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> Nobody on your team wants to use source control? Create your own CVS repository Oh for God's sake, stop! Create a git repository, a subversion resository, a

• gojomo 18y ago
  In fairness to the article, it was written in 2001, before git or darcs existed, and while subversion development and awareness was still at an early stage. CVS was the reasonable free choice at that time.
  • marijn 18y ago
    Oh, good point. When something's posted here, I kind of assume it is recent.
• jamesbritt 18y ago
  "Also, I don't get this thing Americans seem to have for private offices." Spolsky is a fan of the book Peopleware, which I believe advocates for private offices, even for non-Americans.
• kylec 18y ago
  Also, I don't get this thing Americans seem to have for private offices. I guess cubicle farms are ugly, and if your co-workers are all annoying nerds being able to shut a door might be nice, but I've always preferred open, multi-desk offices where you can discuss things with the people around you. Joel has written at length about the need for programmers to have spaces where they cannot be interrupted, and from personal experience I agree wholeheartedly. From http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000068.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000068.html: Here's the simple algebra. Let's say (as the evidence seems to suggest) that if we interrupt a programmer, even for a minute, we're really blowing away 15 minutes of productivity. For this example, lets put two programmers, Jeff and Mutt, in open cubicles next to each other in a standard Dilbert veal-fattening farm. Mutt can't remember the name of the Unicode version of the strcpy function. He could look it up, which takes 30 seconds, or he could ask Jeff, which takes 15 seconds. Since he's sitting right next to Jeff, he asks Jeff. Jeff gets distracted and loses 15 minutes of productivity (to save Mutt 15 seconds). Now let's move them into separate offices with walls and doors. Now when Mutt can't remember the name of that function, he could look it up, which still takes 30 seconds, or he could ask Jeff, which now takes 45 seconds and involves standing up (not an easy task given the average physical fitness of programmers!). So he looks it up. So now Mutt loses 30 seconds of productivity, but we save 15 minutes for Jeff.
  • marijn 18y ago
    Makes sense -- I've probably been guilty of interrupting others, though it's rarely bothered me. Anyway, private offices are lonely.
    • JabavuAdams 18y ago
      I work in an open-concept room of half-height cubicles where the mean time between interruptions is something like 10 minutes. We've got developers, artists, and some loud phone-users in the same room. Some of the developers yell at artists across the room to make requests. Anytime anyone in the room looks at a cool video, or something, a crowd congregates around their desk, and the noise level goes even higher. To a manager, it looks like the room is abuzz with activity. To the creators whose jobs require concentration, it's hellacious.
      • jamesbritt 18y ago
        "Room abuzz with activity" is highly over-rated, yet, like the count of lines of code, seems to have magic meaning for some people.
• theoneill 18y ago
  Also, I don't get this thing Americans seem to have for private offices. I think it's related to that thing they have for productivity.
• cschneid 18y ago
  I think an open plan is ok when everybody is doing the same kind of work (creation vs. communication). But I sit in a cube farm with half and half. I need silence to write code, but the guy next to me has to be on the phone most of the day to coordinate his world. Both of us can try to do our jobs, but we will interfere with each other.