developers: "Beware of Methodologies"

[Darren Dirt]

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000024.html

good analogies, thought-provoking as usual for Mr. Spolsky.




also good: "the longer it takes to task switch, the bigger the penalty you pay for multitasking ... [for] *programmers* task switches take a really, really, really long time" (wow does this hit home right now, for me at work presently)

[Thorin]

Yeah, Joel's always a good read.  My current team lead has read pretty much every article by Spolsky, and has even done the Joel Test to see how our organization rates (we only got 50%).

[Darren Dirt]

Yeah, Joel's always a good read.  My current team lead has read pretty much every article by Spolsky, and has even done the Joel Test to see how our organization rates (we only got 50%).

You mean 6? Ouch.


Oh, and #8 "Do programmers have quiet working conditions?", that should really be understood as more than just reduced noise, but also include reduced INTERUPTIONS -- including frequent last-minute short-deadline urgent tasks, and ongoing multi-tasking expectation (in direct conflict with the other Joel article I read earlier today... grrr...)

[Thorin]

Yeah, we failed on 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, and 12.  Although 11 we only failed on because writing code during the interview isn't a policy, but almost everyone on the team now had worked previously with the owner or the team lead, so their coding skills were already known.

Still, it was interesting to see a supervisor care enough to take the Joel Test.