Re: OT (somewhat): Orson Scott Card On Programmers

>               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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