6 ms·

I scored a 7/7! We also score a 1 on the Joel test, and that's because I helped setup a version control server soon after arrival. We could score around a 4-5

I scored a 7/7! We also score a 1 on the Joel test, and that's because I helped setup a version control server soon after arrival. We could score around a 4-5 if the emergency project I'm working on to switch platforms ever hit production, but it's been nearly a year of "it's a month away, you need to scramble to get it done in time or the company goes under". I wonder if perhaps I should start looking for new employment or something....

Clubber 9y ago
Spolsky should be required reading for any IT manager.
eterm 9y ago
If you seriously score 1, then getting up to a score of 2 with a bug tracker will improve your life, the other 10 questions rank lower in cost/benefit. The rest is much harder to influence and make happen, but if you can't get a bug database to happen before your new-person enthusiasm / grace period ends then I'd jump ship. I've a bunch of experience working for places which don't score well on the Joel test. It's not the end of the world but you will have to make adjustments so you don't dream of better while reading about how other people have build systems which spin up instances and run integration tests on every check-in while simultaneously running machine learning over their live logging for early fault detection. Remember those kind of things are the exception rather than the norm and focus on the things you can change. You probably have a month or two more before your "I can fix this!" attitude fades and you end up the jaded developer that you saw when you arrived and wondered, "how do they put up with this environment?".
- user5994461 9y ago
  It's 2017. It's not even acceptable to consider working in a company that's a 1. Should have left during the first week.
  - troels 9y ago
    Nah, eterm is right. If you can fix it, you can stay. But if that isn't possible, I wholeheartedly agree.
    - reificator 9y ago
      The promise of a new platform would allow our score to jump rapidly. But that new platform never actually comes.
      - troels 9y ago
        If you tried and still aren't getting anywhere, move on to option #2.
        reificator 9y ago
        Yep, that's the truth.
    - user5994461 9y ago
      It can't be fixed. All hope is delusional. It's a one, it's so bad to get to a one, you might not even get a computer to work on!
  - reificator 9y ago
    There is a specific benefit/policy that is incredibly rare, that I personally need to maintain a halfway decent quality of life. Otherwise I'd be out of there.
  - eterm 9y ago
    There are good things that can come from staying. If (when, really) the productivity gains come, management will notice and you'll be known as that person who improved things. This will give you good favour. And if it doesn't work out, next time you get asked in interview, "What are some challenges you have faced?" you can talk about how you introduced Git and JIRA to a company that didn't have source control and bug tracking. You can talk about how you tried to change a company culture from hand-editing files in production to having deployment scripts. You can talk about the challenges you faced. It gives you a clear answer to "Why are you leaving?", you can talk honestly about your expectations in terms of what a company should provide for its developers, talk about how your current company isn't or wasn't meeting those and use that to indirectly talk about how much of the joel test the prospective company can meet. It will give you a fresh sense of perspective too. In the future when you're struggling with a build system you can think, "well at least we're better than we were at Initrode". And maybe it's just a really nice place to work, not all work is about being as efficient as possible at all times. Sometimes you can stand back and realise that while other teams could do what you're doing in half the time, you're still getting paid to do this job and maybe your colleagues are warm and friendly.
- reificator 9y ago
  I track bugs on my own, but I don't have a good enough system to handle our current setup IMO. (65 different codebases that do the same thing but can't share code because reasons, plus some stragglers that actually do unique things.) I have attempted on multiple occasions to encourage others to use something, anything with me, but to no avail. The standard response when you bring up a bug is "we have too many emergencies going on right now, we can't handle that until someone notices it and says something", which is usually the point where it becomes an emergency. :\ I have good reason to work here, but it's quickly getting drowned out by the reasons to run to the hills.
