4 ms·

I blame the tools because they were inadequate at the time and inferior to even rudimentary things like sccs. Not every programmer is a superstar. Visual basi

• igouy 5y ago
  > … replace a green screen in a team of 20 other programmers… I was briefly involved with a project that sounds a bit like that — a 2 week training course for current staff, then rewrite everything from data model to U/X in half-the-usual time because someone said OO is more productive. That project used ENVY/Developer. The staff admin deleted the repo. The staff wouldn't have passed phone screen for Smalltalk work (maybe some would have in 6 or 12 months). When the people don't know the basic tools, that's what matters.
  • smackeyacky 5y ago
    It does help if they know the tools. The main struggle we had wasn't that they weren't smart, most of them were fantastic domain experts who just didn't have that inquisitive tech spark that sets different breeds of IT people apart. There is nothing wrong with being a domain expert who isn't that keen on cutting edge tools, but back then giving them smalltalk was a mistake. VB and powerbuilder were theoretically inferior, but far more productive for guys like that.