manalang
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07:04:39 pm on July 25, 2005 | # |
Another great article from Joel Spolsky: Hitting the High Notes. This time it’s about how software companies are made by the quality of their programmers. It sounds obvious, but in today’s world of outsourced programming, software companies should really step back and look at the quality of their workers. Joel starts off with this premise:
Best Working Conditions ? Best Programmers ? Best Software ? Profit! Fog Creek Software, a company Joel started, was founded based on this theory. Joel’s article dives into some nice proof points that show that better programmers are more productive and are more likely come up with innovations that mediocre programmers will unlikely be able to come up with themselves.
The real trouble with using a lot of mediocre programmers instead of a couple of good ones is that no matter how long they work, they never produce something as good as what the great programmers can produce.
Five Antonio Salieris won’t produce Mozart’s Requiem. Ever. Not if they work for 100 years.
…
The Creative Zen team could spend years refining their ugly iPod knockoffs and never produce as beautiful, satisfying, and elegant a player as the Apple iPod. And they’re not going to make a dent in Apple’s market share because the magical design talent is just not there. They don’t have it.
The mediocre talent just never hits the high notes that the top talent hits all the time. The number of divas who can hit the f6 in Mozart’s Queen of the Night is vanishingly small, and you just can’t perform The Queen of the Night without that famous f6.
A great read, as usual, from Joel.
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