6 ms·

At the end of the article, the author explains how "once a good developer recognizes his/her own value, [she turns] to either an individualist-mercenary mindset

At the end of the article, the author explains how "once a good developer recognizes his/her own value, [she turns] to either an individualist-mercenary mindset or a collectivist guild-like mindset." He elaborates on the "guild-like mindset": > The other kind of developer turns to guild-like structures, which serve as centers of balance-of-power politics in the constant wars against the developer-capitalists. Except that instead of taking on the dynamics of class warfare along an upper-lower dimension, the conflict takes the form of exit warfare along an inside-outside dimension. Rather than form a union to negotiate with management, the talented developer will simply exit a situation he/she does not like, and use guild-like resources to move to a better situation. Stock options are simply not as effective in limiting mobility as the power of Russian nobility to whip serfs into immobility once was. I've tried to make sense of what that means, but I'm lost in the balance-of-power, upper-lower/inside-outside, and guild references. If someone has a moment, could they please explain this paragraph in clearer terms? Perhaps as a basic narrative of what a guild-minded developer would do when she recognizes her value?

moocow01 15y ago
Just to let you know you're not alone, that one went completely over my head as well.
dpritchett 15y ago
Rather than move the mountain by unionizing and forcing big employers to pay up, skilled and connected developers can simply go around the mountain and disappear to the slightly better job down the street. As long as you are wired into a community of talented developers (and perhaps willing to relocate) you will have options. Spending years trying to "fix" a BigCo IT group from the bottom up is not likely to be the most rewarding use of a talented dev's time.
Estragon 15y ago
Drawing a superficial parallel to some other poorly understood or fictional organizing principle seems to be the author's main schtick. http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or-the-office-according-to-the-office/ http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-o...
- jacobolus 15y ago
  One man’s superficial parallel is another’s thought-provoking analogy. I think a lot of what Venkat says loses substance – or even falls apart – under scrutiny, but I keep reading, because another lot of it hits on some key insights. This is a style of writing that should be valued more for the questions it raises than for the ones it answers. As another example, take Marshall McLuhan; much if not most of what McLuhan says in e.g. Understanding Media is somewhere between flimflam and complete bullshit... but the mode of thought starts the wheels turning, and some otherwise solid seeming cultural assumptions are questioned at their core... and at the end I’m really glad I spent the time reading it.
  - jonnathanson 15y ago
    Perhaps. But the danger of clean, attractive, reductionist metaphors and analogies is that the general public -- including decisionmakers in the business world -- tend to reify the analogies, and treat them like immutable laws of physics. Witness, for instance, the rise and fall (and rise again?) of "The Long Tail." As a concept, the long tail certainly applies to some businesses. But not to all, and not nearly as successfully as the concept's author once claimed. But the business world was frenzied with long-tail fever for years on end. "Long tail" became the buzz-phrase of the day, even in companies for whom the concept made no sense whatsoever. People with no understanding of the underlying principles could, nevertheless, grasp the surface-layer metaphor -- and, in so doing, assume that they understood the whole thing. That's a dangerous mindset. So there's a sort of Faustian bargain in all of this. Appending a nice metaphor on top of a concept increases the likelihood that the concept will be disseminated, talked about, and taken up. But, at the same time, it invites intellectual laziness and fads of half-baked thought.
    - bestes 15y ago
      These clean and crisp ideas are dangerous if you just repeat them (news stories, cocktail parties, management retreats), but not if you use them as a way to evaluate your other ideas, plans and so on. I do agree completly with how annoying these things get, like your long tail example, when repeated so often.
vgr 15y ago
In political science, a fairly well-known basic idea is that the two ways to dissent are exit and voice. Exit means you leave and go somewhere else, and was common in early political eras when most civilizations were small and surrounded by plenty of nomadic/lawless regions to retreat to. As populations increased, voice (i.e. protest, class warfare etc.) became increasingly common. The classic reference on this is "Exit, Voice and Loyalty" by Albert O. Hirschman. It's been on my reading list for a while. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit,_Voice,_and_Loyalty http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit,_Voice,_and_Loyalty For developers, it is swinging back towards exit, since the Internet can be considered a kind of virtual equivalent of the nomad regions to retreat to. "Center-periphery" dynamics is the common term in geopolitics for dissent dynamics driven by movement inside/outside a core. Class warfare is the better known kind of dissent involving unionization etc. and involves fighting up and down a class structure. Guilds, historically, were a medieval kind of institution that had characteristics of both exit and voice. The classic guild professions (weaving, masonry and in more recent times, things like typesetting in pre-lithography days) used their portable skills to leave kingdoms/cities and move elsewhere if they didn't like their current situation. This option was not really available to laborers tied to the land, and was essentially an urban phenomenon. This is the origin of the term "journeyman" for instance... apprentices who would follow master craftsmen around until they became masters in their own right.
- itmag 15y ago
  Dude, that is fascinating. Is there some way I can contact you?
  - vgr 15y ago
    I wrote the original piece. You can contact me via my blog http://ribbonfarm.com http://ribbonfarm.com
    - itmag 15y ago
      Oh, it's you. I am already in touch with you, heh.
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sumeetjain 15y ago
Based on the other replies (which I greatly appreciate - thank you), I think I have a better understanding of the paragraph. I was particularly interested in understanding the author's distinction between individualistic and guild-minded developers. It seems to me that he is suggesting the following: When a developer find herself working in a company that undervalues her, she will typically react one of two ways: 1. "Individualistically": Such developers might begin by bargaining for better terms at their company, but they are quick to leave the company to 1) consult, 2) join/found a startup, or (following way in the distance) 3) join another company. Individualistic developers invest time in learning new technologies to stay current, because their ability to be so mobile exists primarily because they can work in such varied environments. These developers still seek large windfalls, so they "hedge their bets" - taking high-risk jobs more often than most people. Individualistic developers are probably younger than other kinds of developers. 2. "Guild-Minded-ly": Such developers will respond to workplace injustice by leveraging their connections to find another job - probably at a company with similar specifications to the one they are leaving. A guild-minded developer might be an ex-Google employee who - over the years - has built relationships with people at Microsoft and Facebook. In order of preference, such developers seek jobs with 1) another company, 2) a startup, 3) themselves (consulting). Stock options are less effective at retaining guild-minded talent, because they are not as concerned with large windfalls. Guild-minded developers are probably older than individualistic developers, and they also probably want to stay at a job for longer. The above is probably not a 100% accurate representation of what the author was trying to say. But if it is, I don't much care for it. While it's true that some of us are more likely to work for ourselves, or tend to be risk-averse, or desire long-term relationships with a company, I don't think the author's division of mindsets encapsulates these motivations. There also seems to be a lot of overlap between his divisions: Both sets of developers are active in the community (individualistic developers via open-source, and guild-minded developers via whatever a guild is - and probably via open-source, too); both developers are very mobile despite attempts to retain them; and both groups supposedly represent highly talented ("10X") developers as opposed to average ("1X") developers. I found the article interesting - though I'll need time to digest it and form an opinion. But his decision to close with an articulation of this division is strange. It seems tangential to the larger point, which is that good developers (of whatever group) are important.
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moocow01 15y ago