caseysoftware 9y ago
About 12 years ago, I worked for a company that scored a one. I and a number of other people on the team started working to improve things. Over a span of about six months, we had the team up to a 7. There was still plenty of room to improve but we all felt massive accomplishment. Then our Director (also a developer) told us "this SVN thing isn't useful" and demanded that we stop using version control. Then he saw Mantis (our bug tracker) and complained about how ugly it was. Instead of choosing a prettier one, we had to use his Excel spreadsheets on the local fileshare. It got worse and worse until our 7 went back to a 2 in about 60 days. Six months later, 8 of the 10 had left. Even the people who hadn't originally been on board with the changes but saw the benefits left.
- reificator 9y ago
  I feel your pain.
- lordnacho 9y ago
  > About 12 years ago, I worked for a company that scored a one. I and a number of other people on the team started working to improve things. Over a span of about six months, we had the team up to a 7. There was still plenty of room to improve but we all felt massive accomplishment. Similar story here, but it's a problem when most of the Joel points are only held up by one person. Eg only one person is driving the version control (managing the server, making people use it, and making people use it. Also making people use it.) Or only one person can be expected to clean up the project so it builds in one action, and you're then also the only person who can document this build action. Or only one person is running the bug DB, and others are resistant to using it. Or only one guy is reading about new tools. When that happens, your Joel score isn't really a 7 or whatever. Or it's a very fragile 7. I do remember an incident where a guy who'd worked for 7 years with us wondered out loud whether there was some magical piece of software that could tell you what the production code was on a given day in the past. That's the kind of thing that makes your respect for the guy collapse.
  - caseysoftware 9y ago
    As noted on my original comment, it was myself and a number of others. Of the 10 on the team, there were four of us doing it - I was mid, then one junior, and two seniors - which (iirc) covered 3 of our 4 major projects. A few other team members were convinced later because we jsut had a batter clue of what was going on, what we were planning to do, and what was deployed. This definitely wasn't a lone wolf effort.
throwaway170827 9y ago
hmm this really hit 'close to home'. It's 6/7 for me and been going on like this for close to 2 years. What keeps me is the fact it is a very small team and by leaving I would put things into turmoil - both on compentency side and timing. But really not sure how much longer I can go on...
- anarazel 9y ago
  I've been there. And this feeling IMO I'd one of the very big alarm signs...
- markeroon 9y ago
  Not your fault, bud. Offer to help train your replacement if you feel that bad and it!
- brailsafe 9y ago
  Just leave. It's not your fault. If the cost is your well-being, fuck the company.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- madmork 9y ago
  sorry for the late reply - crazy few days. Time to go if you ask me. My post tomorrow basically addresses the 'ok, WTF do I do now?" question that comes next ;)
jmcgough 9y ago
I don't think I'd join a tech company (unless I was the first engineer) that didn't have a vcs.
- reificator 9y ago
  Wasn't a tech company, it was a company that needed developers. You have to figure you're going to improve things, and VCS was one of my first additions to the company.
cannonedhamster 9y ago
I hear you when you say the emergency all the time. I've been at that since our product launched. Now every issue that comes in is an emergency and there's no thought given to resolving it. The entire scope of what my company does has changed and no one trusts that it will stay the same as we're literally at the whim of upper management. We started playing buzzword bingo and it took a single internal email from the higher ups to hit bingo. Management at least seems to be trying to fix things on my side, but their priorities are driven by outside forces.

