Note: Orson Scott Card is one of my favorite SF (& otherwise) Authors. I 
thought that this group might appreciate his take on programmers.

-mj-

              Software - How Software Companies Die
                   By: Orson Scott Card

     The environment that nurtures creative programmers kills
management and marketing types - and vice versa. Programming is the
Great Game. It consumes you, body and soul.  When you're caught up in
it, nothing else matters.  When you emerge into daylight, you might
well discover that you're a hundred pounds overweight, your underwear
is older than the average first grader,  and judging from the number
of pizza boxes lying around, it must be spring  already.  But you
don't care, because your program runs, and the code is fast and
clever and tight. You won.

     You're aware that some people think you're a nerd.  So what?
They're not players.  They've never jousted with Windows or gone hand
to hand with DOS.  To them C++ is a decent grade, almost a B - not a
language.  They barely exist.  Like soldiers or artists, you don't
care about the opinions of civilians.  You're building something
intricate and fine.  They'll never understand it.

             BEEKEEPING

     Here's the secret that every successful software company is based
on:  You can domesticate programmers the way beekeepers tame bees.
You  can't exactly communicate with them, but you can get them to
swarm in one place and when they're not looking, you can carry off
the honey.

     You keep these bees from stinging by paying them money.  More
money than they know what to do with.  But that's less than you might
think.  You see, all these programmers keep hearing their fathers'
voices in their heads saying "When are you going to join the real
world?"  All you have to pay them is enough money that they can
answer (also in their heads) "Geez, Dad, I'm making more than you."
On average, this is cheap.

     And you get them to stay in the hive by giving them other coders
to swarm with.  The only person whose praise matters is another
programmer.  Less-talented programmers will idolize them; evenly
matched ones will challenge and goad one another; and if you want to
get a good swarm, you make sure that you have at least one certified
genius coder that they can all look up to, even if he glances at
other people's code only long enough to sneer at it.

     He's a Player, thinks the junior programmer.  He looked at my
code.  That is enough.  If a software company provides such a hive,
the coders will give up sleep, love, health, and clean laundry, while
the company keeps the bulk of the money.

             OUT OF CONTROL

     Here's the problem that ends up killing company after company.
All successful software companies had, as their dominant personality,
a  leader who nurtured programmers.  But no company can keep such a
leader forever.  Either he cashes out, or he brings in management
types who end up driving him out, or he changes and becomes a
management type himself.  One way or another, marketers get control.

     But...control of what?  Instead of finding assembly lines of
productive workers, they quickly discover that their product is
produced by utterly unpredictable, uncooperative, disobedient, and
worst of all, unattractive people who resist all attempts at
management.  Put them on a time clock, dress them in suits, and they
become sullen and start sabotaging the product.  Worst of all, you
can sense that they are making fun of you with every word they say.

               SMOKED OUT

     The shock is greater for the coder, though.  He suddenly finds
that alien creatures control his life.  Meetings, Schedules, Reports.
And now someone demands that he PLAN all his programming and then
stick to the plan, never improving, never tweaking, and never, never
touching some other team's code. The lousy young programmer who once
worshiped him is now his tyrannical boss, a position he got because
he played golf with some sphincter in a suit.

     The hive has been ruined.  The best coders leave.  And the
marketers, comfortable now because they're surrounded by power
neckties and they have things under control, are baffled that each
new iteration of their software loses market share as the code bloats
and the bugs proliferate.  Got to get some better packaging.  Yeah,
that's it.




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