Just to let you know you're not alone, that one went completely over my head as well.

dpritchett 15y ago

Rather than move the mountain by unionizing and forcing big employers to pay up, skilled and connected developers can simply go around the mountain and disappear to the slightly better job down the street. As long as you are wired into a community of talented developers (and perhaps willing to relocate) you will have options. Spending years trying to "fix" a BigCo IT group from the bottom up is not likely to be the most rewarding use of a talented dev's time.

Estragon 15y ago

Drawing a superficial parallel to some other poorly understood or fictional organizing principle seems to be the author's main schtick. http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-or-the-office-according-to-the-office/ http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-o...

jacobolus 15y ago
One man’s superficial parallel is another’s thought-provoking analogy. I think a lot of what Venkat says loses substance – or even falls apart – under scrutiny, but I keep reading, because another lot of it hits on some key insights. This is a style of writing that should be valued more for the questions it raises than for the ones it answers. As another example, take Marshall McLuhan; much if not most of what McLuhan says in e.g. Understanding Media is somewhere between flimflam and complete bullshit... but the mode of thought starts the wheels turning, and some otherwise solid seeming cultural assumptions are questioned at their core... and at the end I’m really glad I spent the time reading it.
- jonnathanson 15y ago
  Perhaps. But the danger of clean, attractive, reductionist metaphors and analogies is that the general public -- including decisionmakers in the business world -- tend to reify the analogies, and treat them like immutable laws of physics. Witness, for instance, the rise and fall (and rise again?) of "The Long Tail." As a concept, the long tail certainly applies to some businesses. But not to all, and not nearly as successfully as the concept's author once claimed. But the business world was frenzied with long-tail fever for years on end. "Long tail" became the buzz-phrase of the day, even in companies for whom the concept made no sense whatsoever. People with no understanding of the underlying principles could, nevertheless, grasp the surface-layer metaphor -- and, in so doing, assume that they understood the whole thing. That's a dangerous mindset. So there's a sort of Faustian bargain in all of this. Appending a nice metaphor on top of a concept increases the likelihood that the concept will be disseminated, talked about, and taken up. But, at the same time, it invites intellectual laziness and fads of half-baked thought.
  - bestes 15y ago
    These clean and crisp ideas are dangerous if you just repeat them (news stories, cocktail parties, management retreats), but not if you use them as a way to evaluate your other ideas, plans and so on. I do agree completly with how annoying these things get, like your long tail example, when repeated so often.

