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I'm curious why more money equals faster or better software engineering. Didn't we collectively learn from the Mythical Man Month and others that throwing peopl

I'm curious why more money equals faster or better software engineering. Didn't we collectively learn from the Mythical Man Month and others that throwing people at a software problem doesn't scale? More engineers on a project increases communication and administrative overhead; the additional overhead and context costs quickly exceeds any productivity gained. Given this: Why would more money scale, when people - presumably the thing the money would pay for - has already been shown not to scale?

BoorishBears 9y ago
That applies to a single project and a single team. With much less than a quarter billion dollars you could spin off new companies, "Slack Calls For Firefox Inc." and "Slack Calls For Edge Inc." each with it's own development team dedicated to supporting a given browser, and still not break the bank. It's just a business choice. It's not they can't, do just don't feel it's worth it.
godzillabrennus 9y ago
It shouldn’t be hard to document their API’s and then build a unique team to develop a front end for each browser. With $250M in funding and three major browsers I think it’s reasonable they could support them all that way.
solarkraft 9y ago
Apparently they have a really good communications tool.
convolvatron 9y ago
one would hope that if you had skilled upper management sitting on 1B they would be able to invest that in both good engineers, and good builders of teams. and if those people weren't able to be effective to be able to track that and take appropriate action (again, with that giant financial lever). the screwy part is that effective upper manager needs to have a deep and intuitive notion about software development organizations in order to be able to evaluate statements coming out of software effectively. but thats alot to ask, so they hire a vp eng with a nice sounding resume. that person turns out to not be very effective, and they translate their lack of discernment into a tier of equally useless middle managers. and if by accident a effective engineer gets hired they are completely unable to change things for the better because all the useless padding drowns out their voice. everyone big company says that they have the resources of a big company but the tactical flexibility and empowerment of a small one. imagine what would you could accomplish were that to be true.

BoorishBears 9y ago

That applies to a single project and a single team. With much less than a quarter billion dollars you could spin off new companies, "Slack Calls For Firefox Inc." and "Slack Calls For Edge Inc." each with it's own development team dedicated to supporting a given browser, and still not break the bank. It's just a business choice. It's not they can't, do just don't feel it's worth it.

godzillabrennus 9y ago

It shouldn’t be hard to document their API’s and then build a unique team to develop a front end for each browser. With $250M in funding and three major browsers I think it’s reasonable they could support them all that way.

solarkraft 9y ago

Apparently they have a really good communications tool.

convolvatron 9y ago

one would hope that if you had skilled upper management sitting on 1B they would be able to invest that in both good engineers, and good builders of teams. and if those people weren't able to be effective to be able to track that and take appropriate action (again, with that giant financial lever). the screwy part is that effective upper manager needs to have a deep and intuitive notion about software development organizations in order to be able to evaluate statements coming out of software effectively. but thats alot to ask, so they hire a vp eng with a nice sounding resume. that person turns out to not be very effective, and they translate their lack of discernment into a tier of equally useless middle managers. and if by accident a effective engineer gets hired they are completely unable to change things for the better because all the useless padding drowns out their voice. everyone big company says that they have the resources of a big company but the tactical flexibility and empowerment of a small one. imagine what would you could accomplish were that to be true.