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Monday 3-2-1 โ€” anti-limits, pair programming, about pages

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๐Ÿ’ก Monday Ideas

Monday 3-2-1 โ€” anti-limits, pair programming, about pages

Luca Rossi
Jun 6, 2022
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Monday 3-2-1 โ€” anti-limits, pair programming, about pages

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Hey, Luca here ๐Ÿ‘‹ welcome to a new format for Refactoring emails!

Many of you have told me that you like the regular articles, but sometimes, when you are really busy, you would prefer something that is shorter and easier to digest.

So, introducing the Monday 3-2-1 โœจ

Every Monday I will send you an email like this with 3 short ideas about:

  1. ๐ŸŽฝ Engineering Management

  2. ๐Ÿ”จ Technical Strategy

  3. ๐ŸŽ’ Hiring & Onboarding

You will also keep receiving the regular long form on Thursday, like the last one on engineering productivity.

Let me know if you like it!

Refactoring is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.


1) ๐ŸŽฝ Pair programming makes people happier

Consider the Cockburn and Williams research on pair programming.

80%+ of devs who pair program are happier at work because of it.

It is believed that, being many developers introverted, they would despise pair programming.

As an introvert myself, I can relate. But while it is true that we don't like much interaction, weย doย craveย close interactionsย with those who are close to our interests.

Pair programming developsย deep relationshipsย without being socially overwhelming, which is the best possible scenario for an introvert.

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2) ๐Ÿ”จ Design systems based on anti-limits

Engineers are often hypnotized by scaling limits. We design systems preparing them for scenarios that never materialize.

Next time, think at the opposite. Define your anti-limits first: what scale will the app never surpass?

Anti-limits are a form of inversion.

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3) ๐ŸŽ’ Make new hires add themselves to the About page

We always talk about making new hires ship production code as soon as possible โ€” but how?

A simple way is to make them add themselves to the company's โ€œAboutโ€ or โ€œTeamโ€ page.

While this is a simple task, it still requires them to:

  • Setup the dev environment

  • Locate and update the code

  • Go through the code review process

  • Go through the release pipeline

I was taught this by Radoslav Stankov, Head of Engineering at Product Hunt.

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Thatโ€™s it for today โ€” I wish you a great week! ๐Ÿš€

Luca

p.s. How did you like this email? Great โ€ข Good โ€ข Meh

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Monday 3-2-1 โ€” anti-limits, pair programming, about pages

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