Jason Scott wrote:
As a single developer there isn't much of a reason.
For a development team - needing to coordinate activities and debate designs on whiteboards - on site presence is required. Unless I were to spend lots of money on collaboration and video environments to facilitate a home-based workplace.
I certainly agree that there are times to get together around a
table/whiteboard. But unless you've got some kind of intensive "agile"
thing going on (and working), 20% of the time in the office should be
more than enough, most of the time, anyway.
I collaborate regularly with several other developers and it's really
quite amazing what you can do with email, skype , and/or a conference
bridge on the PBX.
Personally, I'd rather allocate the money I would need to spend on such a setup
back into developer salaries, call me crazy. Not to mention that some of the
more socially capable developers actually enjoy getting out of the house :-)
I do enjoy my office days, like I said, I'm trying to get down there at
least twice a week for a full day of work.
As for the money, I don't get it. The overhead on an internet
connection is less than having to give your dev an office. I've got a
little cube when I'm on-site, and it's not too bad, but there are only
three others in the room. But once the talking or fixing little things
is over and it's time to get back to building something non-trivial, I
wouldn't be able to do my job without an office with a door that
closes. Or I can just stay home, where I have just that.
And just to keep the "how behind the times are you" comments at bay, every time
I've visited Google in Mountainview, Cisco in San Jose, Citrix in Ft Lauderdale, or
Microsoft in Redmond, the offices were packed with staff. Cavemen, huh?
Most programmers are working for business in industries other than
software. If you're doing large-scale application development over a
range of products involving massive numbers of people, I can see why
you'd want most everyone on-site. If you're dealing with less than a
dozen developers, like 90% of everyone (Yes, I'm pulling that number out
of the air), telecommuting should be a perfectly manageable and often
advantageous option.
-Tim
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