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The Grug Brained Developer (2022)

this collection of thoughts on software development gathered by grug brain developer grug brain developer not so smart, but grug brain developer program many long year and learn some things although mostly still confused grug brain developer try collect learns into small, easily digestible and funny page, not only for you, the young grug, but also for him because as grug brain developer get older he forget important things, like what had for breakfast or if put pants on big brained developers are many, and some not expected to like this, make sour face THINK they are big brained developers many, many more, and more even definitely probably maybe not like this, many sour face (such is internet) (note: grug once think big brained but learn hard way) is fine! is free country sort of and end of day not really matter too much, but grug hope you fun reading and maybe learn from many, many mistake grug make over long program life apex predator of grug is complexity complexity bad say again: complexity very bad you say now: complexity very, very bad given choice between complexity or one on one against t-rex, grug take t-rex: at least grug see t-rex complexity is spirit demon that enter codebase through well-meaning but ultimately very clubbable non grug-brain developers and project managers who not fear complexity spirit demon or even know about sometime one day code base understandable and grug can get work done, everything good! next day impossible: complexity demon spirit has entered code and very dangerous situation! grug no able see complexity demon, but grug sense presence in code base demon complexity spirit mocking him make change here break unrelated thing there what!?! mock mock mock ha ha so funny grug love programming and not becoming shiney rock speculator like grug senior advise club not work on demon spirit complexity and bad idea actually hit developer who let spirit in with club: sometimes grug himself! sadly, often grug himself so grug say again and say often: complexity very, very bad best weapon against complexity spirit demon is magic word: "no" "no, grug not build that feature" "no, grug not build that abstraction" "no, grug not put water on body every day or drink less black think juice you stop repeat ask now" note, this good engineering advice but bad career advice: "yes" is magic word for more shiney rock and put in charge of large tribe of developer sad but true: learn "yes" then learn blame other grugs when fail, ideal career advice but grug must to grug be true, and "no" is magic grug word. Hard say at first, especially if you nice grug and don't like disappoint people (many such grugs!) but easier over time even though shiney rock pile not as high as might otherwise be is ok: how many shiney rock grug really need anyway? sometimes compromise necessary or no shiney rock, mean no dinosaur meat, not good, wife firmly remind grug about young grugs at home need roof, food, and so forth, no interest in complexity demon spirit rant by grug for fiftieth time in this situation, grug recommend "ok" "ok, grug build that feature" then grug spend time think of 80/20 solution to problem and build that instead.

good cut point has narrow interface with rest of system: small number of functions or abstractions that hide complexity demon internally, like trapped in crystal instead grug try to limit damage of big brain developer early in project by giving them thing like UML diagram (not hurt code, probably throw away anyway) or by demanding working demo tomorrow here grug much more sour faced than DRY and in fact write big brained essay on alternative design principle locality of behavior (LoB) against SoC

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