Jimmy Miller

I haven't checked. Um, I don't know if he even has a LinkedIn or anything. Um, maybe he does, but probably hasn't updated it even if he did. So I'm not sure. I know the company now doesn't have that name anymore. I don't know if that, you know, I don't know if that code base is still running or not. You know, it, it might be, but it also might because it was customer support and sales, um,

I haven't checked. Um, I don't know if he even has a LinkedIn or anything. Um, maybe he does, but probably hasn't updated it even if he did. So I'm not sure. I know the company now doesn't have that name anymore. I don't know if that, you know, I don't know if that code base is still running or not. You know, it, it might be, but it also might because it was customer support and sales, um,

When you get a big merger like that, that's one of the things that often gets, like they just choose one, right? Credit card processing code, I'm sure, is still running. But customer support might not be. Code base might literally be dead now. Merchants might be gone. Merchants 3, if they ever got to that point, right, might not have any more data in it. I don't know. Yeah.

When you get a big merger like that, that's one of the things that often gets, like they just choose one, right? Credit card processing code, I'm sure, is still running. But customer support might not be. Code base might literally be dead now. Merchants might be gone. Merchants 3, if they ever got to that point, right, might not have any more data in it. I don't know. Yeah.

I think it's something that we should do more of. I've worked in systems since that are a mess, but everyone's always trying to fix it. And I get that impulse because I hate the mess too. But sometimes it's just beyond fixing. This is why people give the advice of don't do the big rewrite, right? Because it's much bigger than you think it's going to be and it's probably going to fail.

I think it's something that we should do more of. I've worked in systems since that are a mess, but everyone's always trying to fix it. And I get that impulse because I hate the mess too. But sometimes it's just beyond fixing. This is why people give the advice of don't do the big rewrite, right? Because it's much bigger than you think it's going to be and it's probably going to fail.

And I think the same could be said of trying to make sense of a 10-year-old, hundreds of thousands of lines codebase. There's just no way you're going to be able to hold it in your head. And when you try to come up with some overarching scheme of what the code base is really doing, and now I can come up with the perfect abstraction and it will do all of this, I just think it's a losing prospect.

And I think the same could be said of trying to make sense of a 10-year-old, hundreds of thousands of lines codebase. There's just no way you're going to be able to hold it in your head. And when you try to come up with some overarching scheme of what the code base is really doing, and now I can come up with the perfect abstraction and it will do all of this, I just think it's a losing prospect.

It's just not going to work. And so, yeah, I think we should embrace more... Even in good code bases, I think we often... want uniformity. We want everyone to have the same coding style. We want everyone to follow the same coding rules. And I've found that often, to me, that ends up causing more problems in the long run.

It's just not going to work. And so, yeah, I think we should embrace more... Even in good code bases, I think we often... want uniformity. We want everyone to have the same coding style. We want everyone to follow the same coding rules. And I've found that often, to me, that ends up causing more problems in the long run.

Because once you have to have everything consistent, as soon as there's a big change that needs to be done, it actually becomes harder. Because you can't do the big change all at once. And if you require consistency, it's harder to do those small changes each time.

Because once you have to have everything consistent, as soon as there's a big change that needs to be done, it actually becomes harder. Because you can't do the big change all at once. And if you require consistency, it's harder to do those small changes each time.

Yeah, and the next job I took actually had the exact opposite thing, where we were actually completely forbidden from ever talking to our users. Not just as developers, as a company. I worked at a big company that was, it's a big private company, they buy a bunch of companies. And we were building an application for a sister company in this big group.

Yeah, and the next job I took actually had the exact opposite thing, where we were actually completely forbidden from ever talking to our users. Not just as developers, as a company. I worked at a big company that was, it's a big private company, they buy a bunch of companies. And we were building an application for a sister company in this big group.

And they hired a contractor to be the go-between. And they were scared of us ever talking to end users because they were worried those end users would think that their job was in jeopardy if we were rewriting this application. So we were never allowed to talk to them. And I worked at that company for a little while. And then I left and then went to a startup that didn't do very well.

And they hired a contractor to be the go-between. And they were scared of us ever talking to end users because they were worried those end users would think that their job was in jeopardy if we were rewriting this application. So we were never allowed to talk to them. And I worked at that company for a little while. And then I left and then went to a startup that didn't do very well.

And I came back as a contractor at the original company. And at that point, they had changed this rule where they now were allowed to talk to their users indirectly. Not directly. How so? Well, okay. So there were actually now users who were in the exact same building, two doors down from where the developers were, but they couldn't go talk to them.

And I came back as a contractor at the original company. And at that point, they had changed this rule where they now were allowed to talk to their users indirectly. Not directly. How so? Well, okay. So there were actually now users who were in the exact same building, two doors down from where the developers were, but they couldn't go talk to them.

What they could do was those people would write three by five cards of feedback and they would post them on the wall. And I came back as a contractor and I was so interested to see like, you know, what is the feedback on the system that I knew was not a great system. It was... It was a completely greenfield, brand new system.

What they could do was those people would write three by five cards of feedback and they would post them on the wall. And I came back as a contractor and I was so interested to see like, you know, what is the feedback on the system that I knew was not a great system. It was... It was a completely greenfield, brand new system.