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Also interesting to hear programmers with "motivation problems" usually fail to regain motivation.

Tichy 16y ago
What does he mean by motivation problems, though? The motivation to join the company? Or to work on that particular companie's problems?
- gaius 16y ago
  Yeah, we've all had times where we're just burnt out... That would look to an unenlightened observer like "motivation problems" and it is completely recoverable from.
- arethuza 16y ago
  Motivation to work on what Joel will pay them to work on. I've known a few really bright developers who would be highly motivated if you were asking them to produce a streaming media server or debug a problem with the Linux TCP/IP stack (real examples) but who would probably die of boredom working on a bug tracker.
unshift 16y ago
I wonder if those programmers typically do better on their own projects or in their own startups. I would suspect the answer is yes, and they're probably a similar class of people to those who are good programmers with mediocre GPAs in school.
singular 16y ago
It's interesting to tie that in with the 5-10x productivity claim - what about your working environment? If you're working in a negative environment motivation is staunched which inevitably affects motivation. Another point about productivity - if you're working in an environment where people want crap shovelled out as soon as possible, then the people who care about maintainability are likely to take longer on software (though once you factor in support, something often shovelled under the carpet, you will often out-gun the 'put out crap then fix it up' approach), and thus appear less productive than mediocre colleagues. Don't get me wrong, I do agree with Joel on most of these points, and I think he's probably talking about 9-5 developers who have little motivation to improve rather than passionate but burn-out or disillusioned developers.

Tichy 16y ago

What does he mean by motivation problems, though? The motivation to join the company? Or to work on that particular companie's problems?

gaius 16y ago
Yeah, we've all had times where we're just burnt out... That would look to an unenlightened observer like "motivation problems" and it is completely recoverable from.
arethuza 16y ago
Motivation to work on what Joel will pay them to work on. I've known a few really bright developers who would be highly motivated if you were asking them to produce a streaming media server or debug a problem with the Linux TCP/IP stack (real examples) but who would probably die of boredom working on a bug tracker.

unshift 16y ago

I wonder if those programmers typically do better on their own projects or in their own startups. I would suspect the answer is yes, and they're probably a similar class of people to those who are good programmers with mediocre GPAs in school.

singular 16y ago

It's interesting to tie that in with the 5-10x productivity claim - what about your working environment? If you're working in a negative environment motivation is staunched which inevitably affects motivation. Another point about productivity - if you're working in an environment where people want crap shovelled out as soon as possible, then the people who care about maintainability are likely to take longer on software (though once you factor in support, something often shovelled under the carpet, you will often out-gun the 'put out crap then fix it up' approach), and thus appear less productive than mediocre colleagues. Don't get me wrong, I do agree with Joel on most of these points, and I think he's probably talking about 9-5 developers who have little motivation to improve rather than passionate but burn-out or disillusioned developers.