@abelar_s@mamot.fr Let's solve interesting problems together & make you awesome ― @Faveod・@ParisRB & @RailsGirlsParis org・ @zen_m4 & @lerubynouveau ― Testing.
Paris, France
Joined January 2012
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The answer was: it depends
You're only seeing a few sides; reality is complex; beware vocal minorities & justifications.
I should have known
Sylvain Abélard @[email protected] retweeted
Don’t be fooled by Best Practices. By the time something is labeled and advertised as a Best Practice, it is just average. Following these practices only suggests you won’t be left behind, not that you will lead the pack.
Best Practices are actually Average Practices.
Sylvain Abélard @[email protected] retweeted
A feature should either THRILL ≥15% of customers or be USEFUL to ≥60%.
Amazing how many are neither.
You don't have time for those.
Sylvain Abélard @[email protected] retweeted
Underrated skill: being able to accept constructive criticism with an open mind, and without being dismissive or defensive.
Sylvain Abélard @[email protected] retweeted
90% of my job as a senior engineer is giving others the confidence to go with the less-impressive-but-simpler approach.
Sylvain Abélard @[email protected] retweeted
Nvidia CEO: “you can’t show me a task that is beneath me.”
Do what is required not what is desired.
Sylvain Abélard @[email protected] retweeted
Over 25 years and 1,000s of employees, I've learned:
Good bosses use some uncommon tricks.
Here are the 9 of them you should use:
Sylvain Abélard @[email protected] retweeted
“If you were allowed one wish for your child, seriously consider wishing him or her optimism.” -- Kahneman
Sylvain Abélard @[email protected] retweeted
The best time to start something is when things are hard and inconvenient.
Otherwise, when things get hard and inconvenient in the future, you’ll assume that’s a reason you can stop.
Sylvain Abélard @[email protected] retweeted
Candor is essential for truth seeking as a team. So one of your most important duties as a leader is to emphasize your expectation of candid dialogue amongst your team members and to consistently live this value yourself by demonstrating how to be candid while still being kind.
Sylvain Abélard @[email protected] retweeted
Before launching a product, sit down and draft a murderboard: list out every possible criticism with the worst headline possible. Then, while preserving the core value proposition, reposition the product so it’s bulletproof against any criticism. Don’t delegate this: you own the product and you should know all possible ways it will be perceived.
Sylvain Abélard @[email protected] retweeted
My new favorite team ritual: A weekly meeting called "Fight Club" where you meet with your leadership team with the intention of having a conflict.
Clip from my conversation with @meganwcook (head of product for @Jira)
Megan Cook (@MeganWCook) is the head of product for @Jira, which is used by 75% of Fortune 500 companies and has over 125,000 customers worldwide. @Atlassian has over 15 different product lines, is valued at over $65B, and in her 11 years there, Megan has seen the company grow from 500 to over 10,000.
In our conversation, we dig into:
🔸 The value of starting small
🔸 How, and why, creating space for play is so essential
🔸 Advice for getting buy-in for your ideas
🔸 How Jira stays ahead of endless competition
🔸 Atlassian’s approach to launching new product lines
🔸 A personal failure and the lessons learned from it
🔸 Much more
Queing theory can help but the simplest Poisson law exercises I did in school were enough to hint at what happens if you optimize for "no cashier slacks" (customers wait for ages) or "no customer waits" (you need as many cashiers as customers on the busiest hours).
Sylvain Abélard @[email protected] retweeted
Life is a joy at 80% fullness, but a nightmare at 100%. Highways stall to a gridlock. Flights get delayed. Workers burnout. People stress out. Efficiency is absolutely worth striving for, but taking it all the way can suck the oxygen out of life.
Sylvain Abélard @[email protected] retweeted
A common mistake of many first-time CTOs or VP of Engineerings:
Mandating that all engineering teams in their organization start working {the same way using methodology X}.
They usually feel this is a big win for them, and the company. In reality: it's almost always a disaster.
Sylvain Abélard @[email protected] retweeted
It's better to treat ideas as relative, not absolute.
Don't say: That's a bad idea. It will not work.
That closes the door.
Instead, try: Here's an iteration on that idea. It may be more likely to work.
That opens new doors.
Sylvain Abélard @[email protected] retweeted
It's surprising how often startups will copy their competitor's features rather than talk to their users. The best startups understand they cannot outsource one of the most important parts of building a successful product.
“The mark of a mature programmer is willingness to throw out code you spent time on when you realize it's pointless.”
___
Bram Cohen
Sylvain Abélard @[email protected] retweeted
"In programming, if someone tells you “you’re overcomplicating it,” they’re either 10 steps behind you or 10 steps ahead of you." – Andrew Clark
Sylvain Abélard @[email protected] retweeted
"CDC says only vulnerable people have to wear a mask now."
"If you've had Covid, the CDC is talking about you. You're vulnerable people now."
This is excellent messaging
tiktok.com/t/ZTREKTeYa/?t=2
Sylvain Abélard @[email protected] retweeted
Facebook uses the concept of adaptative LIFO for queues:
- They use FIFO order under normal conditions
- They switch over to LIFO order under high load
The rationale? By keeping FIFO order under high load, users may have already abandoned their request.
Therefore, processing the first-in request means spending resources on a request that is less likely to benefit the user than a request that has just arrived.
It keeps the fairness of FIFO and the practicality of LIFO. Fairly smart 👌
dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/2…
