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The downside to paying more is that bad programmers don't leave because they will never find a better-paying job. People will stay even if they don't feel comfo
by southerndrift 8y ago
The downside to paying more is that bad programmers don't leave because they will never find a better-paying job. People will stay even if they don't feel comfortable with either their job or their colleagues. You have to fire them for vague reasons. That's a kind of stress that not every manager can bear so you have to prepare your management layer accordingly.
- vonmoltke 8y ago> You have to fire them for vague reasons. This is the US. You can fire them for no reason. The only reason to do it for "vague reasons" instead is to try and avoid the unemployment insurance hit.
- expertentipp 8y agoThis stereotyping is just exhausting. If in my career I have both - years-long stay in a boring corporation and multiple job-hopping periods couple of months each, am I double incompetent, double competent, or these nullify each other?
- southerndrift 8y agoThat's undecidable because it is only an implication in one direction.
- dunpeal 8y agoThis comment is irrelevant to the US. You can fire people for any reason, or no reason at all. Incompetent programmers can and do get fired for performance reasons all the time. It's simply not an issue, and in reality if you're a "bad programmer" you'd have trouble getting hired, let alone staying anywhere for more than a couple of months.
- JoeAltmaier 8y agoNever worked at a big company in the US I'm guessing. Because they are havens for bad programmers, who inevitably advance to some position of authority and can crush the spirit and productivity of whole departments. Now with 'agile' and code review hurdle on checkin etc, it can actually be impossible to improve the situation. Even Silicon Valley has become infected with this.
- ryandrake 8y agoSorry, not sure if I read correctly, but are you advocating against code reviews before committing code?
- JoeAltmaier 8y agoI'm advocating against self-appointed police setting themselves up as arbiters of style and technique, who delay projects by weeks and multiply the effort required to pass their arbitrary notions of how a pointer should be compared to null or whatever. Its insulting, pointless and aggravating, especially when you spend Labor Day weekend cranking to get a feature ready for a demo, but can't check it in Monday because so-and-so doesn't like some style issue.
- ryandrake 8y agoSounds like valid criticism of a particular review process or reviewer, not reviews as a general gate to pushing code. I’ve worked at places without mandatory code review and the code in those places is consistently awful.
- JoeAltmaier 8y agoI've never experienced anything else along those lines, so your mileage may vary of course. But once a company falls into this trap, its not something the new guy can fix.
- hellisothers 8y agoBad programmers have no problem getting hired because the broken hiring process in our industry rewards those who know how to do the right song and dance (data structure and algs) independent of how good they actually are. I know, have worked with, and have laid off devs like this.