alt Hacker NewsChet has already told the author about B in the first sentence (that’s how the author knows B is complicated). The rest is Chet trying to justify B without asking why the author choose A.
It’s not Chet explaining what B is, it’s Chet explaining why B is better. From his own point of view. With no understanding why the author prefers A.
Assuming the author don’t know anything about B and that it can’t understand the tradeoffs between A and B is where you are wrong. Especially if the tradeoffs lean strongly towards “shipping soon” and away from “Be correct 3 weeks later”. In that 3 weeks window, there will be time to review B while A is already providing value. But Chet’s decision to scrape A is not the correct one.
And about the taking the logic further, you’re again inventing a situation that the author has not been discussing about
> My question is "what's the problem with just listening to Chet to understand what he is talking about"
Because what Chet is talking about is abandonning A, a simple solution, for B, a complex one, where the primary reason is that B will be useful 3 weeks later. And for the author, that tradeoff is unacceptable. Why? Chet doesn’t know, because he’s too busy trying to prove B.
> Chet has already told the author about B in the first sentence
No. Chet says, I quote, "so since we’re going to need this more complicated thing I want to do it now". Chet does not explain what is this more complicated thing that he wants to do, what is the problem exactly, if it is a problem linked to A failing the requirements of today or not, ...
> It’s not Chet explaining what B is, it’s Chet explaining why B is better.
Ok, first, for the author to not be a shit team lead, he needs to understand B itself, but also how B fit into the picture.
(also, what is the problem with that: if Chet's opinion is that B is better, I __want__ to hear it. It does not mean I will agree. It does not mean Chet is right. But if someone reached a different conclusion than me, I need to understand why just to check if indeed I've missed something or not)
But secondly, that is again your bias talking. You are brainwashed by YAGNI, so when you read what Chet says, you are unable to imagine that the exact same conversation can happen if Chet is presenting a real new problem that the author missed.
That's my whole red flag with the article: it starts with this scenario, and then continue explaining YAGNI. The author explains YAGNI perfectly. But the big problem is that in his initial scenario, he is showing in fact a scenario I saw over and over again: he fails to notice that someone may say exactly the same thing as Chet __and yet__ "YAGNI" as he correctly describe it later does not apply. The author just teaches readers to be idiot, to not think, to just see someone saying "3 weeks" and then jumps into "YAGNI" without even checking if YAGNI applies or not.
> Assuming the author don’t know anything about B and that it can’t understand the tradeoffs between A and B is where you are wrong.
Read what you have just said and think about it. I am saying "everyone, sometimes, can miss something". And for some strange reason, you understand "this person know absolutely nothing".
I am saying that the author know a lot about the constraints of the project. But unless the author is an idiot, the author also knows that he may have missed something and that someone else may have noticed.
In this dialog, the author does not check if Chet has found something he has missed. He directly assumed Chet is wrong and he is right.
Why is Chet even in the company? You are saying that the author is god: he is never ever wrong, he knows everyyyyything, he is perfect. As soon as you admit that this is obviously bullshit, then you have to admit that the author should engage with Chet to check if something was missed. Again, taking the exact dialog of the article (as you whined about), looking it word-for-word, Chet did not explain his point and the author interrupted him before he could. You can INVENT that the author knows things behind the scene or that they said other things on top of what is written, but then not only you are hypocricital, but on top, it shows that both the author and you just took some hypothesis for granted: you are biased.
> Especially if ...
Again with "you gave a counter-example that shows I'm wrong, but let's ignore it and take an example I've built myself where it works".
Again, I'm saying: "the author is a poor lead because he did not check if Chet has found something he missed", and your answer is "but let's assume Chet did not found something he missed". But the problem is still there. A good bus driver looks both ways before crossing the busy road. "Let's assume no car was coming" means that this mistake, in this specific case, has no bad consequences, but the bus driver is still a terrible bus driver if he did not look both ways. Here, if we assume Chet did not notice something that the author missed, then the author has been lucky, but he still failed to do something he needed to do in order to be a good lead.
> And about the taking the logic further, ...
Do you even understand the principle of "taking the logic further"? Are you telling me that "to take the logic further", one should apply the same logic to THE SCENARIO THAT ALREADY EXIST? How is that moving it further?
Pushing the logic further demonstrates the flaw in the logic. If your logic was sound, than pushing this logic further would not create any absurd situation.
> Because what Chet is talking about is abandonning A, a simple solution, for B, a complex one, where the primary reason is that B will be useful 3 weeks later.
HOW DOES LISTEN CHANGE ANYTHING?
You just LISTEN. You don't say "tell me Chet, and once you told me, I will have no choice but to accept".
You LISTEN to Chet, and if Chet explains and you see that the trade-off is bad, YOU TELL HIM "WE WON'T DO THAT".
That's the problem: for some strange reason, you seems to believe that if Chet just tell you his reasoning, it means you agree with him. You don't have to agree with him, you just have to check if the reasoning of Chet is indeed the reasoning you assumed he had at the start when he did not explain his reasoning yet.