4 ms·
While you can't judge programming and knowledge work in general the way you judge physical labor, it would help a manager to know when programmers are likely wa
by Edmond 13y ago
While you can't judge programming and knowledge work in general the way you judge physical labor, it would help a manager to know when programmers are likely wasting time and company money. This is especially important for resource constraint startups.
I guess the question should be, Are your programmers working primarily to serve your need as a business or are they devoting their effort and time on work that is more aligned with their own ideology (choice of technology and approach).
A few months back I was in Philly talking to a startup founder whose company was at death's door because he kept hiring developers who came in and replaced whatever the last person did because it wasn't what they preferred. This phenomenon is a much bigger problem than the question of whether programmers are working hard or not.
- southpawgirl 13y agoIt can be really unappealing to deal with an existing codebase which contains whimsical choices, and ideally a team should have a turnover low enough to ensure continuity and consistency of coding style. And to overwork people it's hardly a good strategy to keep people sticking around. The problem you mention might be connected with the issue of overworking more than it seems, imho.
- Edmond 13y agoYou are right, working with someone else' code can be quite a task sometimes but it comes with the territory. It almost always happens that a programmer attempts to redo work and end up creating the same problems that the original developer already solved. I think it really comes down to perspective, once you learn to view programming as a means to an end, not an end in itself, I think you become more tolerant of what looks like shabby code.
- UK-AL 13y agoUntil the shabby code starts making even the simplest changes, take days to complete. Keeping code in good condition, delivers a large amount of business value over the long term. Shabby code delivers business value short term, but reduce it long term.
- Edmond 13y agoshort term benefit vs long term value is certainly something to consider... Going back to my earlier point, the important thing is for managers to know how to recognize when a developer's effort is aligned with business interest as opposed to simply allowing developers do what serves their own ideology. I think once you do that, it becomes easy to discuss/address things like technical debt.