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Teamwork can be cooperative or collaborative (with most being somewhere in between) and I think it is important to be clear which type you are aiming for. Coope

Teamwork can be cooperative or collaborative (with most being somewhere in between) and I think it is important to be clear which type you are aiming for. Cooperation is like having a party and everyone brings their own food item to share with everyone else. Collaboration is everyone in the kitchen working to make the meal. Certain tasks suit themselves better to cooperation or collaboration. I am not a programmer but it seems like collaboration is harder with programming?

aidenn0 5y ago
I think you are right. Every line of code contains a massive amount of implicit knowledge. To collaborate, that knowledge must be shared, which is expensive. Things like continuous integration are designed to make collaboration easier. The old style of programming was supposed to be like your "everyone brings a food item" example, but there were always hidden gotchas: maybe everyone brings dessert and there is no main course. Continuous integration is like putting everyone in the same kitchen, so that even while people are doing their own thing, it's possible to notice such conflicts early.
a_conservative 5y ago
Thank you for delineating between cooperation and collaboration so clearly. Your comment and this article helped me to understand the differences between teams I've worked on. I've moved from collaborative teams to more cooperative teams without really being able to put my finger on what the missing magic was. Collaboration is a beautiful thing and results in much more robust results, however it can seem nearly impossible to collaborate at times. This is a very rich and nuanced subject, imo.
swiley 5y ago
Collaboration may be harder with programming but we have decades of experience (as a race) in how to make it pretty easy. Github style PRs are IMO one of the most powerful tools for this.

aidenn0 5y ago

I think you are right. Every line of code contains a massive amount of implicit knowledge. To collaborate, that knowledge must be shared, which is expensive. Things like continuous integration are designed to make collaboration easier. The old style of programming was supposed to be like your "everyone brings a food item" example, but there were always hidden gotchas: maybe everyone brings dessert and there is no main course. Continuous integration is like putting everyone in the same kitchen, so that even while people are doing their own thing, it's possible to notice such conflicts early.

a_conservative 5y ago

Thank you for delineating between cooperation and collaboration so clearly. Your comment and this article helped me to understand the differences between teams I've worked on. I've moved from collaborative teams to more cooperative teams without really being able to put my finger on what the missing magic was. Collaboration is a beautiful thing and results in much more robust results, however it can seem nearly impossible to collaborate at times. This is a very rich and nuanced subject, imo.

swiley 5y ago

Collaboration may be harder with programming but we have decades of experience (as a race) in how to make it pretty easy. Github style PRs are IMO one of the most powerful tools for this.