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Successful companies such as Oracle Corporation burden their marketing departments with overlapping products rather than stifle programmer initiative. For examp
by IsaacL 17y ago
Successful companies such as Oracle Corporation burden their marketing departments with overlapping products rather than stifle programmer initiative. For example, during most of the late 1990s there were at least three different Web servers that you could buy from Oracle, each one backed up by a document explaining why it was the one true path toward database-backed Web site glory.
Otherwise a good article, but what does this mean? That because Marketing often makes life difficult for developers, you should instead make life difficult for Marketing?
The average home cannot have a grand piano but almost any office can.
This as well. The article seems to be making good point after good point, then throws out curveballs like this.
- andreyf 17y agoRe: grand piano, I'd guess this is hard to understand for someone who doesn't play piano. It might be that of 200 engineers, there's a high chance that about a dozen of them will love playing on a grand piano enough to make it worthwhile for them to come in on weekends every once in awhile, just to be able to "get away" and play a bit. Re: marketing, I'd imagine a lot of the time, marketing happiness verus engineer happiness is a tradeoff. Either you stick to very concrete business deadlines imposed by perceived market, making lots of engineering sacrifices along the way, or you build things at the pace set by engineering. You can certainly over-do it in either direction, but there's also a lot of workable gray area.
- potatolicious 17y agoMy office has a gorgeous view of the city (and I'm a hobbyist photographer) - but I've yet to come in on a weekend with my camera to take any pictures. Most people desire a separation between work and play, and I think one ought to respect that. It's unreasonable to expect your employees to embody their job at all hours of the day - including weekends! At some point they will leave the office, and chasing them and trying to reel them back in with perks or goodies is just going to generate antagonism. You expect happy engineers yet you clearly have no respect for their personal time, how does that work out?
- pchristensen 17y agoThe camera is a poor analogy because it invites you to explore many different places. A better analogy might be a theater room with cushy chairs, big screen, and great sound. That would make you want to go to the office to use it. Your camera does the opposite.
- LogicHoleFlaw 17y agoI have lived in places where pianos were present, and my quality of live went up considerably when someone who knew what they were doing took a moment to play during the day. Even a little bit provides a huge lift to the spirits.