Clubber 9y ago

Spolsky should be required reading for any IT manager.

eterm 9y ago

If you seriously score 1, then getting up to a score of 2 with a bug tracker will improve your life, the other 10 questions rank lower in cost/benefit. The rest is much harder to influence and make happen, but if you can't get a bug database to happen before your new-person enthusiasm / grace period ends then I'd jump ship. I've a bunch of experience working for places which don't score well on the Joel test. It's not the end of the world but you will have to make adjustments so you don't dream of better while reading about how other people have build systems which spin up instances and run integration tests on every check-in while simultaneously running machine learning over their live logging for early fault detection. Remember those kind of things are the exception rather than the norm and focus on the things you can change. You probably have a month or two more before your "I can fix this!" attitude fades and you end up the jaded developer that you saw when you arrived and wondered, "how do they put up with this environment?".

user5994461 9y ago
It's 2017. It's not even acceptable to consider working in a company that's a 1. Should have left during the first week.
- troels 9y ago
  Nah, eterm is right. If you can fix it, you can stay. But if that isn't possible, I wholeheartedly agree.
  - reificator 9y ago
    The promise of a new platform would allow our score to jump rapidly. But that new platform never actually comes.
    - troels 9y ago
      If you tried and still aren't getting anywhere, move on to option #2.
      - reificator 9y ago
        Yep, that's the truth.
  - user5994461 9y ago
    It can't be fixed. All hope is delusional. It's a one, it's so bad to get to a one, you might not even get a computer to work on!
- reificator 9y ago
  There is a specific benefit/policy that is incredibly rare, that I personally need to maintain a halfway decent quality of life. Otherwise I'd be out of there.
- eterm 9y ago
  There are good things that can come from staying. If (when, really) the productivity gains come, management will notice and you'll be known as that person who improved things. This will give you good favour. And if it doesn't work out, next time you get asked in interview, "What are some challenges you have faced?" you can talk about how you introduced Git and JIRA to a company that didn't have source control and bug tracking. You can talk about how you tried to change a company culture from hand-editing files in production to having deployment scripts. You can talk about the challenges you faced. It gives you a clear answer to "Why are you leaving?", you can talk honestly about your expectations in terms of what a company should provide for its developers, talk about how your current company isn't or wasn't meeting those and use that to indirectly talk about how much of the joel test the prospective company can meet. It will give you a fresh sense of perspective too. In the future when you're struggling with a build system you can think, "well at least we're better than we were at Initrode". And maybe it's just a really nice place to work, not all work is about being as efficient as possible at all times. Sometimes you can stand back and realise that while other teams could do what you're doing in half the time, you're still getting paid to do this job and maybe your colleagues are warm and friendly.
reificator 9y ago
I track bugs on my own, but I don't have a good enough system to handle our current setup IMO. (65 different codebases that do the same thing but can't share code because reasons, plus some stragglers that actually do unique things.) I have attempted on multiple occasions to encourage others to use something, anything with me, but to no avail. The standard response when you bring up a bug is "we have too many emergencies going on right now, we can't handle that until someone notices it and says something", which is usually the point where it becomes an emergency. :\ I have good reason to work here, but it's quickly getting drowned out by the reasons to run to the hills.

caseysoftware 9y ago

About 12 years ago, I worked for a company that scored a one. I and a number of other people on the team started working to improve things. Over a span of about six months, we had the team up to a 7. There was still plenty of room to improve but we all felt massive accomplishment. Then our Director (also a developer) told us "this SVN thing isn't useful" and demanded that we stop using version control. Then he saw Mantis (our bug tracker) and complained about how ugly it was. Instead of choosing a prettier one, we had to use his Excel spreadsheets on the local fileshare. It got worse and worse until our 7 went back to a 2 in about 60 days. Six months later, 8 of the 10 had left. Even the people who hadn't originally been on board with the changes but saw the benefits left.

reificator 9y ago
I feel your pain.
lordnacho 9y ago
> About 12 years ago, I worked for a company that scored a one. I and a number of other people on the team started working to improve things. Over a span of about six months, we had the team up to a 7. There was still plenty of room to improve but we all felt massive accomplishment. Similar story here, but it's a problem when most of the Joel points are only held up by one person. Eg only one person is driving the version control (managing the server, making people use it, and making people use it. Also making people use it.) Or only one person can be expected to clean up the project so it builds in one action, and you're then also the only person who can document this build action. Or only one person is running the bug DB, and others are resistant to using it. Or only one guy is reading about new tools. When that happens, your Joel score isn't really a 7 or whatever. Or it's a very fragile 7. I do remember an incident where a guy who'd worked for 7 years with us wondered out loud whether there was some magical piece of software that could tell you what the production code was on a given day in the past. That's the kind of thing that makes your respect for the guy collapse.
- caseysoftware 9y ago
  As noted on my original comment, it was myself and a number of others. Of the 10 on the team, there were four of us doing it - I was mid, then one junior, and two seniors - which (iirc) covered 3 of our 4 major projects. A few other team members were convinced later because we jsut had a batter clue of what was going on, what we were planning to do, and what was deployed. This definitely wasn't a lone wolf effort.

throwaway170827 9y ago

hmm this really hit 'close to home'. It's 6/7 for me and been going on like this for close to 2 years. What keeps me is the fact it is a very small team and by leaving I would put things into turmoil - both on compentency side and timing. But really not sure how much longer I can go on...

anarazel 9y ago
I've been there. And this feeling IMO I'd one of the very big alarm signs...
markeroon 9y ago
Not your fault, bud. Offer to help train your replacement if you feel that bad and it!
brailsafe 9y ago
Just leave. It's not your fault. If the cost is your well-being, fuck the company.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
madmork 9y ago
sorry for the late reply - crazy few days. Time to go if you ask me. My post tomorrow basically addresses the 'ok, WTF do I do now?" question that comes next ;)

jmcgough 9y ago

I don't think I'd join a tech company (unless I was the first engineer) that didn't have a vcs.

reificator 9y ago
Wasn't a tech company, it was a company that needed developers. You have to figure you're going to improve things, and VCS was one of my first additions to the company.

cannonedhamster 9y ago

I hear you when you say the emergency all the time. I've been at that since our product launched. Now every issue that comes in is an emergency and there's no thought given to resolving it. The entire scope of what my company does has changed and no one trusts that it will stay the same as we're literally at the whim of upper management. We started playing buzzword bingo and it took a single internal email from the higher ups to hit bingo. Management at least seems to be trying to fix things on my side, but their priorities are driven by outside forces.