WotC hiring software developer

Guest 6801328 · Apr 21, 2019

Zardnaar said:
I treat software engineering like construction.

Step 1. Work out how many people you need.
Step2. Work out how much it should cost.
Step 3. Double step 1&2.

Alot of people skip step 3. $300 job turns into $1000+ due to scaffolding.

Then you must wildly underestimate. Haven’t you heard of Hofstadter’s Law?

Zardnaar · Apr 22, 2019

Nope what is it?

SkidAce · Apr 22, 2019

Don't forget to add an additional 10% personnel for sick, lame, or lazy.

Umbran · Apr 22, 2019

Zardnaar said:
Nope what is it?

To quote wikipedia:

"Hofstadter's law is a self-referential adage, coined by Douglas Hofstadter in his book Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (1979) to describe the widely experienced difficulty of accurately estimating the time it will take to complete tasks of substantial complexity:

Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law."

Humans are well-known for being crappy at estimating time to complete tasks that take more than a few hours.

Zardnaar · Apr 22, 2019

Umbran said:
To quote wikipedia:

"Hofstadter's law is a self-referential adage, coined by Douglas Hofstadter in his book Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (1979) to describe the widely experienced difficulty of accurately estimating the time it will take to complete tasks of substantial complexity:

Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law."

Humans are well-known for being crappy at estimating time to complete tasks that take more than a few hours.

Cheers, not that different to Murphys Law then. Things go wrong it takes longer, anything that can go wrong etc.

Enevhar Aldarion · Apr 22, 2019

Umbran said:
To quote wikipedia:

Hofstadter's Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law."

Humans are well-known for being crappy at estimating time to complete tasks that take more than a few hours.

Unless you are Scotty. Then everything always takes less time to complete than requested or estimated. I still remember the episode when he taught this lesson to Geordi. lol

LuisCarlos17f · Apr 22, 2019

And we shouldn't forget the business of the videogame and RPG liveplay streaming. I would dare to bet WotC wants the ultimate videogame RPG where a player would be the DM controlling the monsters and nPCs and telling the story, the other players find an optional solution by means of investigation or social skills. Some cartoons and novels would be adaptation of games.

Umbran · Apr 22, 2019

Zardnaar said:
Cheers, not that different to Murphys Law then. Things go wrong it takes longer, anything that can go wrong etc.

Not really. Yes, things take more time when something goes wrong, but Hofstadter's Law is less about things going wrong, and m ore about how poorly humans estimate.

Basically, even if everything goes well, your estimate of completion date will still be wrong.

Guest 6801328 · Apr 22, 2019

Umbran said:
Not really. Yes, things take more time when something goes wrong, but Hofstadter's Law is less about things going wrong, and m ore about how poorly humans estimate.

Basically, even if everything goes well, your estimate of completion date will still be wrong.

And in case @Zardnaar missed the subtlety (and the joke) of Hofstadter's Law: it's recursive. Even if you take into account Hofstadter's Law, you are underestimating, no matter how many times you take into account Hofstadter's Law.

BookBarbarian · Apr 22, 2019

Dausuul said:
It seems like they're looking for one person to be an entire IT shop (on one person's salary, of course). Or else they just have no clue what they want. Considering WotC's abysmal history with electronic offerings, I suppose that's not surprising, though.

Harzel said:
EDIT: It's very odd. I looked at their other SW job descriptions and they all seem pretty normal. This one is just wacky.

Looks to me like they want a jack of all trades to support everyone and their dog who makes a d&d app or game.

WotC hiring software developer

Guest 6801328

Guest

Zardnaar

Legend

SkidAce

Legend

Umbran

Mod Squad

Zardnaar

Legend

Enevhar Aldarion

Hero

LuisCarlos17f

Legend

Umbran

Mod Squad

Guest 6801328

Guest

BookBarbarian

Expert Long Rester

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