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Comment by gabereiser | Hacker News Reader

> ...but the release just felt like a blip in our planned schedule before jumping into more sprints and fires and thinking about the next iteration.

Welcome to agile? I know the feeling, honestly, but in software engineering there's always more bugs to fix, more features to develop, more needs of the users that require your attention. Cutting a release should feel like letting go, and indeed at places it does, but ultimately once the release is out in the wild it's done. The only thing to do then is to move forward with the next iteration, the next sprint, the next release.

Sorry, but are there examples or cites for this harassment from the users? Was it fallout from the layoffs? I feel like I need a bit more context.

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To put it bluntly: we don't need more context. The author has graciously shared a story about her private decision-making and intimate details about her emotional well-being. Even if some readers may want to probe further into her private life, she ultimately owes us nothing. We are reading her blog post out of passing curiosity, and not assessing the merit or evaluating the truth of any claims she is making.

Sorry to single out the parent comment. I don't know what the true intent was, but there's a trend on HN of commenters demanding to know private details they don't have an actual need to know. It's nice when the author answers questions but we should be happy with what we're given.

You're right, we don't need more context. I would have liked more context. This isn't the first time I've seen a first-timer write about a toxic work environment to the point where they quit. I'm not demanding anything, just wishing I had more context to be more empathetic to her situation.

I doubt HN would ever be that sympathetic to her situation [1] because this is a website of people who overwhelmingly find the tradeoffs of software development to be worth it.

[1] and that's probably OK. We don't need to feel empathy for everyone who feels dissatisfaction in the world. That would probably be debilitating, honestly, seeing as how so many people are dissatisfied.

LOL, why would "we" need more context? It's her own experience, she's making her own choices, and she's telling her story. If she feels she was harassed, then she was harassed. She's not suing people, she's not shaming anyone in particular. That's really the end of it.

I'd not have the gall to demand evidence and pass judgement on the life experience of others.

This person owes us nothing, and if anything, we should thank her for sharing her story, and no more.

> Welcome to agile?

Agile is not essential to software development. IMO Agile should be thrown in the trash heap of technology history ASAP. Does Firefox even need a "release schedule"? Why? There's rarely a good reason for fixed software schedules.

It's funny, Google had a pretty tight software schedule... until it came time to publish their App Store privacy details, and then they decided they didn't need a release schedule after all. Except it backfired because their software just assumed there would be frequent updates, and now the apps are showing warnings because they haven't been updated.

Death to schedules. Yes, there's always work to be done, but it doesn't have to be done by an arbitrary deadline.

100%. There are a multitude of ways to deliver software, agile being one of them. Mozilla is/was pretty strong on agile methodologies. I worked with a guy who came from Mozilla and was an Agile Coach essentially.

> I feel like we (the readers) need a bit more context.

Speak for yourself. They provided a candid perspective about their career at Mozilla. I wouldn't demand additional context if they didn't already feel it relevant to provide.

She was harassed pretty hard in a very sexist way on some 4chan-like discussion boards. If you're very interested in details, you can scroll through her Twitter few months back.

She personally got a lot of abuse on Twitter about the FF Android rewrite. Nothing to do with layoffs. She doesn't need to prove this to you, but it was all visible at the time so I'm sure you can find it if you don't believe her.

Never said I didn’t believe her, I do. I just didn’t know the extent of it as it goes well beyond harassment.

I have no particular data for her harassment, but I've read here and on other media outlets some pretty angry comments about that Android rewrite. I can totally imagine some people venting on Twitter, and even targeting parts of the team. Though I can't say I've seen that myself... just hypothesizing.

That's what I wanted to know. Was there targeted harassment like this from users? Was it just twitter flame? Did she get angry emails? I understand it has no bearing on the OP but I feel like it would add gravity to her experience if we had some context to empathize with.

Hi! Emily here. Added some more context in a footnote to the original blog post about the worst types of harassment I experienced.

Thank you. I’m not doubting it happened. I thank you for updating the post with the extent of the harassment. It’s something I think people don’t realize how bad it is. Or has become. I’m sorry you experienced that.

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