4 ms·

The project manager's view includes both the business side and personal fears/biases. And as people are wont to do, a PM will disguise personal doubts as busine

by wynand 17y ago

The project manager's view includes both the business side and personal fears/biases. And as people are wont to do, a PM will disguise personal doubts as business decisions. What is also never mentioned is that what employees desire is as much the business of a business as other things. But suppose we buy 100% into the maximizing shareholder mantra. If you have programmers that are interested in these technologies, your shop is probably doing some interesting work (since otherwise these programmers would not have bothered working at your shop). In this case, careful leveraging of new technology (that is, choosing something that's not too far right on the curve for your purposes) can give you a leg up on the competition, since the programmers are happier and you can offer things that the competition cannot. A manager that avoids new technologies in this context is not doing what is good for business. It is a false dichotomy that what is good for programmers is necessarily unrealistic or bad for business.

Alex63 17y ago
It would be pointless to argue that personal fears/bias are not part of the decision making process. But by the same token, I think you must recognize that programmers also have biases, one of which is to try new things. There is definitely business value in using technologies that attract and retain the best developers. But that benefit must be weighed against costs like the difficulty of finding trained programmers, instability of immature technology, etc.
- grayrest 17y ago
  > difficulty of finding trained programmers This one in particular always really annoys me. I get shot down all the time for this reason and I really don't recommend anything a competent developer couldn't pick up in a week. That means no FP and no 'interesting' architectures because programming methodologies and different architectural approaches can't be picked up without real effort. That's fine, I'm okay with that and I don't lobby for it even if I do think it'd reduce the code base by 60%. Shooting me down for hireabilty because I want to use yui3 instead of jQuery? Forbidding the use of SASS instead of CSS? If they can't pick it up, YOU DON'T WANT TO HIRE THEM.
  - Alex63 17y ago
    Honestly, I do sympathize with you. There have been many times during my career when I felt there were clear benefits to using a new/less widely used technology. At one time that meant using C instead of COBOL. Unfortunately, my arguments have rarely survived the "what if you get hit by a bus" counter-argument. If you develop something using a whiz-bang technology, and then suddenly you are not there (you get a great job offer based on what you have created), who is going to support/maintain your creation while "they" find another wizard? The ancients solved the problem by laming their smiths.

by wynand 17y ago

Alex63 17y ago

It would be pointless to argue that personal fears/bias are not part of the decision making process. But by the same token, I think you must recognize that programmers also have biases, one of which is to try new things. There is definitely business value in using technologies that attract and retain the best developers. But that benefit must be weighed against costs like the difficulty of finding trained programmers, instability of immature technology, etc.

grayrest 17y ago
> difficulty of finding trained programmers This one in particular always really annoys me. I get shot down all the time for this reason and I really don't recommend anything a competent developer couldn't pick up in a week. That means no FP and no 'interesting' architectures because programming methodologies and different architectural approaches can't be picked up without real effort. That's fine, I'm okay with that and I don't lobby for it even if I do think it'd reduce the code base by 60%. Shooting me down for hireabilty because I want to use yui3 instead of jQuery? Forbidding the use of SASS instead of CSS? If they can't pick it up, YOU DON'T WANT TO HIRE THEM.
- Alex63 17y ago
  Honestly, I do sympathize with you. There have been many times during my career when I felt there were clear benefits to using a new/less widely used technology. At one time that meant using C instead of COBOL. Unfortunately, my arguments have rarely survived the "what if you get hit by a bus" counter-argument. If you develop something using a whiz-bang technology, and then suddenly you are not there (you get a great job offer based on what you have created), who is going to support/maintain your creation while "they" find another wizard? The ancients solved the problem by laming their smiths.