On 23/07/13 13:22, Abigail wrote:
On Tue, Jul 23, 2013 at 12:43:05PM +0100, Dirk Koopman wrote:
On 23/07/13 11:03, Abigail wrote:
I sometimes express myself too forcefully. I am trying to suggest that
there is a balance to be struck. Further more, I believe that a
successful developer does this (after a while :-) automatically.
Then there aren't many succesful developers.... I've found it very hard
to convince people that "thou shalt not create technical debt" shouldn't
be taken as a dogma. I've given talks at various (Perl) conferences where
three quarters of the audience would have thrown rotten tomatoes at me
if they had some.
In my experience, most developers don't have much of a business sense,
and instead of acknowledging that, they look down upon people whose
specialty it is.
In my experience, people that look down on business are biting the hand
that will feed them and their families. But you are right, in that there
aren't many of this sort of programmer about. But business people also
have a part to play here: they should understand that it *may* take more
time to do something worthwhile and not _forever_ focus on the "quick
win" and worry about the consequences later.
It took me (and others) time and effort to train Olivetti salesmen not
to say "yes" to everything automatically without thought (it was a long
time ago - the 1970s). But then having got there, they were superb at
selling the stuff we did have and then getting sufficient margin to do
any extra development. Mind you, one wonderful technique they had was
inflating the price to 15+% over list/estimate and allowing themselves
to be beaten down to 5-7% over :-).
Cooperation is truly what one needs in *any* successful business, not
just a startup. A good business/sales operation and a development
operation that works together as a team. Mutual respect and
acknowledgement of each group's strengths gives a business something
greater than the sum of its parts.
Could be one definition of profit?
Dirk
