IT Darwin Awards
A collection of the best “copypasta” ideas **in the world of computing.
Deploying the POC to production
Alright, let’s start with something easy and consensus-driven—hopefully, anyway. “So what? It works, so that’s good enough—let’s roll out the POC to production! Ugh, these IT guys, always saying they need more time to do things right. Quality, quality—that’s all they ever talk about; they’re obsessed with quality. Me, I’m pragmatic: you have to be pragmatic to make money.” Okay, so let’s take a deep breath and explain it again: /blog/poc-vs-mvp.
The complete overhaul with the tunnel effect
Well, that’s the basics. We approve a budget, we create a “v2” branch, and off we go—just like in the ’40s. It’ll take three months. Then we wait, and it’s going to be released—very soon, any day now, really, very soon indeed. And then we wait. Then we scramble to catch up, to implement the new features on the v2 branch. And then, inevitably, a change in priorities happens. The 18 months of work end up stagnating on their branch—but not in production—and all that great work dies without ever seeing a single user. /blog/refactoring-eviter-leffet-tunnel
The in-house framework
Well, first of all, when I hear the word “framework,” I reach for my revolver. But a custom-built framework takes it to the next level: it’s almost fascinating. It’s “Informatik 2000,” a company with 190 employees, which assigns two developers to create what will ultimately become a bottleneck for all its projects—and, at the same time, an endless source of bugs, missing features, security vulnerabilities, and other delays in version releases. Look at what’s out there on the market? Nah, we can do better. /blog/oh-le-beau-framework-maison
Computer Masturbation
Ah, I particularly love this one: creating a big, fat IT department with IT folks who talk about IT and get annoyed at “the business side” that doesn’t understand a thing and puts pressure on them. Calling it a “cost center” and then optimizing the whole mess… by cutting costs. The beauty of support functions and a bestseller among CAC 40 companies—a must-read for every CEO to immediately discourage the last remaining employees driven by good will. /blog/rest-in-peace
The famous DevOps team
This one is more subtle. It starts with good intentions, but in the end, we’re still shooting ourselves in the foot. The DevOps approach is the idea that Devs have Ops skills so they can be self-sufficient in managing deployment operations—and also to hold them accountable. If we pull all these people out of their teams and put them together, well, that’s back to square one, isn’t it? Oh yeah, there’s also the softer version: “Lucas, the DevOps guy on the team,” but don’t try to fool me—it’s pretty much the same thing. /blog/devops-le-grand-malentendu
Technical debt—a programmer’s thing
Hmmm, not really, no. There’s no topic more business-critical than technical debt. A company CEO who isn’t interested in it will be caught up by reality as quickly as a runner tackling a marathon at 20 km/h. In fact, if you ever plan to buy a software company, you’d be well advised to commission a code audit, because software that works at a given moment isn’t enough. And if you think there’ll be less technical debt with no-code, ha ha, sorry—let me laugh. /blog/le-mur-de-la-dette.
IT for IT’s sake
The root of all evil in IT 😈 I’ll always be amazed by developers’ fascination with anything new, powerful, and complex. What are we talking about? The N+1th JavaScript framework—a linear combination of the first N—which we’ll rush to use in production. The latest trendy, hyper-scalable architecture—a real game changer at GAFAM—that has nothing to do with our topic but that we’ll use anyway. Meanwhile, the user can go jump in a lake. /blog/i-love-kubernetes
Book a train ticket on SNCF Connect
Yes, it’s free, but it feels good! I actually thought this was a French specialty until recently, when I tried to book a ticket on the Renfe website. Let’s stay positive: it’s good—I didn’t feel out of place. That must be what “railway Europe” is all about. /blog/la-critique-est-facile-lart-est-difficile