just going to leave this here. So far the claims in the video (that blockchain hasn’t found a strong reason to exist that isn’t already handled by other, better, solutions) is holding true. Will it in the future?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tspGVbmMmVA

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A Minimalist Start Page

Got this from Paul Thurrott’s end of year wrap up. It’s a chrome extension to do a very pretty and minimal start page. It also works with Edge and should work with other Chromium based browsers.

Bonjourr – A minimalist start page.

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