Re: On large programming teams [RE: A Swedish Idea]
- Original Message - From: Frank LaRosa [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Orion-Interest [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, April 22, 2001 11:45 PM Subject: Re: On large programming teams [RE: A Swedish Idea] Adding more programmers to a product early in its development cycle can pay off. You have to add them early enough to account for the learning curve, which slows down the project for a while as the new programmers learn and the old programmers take time to teach them. The mistake most organizations make is adding more programmers after the project is overdue without taking into account the learning curve. Good managers know this and account for it, and bad managers don't realize that this is an expense that can really add up. Turnover is VERY expensive. It becomes easier if your codebase is well architected, using common design patterns, and you have a well documented system (complete list of features, clear requirements list, functional specs, etc), but there still is the problem of learning how things are done at a company. This becomes even more critical on small teams. Unfortunately there are more bad managers out there than good ones (Peter Principle - in a hierarchically structured administration, people tend to be promoted up to their level of incompetence. ). Unfortunately there are more poorly architected systems out there than good ones. All we can do is work with what we are given, and remeber that if the place sucks, you can leave. Even in this market, it's not that difficult to go out and find a new job that will make you happy, and will probably even pay more, bunches more (just remember, if you don't ask for more, you won't get it). The best way to manage a late project is to cut the project's scope. The next best way is to extend the due date. The worst thing to do is demand more programming in less time, because this serves to reduce the quality of the programming. Agreed. But even worse is demanding more programming, and expanding the project scope :) Seriously though, long hours are the spawn of satan. It's ok for a while if you NEED to crunch down and get something done, but as a way of life it sucks. You will be much happier and much more productive if you are able to get out and enjoy life, and aren't having to deal with your PHB hovering over you, or have to sit in meetings for hours because somebody likes to hear themself talk. Sorry I got a little off topic for Orion-Interest, but I was on a roll ;-)~ Noah Nordrum = - Original Message - From: Frank Eggink [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Orion-Interest [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, April 21, 2001 7:01 AM Subject: On large programming teams [RE: A Swedish Idea] The following is one of the classic readings on programming at large. 25 years old and I can still recommend it: The Mythical Man-Month from F.P. Brooks jr. Yes, it's even 26 years old and talks about OS/360, some odd system which is now out performed by your 100$ marketvalue Pentium I machine, but programming is done by humans which haven't much changed over the last 25 years. On the experience I have had so far with large projects I can only agree with him. Changing one of his 'laws' slightly: Adding more programmers to a product makes the product worse. So far I have not found evidence against this law ;-) FE On Thursday, April 19, 2001 3:06 PM, Jay Armstrong [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] wrote: Generally, I agree with the comment about Micro$oft quality of code, though I've seen some pretty horrible code from outside the US, too. :) Bill Gates may be from the US, but Micro$oft employees come from all over the world. Visit Redmond, WA, USA and you'll see for yourself. At 09:50 AM 4/19/01 +0200, you wrote: And Micro$oft programmers are from...? I suppose that the country they're from produce the shittiest code of em all :) Johan - Original Message - From: Joseph B. Ottinger [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Orion-Interest [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2001 4:20 PM Subject: Re: A Swedish Idea Personally, I'm becoming more and more convinced that not only is Sweden full of lousy programmers, but they're all lousy in congruent ways just to make the rest of the world's jobs harder. I say we all start using Bavarian products, if only because Bavarian names seem to have a better vowel/consonant ratio. Say, Randy... what country are YOU from? (That's the leading indicator for quality of code...) On Wed, Apr 18, 2001 at 08:49:24AM -0500, Kemp Randy-W18971 wrote: Now this may be a dumb idea, and I am just thinking up brainstorms to promote Orion, but it occurred to me that both Mysql and Orion are in Sweden. Now I don't know how big Sweden is, but perhaps a meeting between the two teams could find ways to mutually promote or bridge
