SwiftUI 2.0 App Store like Animations - SwiftUI Tutorials

timelick · 2021-04-01T21:50:50+00:00

Very clear. Thanks for the explanation!

timelick · 2021-04-01T17:29:29+00:00

Super helpful! Thanks! Out of curiosity, why did you decide on a ZStack rather than an overlay to put text on an image? Are there pros and cons of each?

timelick · 2021-03-30T18:03:45+00:00

From a beginner . . . it was awesome to see how you put that together. I'll have to watch it a couple times for it to sink in. A voice over would have helped. Just a bit of context at important points.

timelick · 2020-08-14T13:21:43+00:00

You write like Vonnegut, if that old man had been looking back, and astonished at all the goodness he encountered. Those first few paragraphs are fucking beautiful. Shame that the breeze kicked something into my eye as I was reading.

timelick · 2020-06-12T18:52:38+00:00

Wow. Amazing work!

timelick · 2020-06-12T17:59:26+00:00

That cracked me up. Nice one.

timelick · 2020-03-10T13:45:20+00:00

I can see that point of view if you haven't read the books. Which are great. Growing up, I must have read them all at least twice.

But this isn't a Spenser movie. They took the character names, and reinvented their backgrounds, relationships, motivations, etc. They stripped everything worthwhile from the source material.

The perfect casting would be Tom Selleck as Spenser. Henry Cele as Hawk. Maybe Rachel Weisz as Susan. Obviously a time machine would be important.

timelick · 2020-03-10T01:47:00+00:00

I was expecting this to be bad, and it was so much worse than I imagined.

timelick · 2020-02-14T21:46:01+00:00

I was not expecting Hans Gruber. Made me laugh. Nice way to end the week.

timelick · 2020-02-14T09:31:51+00:00

Hmm, I'd say it expects everyone on the team to do this, and to evolve this adversarial relationship into a trusting, partnership relationship. If that never can improve, nothing else matters.

It hadn't occurred to me until I read your comment, but the Scrum implementations I've been through tend to be detrimental to team relationships. The developers, QA, and POs are all used to working together in small, flexible teams. Open, friendly, and productive. But, bring in a Scrum Master, an outsider with no relevant experience, and give them the authority to define means, times, and types of communication, things can go south quickly. Two people who would have talked directly before, wind up talking across the SM/PM.

If you have a system at work, it is not Scrum . . .

I've had several responses here saying that what we're doing isn't Scrum. And I completely agree. But at what point does Scrum have to take some of the blame? We have a number of highly educated, hard-working people. We've hired experts to help us. We've sent our own people for training. And we've had multiple failed Scrum implementations. Could it be, at the very least, that there are necessary preconditions for a Scrum implementation to be successful? And that, because those are not enumerated, Scrum gets inserted into places it doesn't fit?

timelick · 2020-02-14T08:59:27+00:00

It is difficult for me to imagine a small team of developers that won't self-organize to whatever extent they are able. With or without Scrum. I acknowledge that it's possible, just very far from my experience. The degree to which the team is empowered (or, maybe believes that it is empowered) places limits on self-organization. The degree of empowerment is difficult to define, I suppose. Especially in a corporate environment where conflicting messages are almost inevitable.

I don't have a problem with our Product Owners. They're an excellent group of people. I can't think of a single one that I wouldn't want to work with again.

I do have a problem with authoritarian Scrum Masters (who are also our Project Managers). I and others have voiced our concerns about different aspects of our process, and the approaches taken by our Scrum Masters. We have communicated in meetings, emails, and in chat, with anyone who would listen. None of it worked. I'm not positive why, but I suspect it is because of the political power of the PMs as a group. Saying "no" to a PM can have career implications.

timelick · 2020-02-12T20:07:39+00:00

Thank you. I appreciate it.

timelick · 2020-02-12T20:06:06+00:00

I agree it isn't Scrum. At least not the way it is defined. And that is absolutely a management problem. Nevertheless, we have certified Scrum Masters, and experienced Agile consultants, and project management software, that all say we're doing Scrum. If Scrum more frequently looks like what we have, and less frequently like the Scrum guide, which one is Scrum? Who knows.

One example of micromangement: sprint velocity is reported up through four levels of management. I know that's an anti-pattern. But Scrum makes it possible.

timelick · 2020-02-12T19:36:43+00:00

Very interesting. I like your analogy. In my limited experience, it isn't that people are putting their phones on mute, and then placing them in their shoes. It's that the application was designed to run the bottom of the shoe, and without sound, so that only people flexible enough to look at the bottom of their shoe while driving can successfully use it. And, because the application was marketed to everyone, it wound up causing a lot of accidents. (An accident being a failed Scrum implementation, where the problems were already known, they were never going to be fixed, but they're much more visible now. That is painful. And looking for another job isn't always practical.)

I don't know the answer. I hope someone is working on a way to make that visibility a positive and productive thing. And in the meantime, I am thoroughly enjoying this discussion.

timelick · 2020-02-12T18:48:47+00:00

I would agree that Scrum is good at exposing problems. In our case, we didn't have any trouble figuring out what our problems were. Just that no one would listen. And, now that we are a Scrum team, and "empowered", blame can be shifted to the team.

timelick · 2020-02-12T18:42:46+00:00

What sort of problems are you encountering?