vgr 15y ago

In political science, a fairly well-known basic idea is that the two ways to dissent are exit and voice. Exit means you leave and go somewhere else, and was common in early political eras when most civilizations were small and surrounded by plenty of nomadic/lawless regions to retreat to. As populations increased, voice (i.e. protest, class warfare etc.) became increasingly common. The classic reference on this is "Exit, Voice and Loyalty" by Albert O. Hirschman. It's been on my reading list for a while. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit,_Voice,_and_Loyalty http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit,_Voice,_and_Loyalty For developers, it is swinging back towards exit, since the Internet can be considered a kind of virtual equivalent of the nomad regions to retreat to. "Center-periphery" dynamics is the common term in geopolitics for dissent dynamics driven by movement inside/outside a core. Class warfare is the better known kind of dissent involving unionization etc. and involves fighting up and down a class structure. Guilds, historically, were a medieval kind of institution that had characteristics of both exit and voice. The classic guild professions (weaving, masonry and in more recent times, things like typesetting in pre-lithography days) used their portable skills to leave kingdoms/cities and move elsewhere if they didn't like their current situation. This option was not really available to laborers tied to the land, and was essentially an urban phenomenon. This is the origin of the term "journeyman" for instance... apprentices who would follow master craftsmen around until they became masters in their own right.

itmag 15y ago
Dude, that is fascinating. Is there some way I can contact you?
- vgr 15y ago
  I wrote the original piece. You can contact me via my blog http://ribbonfarm.com http://ribbonfarm.com
  - itmag 15y ago
    Oh, it's you. I am already in touch with you, heh.
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sumeetjain 15y ago

Based on the other replies (which I greatly appreciate - thank you), I think I have a better understanding of the paragraph. I was particularly interested in understanding the author's distinction between individualistic and guild-minded developers. It seems to me that he is suggesting the following: When a developer find herself working in a company that undervalues her, she will typically react one of two ways: 1. "Individualistically": Such developers might begin by bargaining for better terms at their company, but they are quick to leave the company to 1) consult, 2) join/found a startup, or (following way in the distance) 3) join another company. Individualistic developers invest time in learning new technologies to stay current, because their ability to be so mobile exists primarily because they can work in such varied environments. These developers still seek large windfalls, so they "hedge their bets" - taking high-risk jobs more often than most people. Individualistic developers are probably younger than other kinds of developers. 2. "Guild-Minded-ly": Such developers will respond to workplace injustice by leveraging their connections to find another job - probably at a company with similar specifications to the one they are leaving. A guild-minded developer might be an ex-Google employee who - over the years - has built relationships with people at Microsoft and Facebook. In order of preference, such developers seek jobs with 1) another company, 2) a startup, 3) themselves (consulting). Stock options are less effective at retaining guild-minded talent, because they are not as concerned with large windfalls. Guild-minded developers are probably older than individualistic developers, and they also probably want to stay at a job for longer. The above is probably not a 100% accurate representation of what the author was trying to say. But if it is, I don't much care for it. While it's true that some of us are more likely to work for ourselves, or tend to be risk-averse, or desire long-term relationships with a company, I don't think the author's division of mindsets encapsulates these motivations. There also seems to be a lot of overlap between his divisions: Both sets of developers are active in the community (individualistic developers via open-source, and guild-minded developers via whatever a guild is - and probably via open-source, too); both developers are very mobile despite attempts to retain them; and both groups supposedly represent highly talented ("10X") developers as opposed to average ("1X") developers. I found the article interesting - though I'll need time to digest it and form an opinion. But his decision to close with an articulation of this division is strange. It seems tangential to the larger point, which is that good developers (of whatever group) are important.

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