RE: On large programming teams [RE: A Swedish Idea]
Yes, and the pun is that you get something after one month, but it is not a baby you would like to have. On Saturday, April 21, 2001 4:13 PM, Kemp Randy-W18971 [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] wrote: Yes! A wonderful book I read many years ago. There used to be a saying I heard, which management practices universally. If a woman can produce a baby in nine months, then nine women can produce a baby in one month. The only problem with Gates is that he has no real competition. Linux is probably the closest, and they don't really have a cutting share of Bill's market. -Original Message- From: Frank Eggink To: Orion-Interest Sent: 4/21/01 7:01 AM Subject: On large programming teams [RE: A Swedish Idea] The following is one of the classic readings on programming at large. 25 years old and I can still recommend it: The Mythical Man-Month from F.P. Brooks jr. Yes, it's even 26 years old and talks about OS/360, some odd system which is now out performed by your 100$ marketvalue Pentium I machine, but programming is done by humans which haven't much changed over the last 25 years. On the experience I have had so far with large projects I can only agree with him. Changing one of his 'laws' slightly: Adding more programmers to a product makes the product worse. So far I have not found evidence against this law ;-) FE On Thursday, April 19, 2001 3:06 PM, Jay Armstrong [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] wrote: Generally, I agree with the comment about Micro$oft quality of code, though I've seen some pretty horrible code from outside the US, too. :) Bill Gates may be from the US, but Micro$oft employees come from all over the world. Visit Redmond, WA, USA and you'll see for yourself. At 09:50 AM 4/19/01 +0200, you wrote: And Micro$oft programmers are from...? I suppose that the country they're from produce the shittiest code of em all :) Johan - Original Message - From: Joseph B. Ottinger [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Orion-Interest [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2001 4:20 PM Subject: Re: A Swedish Idea Personally, I'm becoming more and more convinced that not only is Sweden full of lousy programmers, but they're all lousy in congruent ways just to make the rest of the world's jobs harder. I say we all start using Bavarian products, if only because Bavarian names seem to have a better vowel/consonant ratio. Say, Randy... what country are YOU from? (That's the leading indicator for quality of code...) On Wed, Apr 18, 2001 at 08:49:24AM -0500, Kemp Randy-W18971 wrote: Now this may be a dumb idea, and I am just thinking up brainstorms to promote Orion, but it occurred to me that both Mysql and Orion are in Sweden. Now I don't know how big Sweden is, but perhaps a meeting between the two teams could find ways to mutually promote or bridge the two products. Just a thought. Speaking of Sweden, since Rickard O. from Jboss lives there, does anyone know of Magnus or Karl have meet him? In once sense, but Jboss and Orion are trying to make this EJB technology available to more people. -- --- Joseph B. Ottinger [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://epesh.com/ IT Consultant
Re: On large programming teams [RE: A Swedish Idea]
Adding more programmers to a product early in its development cycle can pay off. You have to add them early enough to account for the learning curve, which slows down the project for a while as the new programmers learn and the old programmers take time to teach them. The mistake most organizations make is adding more programmers after the project is overdue without taking into account the learning curve. The best way to manage a late project is to cut the project's scope. The next best way is to extend the due date. The worst thing to do is demand more programming in less time, because this serves to reduce the quality of the programming. - Original Message - From: Frank Eggink [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Orion-Interest [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, April 21, 2001 7:01 AM Subject: On large programming teams [RE: A Swedish Idea] The following is one of the classic readings on programming at large. 