“Can you check if that will cause a diamond dependency”
“Can you try deflaking this test? Just add a retry if you need or silence it and we’ll deal with it later”
“I’ll refactor that so it’s harder to call it with a string that contains PII”
To me, those instructions are a little like OP’s “understand an algorithm” and I would need to do all of them without needing any support from a teammate in a predictable amount of time. The first 2 are 10 minute activities for some level of a rough draft, the 3rd I wrote specifically so it has an upper bound in time, and the “refactor” could take a couple hours but it’s still the case that one I recognize it’s possible in principle I can jump in and do it.
“Wrap that in a semaphore”
“Can you check if that will cause a diamond dependency”
“Can you try deflaking this test? Just add a retry if you need or silence it and we’ll deal with it later”
“I’ll refactor that so it’s harder to call it with a string that contains PII”
To me, those instructions are a little like OP’s “understand an algorithm” and I would need to do all of them without needing any support from a teammate in a predictable amount of time. The first 2 are 10 minute activities for some level of a rough draft, the 3rd I wrote specifically so it has an upper bound in time, and the “refactor” could take a couple hours but it’s still the case that one I recognize it’s possible in principle I can jump in and do it.