Joel's definition of Programmer Manager is closer to what I know as a Product Manager (except for the co-ordinating teams bit). The APM definition of Program M

Joel's definition of Programmer Manager is closer to what I know as a Product Manager (except for the co-ordinating teams bit). The APM definition of Program Manager (which covers a lot more than the software field) is someone who manages a portfolio of projects, balancing resources to deliver results. This is also roughly the definition that Wikipedia agrees with. I agree with a lot of the rest though, especially: "It helps, as a program manager, to be pretty good at coding yourself. This is unfair. Program managers aren’t supposed to write code. But programmers tend to respect programmers a lot more than non-programmers, no matter how smart they are. It is possible to be an effective program manager without being a coder, but the burden of earning the respect of the programming team will be higher." That goes for Project/Program managers as well as Product managers.