25 years old and I can still recommend it: The Mythical Man-Month from F.P. Brooks jr. Yes, it's even 26 years old and talks about OS/360, some odd system which is now out performed by your 100$ marketvalue Pentium I machine, but programming is done by humans which haven't much changed over the last 25 years. On the experience I have had so far with large projects I can only agree with him. Changing one of his 'laws' slightly: Adding more programmers to a product makes the product worse. So far I have not found evidence against this law ;-) FE On Thursday, April 19, 2001 3:06 PM, Jay Armstrong [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] wrote: Generally, I agree with the comment about Micro$oft quality of code, though I've seen some pretty horrible code from outside the US, too. :) Bill Gates may be from the US, but Micro$oft employees come from all over the world. Visit Redmond, WA, USA and you'll see for yourself. At 09:50 AM 4/19/01 +0200, you wrote: And Micro$oft programmers are from...? I suppose that the country they're from produce the shittiest code of em all :) Johan - Original Message - From: Joseph B. Ottinger [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Orion-Interest [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2001 4:20 PM Subject: Re: A Swedish Idea Personally, I'm becoming more and more convinced that not only is Sweden full of lousy programmers, but they're all lousy in congruent ways just to make the rest of the world's jobs harder. I say we all start using Bavarian products, if only because Bavarian names seem to have a better vowel/consonant ratio. Say, Randy... what country are YOU from? (That's the leading indicator for quality of code...) On Wed, Apr 18, 2001 at 08:49:24AM -0500, Kemp Randy-W18971 wrote: Now this may be a dumb idea, and I am just thinking up brainstorms to promote Orion, but it occurred to me that both Mysql and Orion are in Sweden. Now I don't know how big Sweden is, but perhaps a meeting between the two teams could find ways to mutually promote or bridge the two products. Just a thought. Speaking of Sweden, since Rickard O. from Jboss lives there, does anyone know of Magnus or Karl have meet him? In once sense, but Jboss and Orion are trying to make this EJB technology available to more people. -- --- Joseph B. Ottinger [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://epesh.com/ IT Consultant
RE: On large programming teams [RE: A Swedish Idea]
Yes! A wonderful book I read many years ago. There used to be a saying I heard, which management practices universally. If a woman can produce a baby in nine months, then nine women can produce a baby in one month. The only problem with Gates is that he has no real competition. Linux is probably the closest, and they don't really have a cutting share of Bill's market. -Original Message- From: Frank Eggink To: Orion-Interest Sent: 4/21/01 7:01 AM Subject: On large programming teams [RE: A Swedish Idea] The following is one of the classic readings on programming at large. 25 years old and I can still recommend it: "The Mythical Man-Month" from F.P. Brooks jr. Yes, it's even 26 years old and talks about OS/360, some odd system which is now out performed by your 100$ marketvalue Pentium I machine, but programming is done by humans which haven't much changed over the last 25 years. On the experience I have had so far with large projects I can only agree with him. Changing one of his 'laws' slightly: "Adding more programmers to a product makes the product worse". So far I have not found evidence against this law ;-) FE On Thursday, April 19, 2001 3:06 PM, Jay Armstrong [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] wrote: Generally, I agree with the comment about Micro$oft quality of code, though I've seen some pretty horrible code from outside the US, too. :) Bill Gates may be from the US, but Micro$oft employees come from all over the world. Visit Redmond, WA, USA and you'll see for yourself. At 09:50 AM 4/19/01 +0200, you wrote: And Micro$oft programmers are from...? I suppose that the country they're from produce the shittiest code of em all :) Johan - Original Message - From: "Joseph B. Ottinger" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: "Orion-Interest" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, April 18, 2001 4:20 PM Subject: Re: A Swedish Idea Personally, I'm becoming more and more convinced that not only is Sweden full of lousy programmers, but they're all lousy in congruent ways just to make the rest of the world's jobs harder. I say we all start using Bavarian products, if only because Bavarian names seem to have a better vowel/consonant ratio. Say, Randy... what country are YOU from? (That's the leading indicator for quality of code...) On Wed, Apr 18, 2001 at 08:49:24AM -0500, Kemp Randy-W18971 wrote: Now this may be a dumb idea, and I am just thinking up brainstorms to promote Orion, but it occurred to me that both Mysql and Orion are in Sweden. Now I don't know how big Sweden is, but perhaps a meeting between the two teams could find ways to mutually promote or bridge the two products. Just a thought. Speaking of Sweden, since Rickard O. from Jboss lives there, does anyone know of Magnus or Karl have meet him? In once sense, but Jboss and Orion are trying to make this EJB technology available to more people. -- --- Joseph B. Ottinger [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://epesh.com/ IT Consultant