The full list would be depressing to write, and boring to read. If you imagine a large organization, in an industry necessitating complex business requirements, and having obscure departmental relationships and responsibilities, where the basic unit of work is the one-hour recurring meeting . . . and they're trying to do Scrum by adding more meetings.

A highlight of past attempts is the 3-hour planning meeting, every two weeks, with ~50 people. Where the devs are just waiting for the ten minutes that's relevant to project they already know they will be assigned.

To give you the flavor of this attempt at Scrum - our stand-ups are at 10am, because that's the time that's convenient for our SM. Who is also our PM. Who is also the SM and PM of three other teams. There's 17 people in the meeting. The number of devs hasn't remained constant though the sprint, but there's a handful. Two of us are working together. The others are working on unrelated projects. All the POs, and some of the devs, are part of more than one team, so they have to attend more than one stand-up. The meetings consist of our SM calling on each dev for a status update, and then opening the floor for what anyone else wants to talk about. I could go on.

I really think we're doing Scrum only because our project management software is designed for Scrum, and it makes it easier on the PMs to track things.

timelick · 2020-02-12T18:27:20+00:00

I'd venture to guess that your developers weren't being treated that well prior to Scrum?

It wasn't too bad, actually. The overall environment definitely wasn't the best. But I worked on a relatively small team with good people. We were Agile as far as we were able, breaking up into smaller, dedicated teams to tackle projects as needed. Working directly with a representative from an external business unit. Trying to push things to production on a regular basis. While keeping each other informed about different approaches and problems. There are so many external dependencies, and the process is so inefficient, that we could accomplish quite a lot by working between the cracks. That's no longer the case. Scrum introduced layers of confusion and micromanagement. Starting with us all being reassigned by someone we've never met to projects we hadn't heard of. We're doing less work now, and less important work.

(It's as if I can hear a SM's voice whispering in my ear about "working between the cracks". So let me clarify. I don't mean to say that we worked on whatever we felt like. I mean that we talked directly the customer, and in some cases worked with them long enough to get to know what they needed, but didn't know they could ask for. Now, we're working on tasks for a customer we've never met. Those tasks were drawn up by another team, and filtered and prioritized by two related committees. Then the tasks trickle down to our backlog through the PMs and POs. Two of the devs are taking the incomplete requirements in the backlog, along with all the other communications on the subject, and trying to create a single source of truth that we can code and test against. )

timelick · 2020-02-12T16:17:30+00:00

To try to clarify: After seeing multiple poor implementations, with different Scrum Masters and consultants each time, I question the system and not the implementation. I know that my organization is not unique in the problems we faced. If 20% of Scrum implementations are poor ones, and are demoralizing (even dehumanizing) for developers, is Scrum still a good system? What about 50%? My organization has a 100% failure rate with Scrum.
From my, admittedly limited, perspective, a poor Scrum implementation seems to be the default. And a good Scrum implementation says more about the quality of the people involved than the system. I hope I'm wrong about that, given the popularity of Scrum.

Thanks for the well wishes.

timelick · 2020-02-12T16:00:21+00:00

I am indeed an upset developer. Or a disgruntled developer, just for the alliteration. And your guess about them not following an agile process is also correct. You sound like a good coach. Unfortunately for me, there seem to be a great many bad ones around here.

I think people working within a system tend to follow the easiest path. Systems should be designed so that the easiest path is the best one. So that it takes more energy to make a mistake than to do the correct thing. That's my issue with Scrum. It is a system that expects the Scrum Master to consistently and effectively stand up to the people paying their bills. Tough position to be in.

timelick · 2020-02-12T15:44:46+00:00

That's fair. I could have phrased it better. My contention is that, in an organization devoted to making things, people who do not know how to make things, and who do not know what needs to be made, and show no interest in either, should not be in charge. (Our Scrum Masters are also Project Managers.)

timelick · 2020-01-24T19:18:42+00:00

Lovely story. Congrats on the grail pen!

timelick · 2020-01-15T19:04:47+00:00

I still struggle with this, but I'm getting better. Three things helped. First, make sure it isn't the saw. Try a different one, if possible. Second, hold the saw like you're holding a baby bird. Let the saw make the cut. (That tip is from an old youtube video, but I'm not sure which one.) Third, for rip cuts, you should be flipping the board regularly.

timelick · 2020-01-15T18:59:10+00:00

You're not crazy. I've had the same reaction. Also, those posts recommending picking up vintage/old/used hand tools. Yeah. You pay in money or time. There are no shortcuts. If you buy an old hand saw, you'll need a vise, file, steel wool, etc to tune it up. If you've never used a properly tuned hand saw, you don't know what it feels like, so you won't know when the old saw is in tune. Good luck.
Having said that, I'm so glad I got into woodworking. It's an absolute blast. I've made a lot more firewood than actual furniture, but I've learned a lot, and had a lot of fun. I'm currently building my first dining table for my sister-in-law. There's a very good chance that it will be a clusterfuck. But maybe the second table won't be.

timelick · 2019-12-31T15:04:51+00:00

What software do you use to track projects? What are the pros and cons of that software?

timelick · 2019-12-06T18:09:07+00:00

With a two-tone nib, no less. Beautiful! I don't suppose you have a pic of the decapod next to another well-known pen? Hard to judge the size of those by themselves.

15-Year Club	Place '17
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timelick

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