Re: A step up, a step down

[Peter <pnewman1 -at- home -dot- com>]

david -dot- locke -at- amd -dot- com wrote:
> 
> I've just run into too much egotism, which seems to be the norm here in
> Austin. It wasn't in Houston.
> 
> I've also seen too much disrespect for the other people that work in
> software companies. One company I worked for staffed every position with a
> programmer. The sales reps were programmers. The trainer was a programmer.
> They went out of business quickly after selling only twelve units. They had
> focused on technological differentiation. The products lacked any real
> benefits particularly where the products where shells that still required a
> lot of programming effort to make the product work. They were elegant in
> their code to a fault. It was too complicated for the customer's programmers
> to learn.
> 
> I've been to too many interviews and heard the "You're not technical enough"
> excuse that gets used to hire only young people or enforce the methodology
> light, the base-less exclusionary, elegance is everything practices typical
> of programmers coming out of school today. One of the companies where I got
> that excuse was going to ship in two months. Six months later they were
> still looking for a TW. They cared about their code more than they cared
> about their product. The technology was wonderful. 

Programmers who don't know when to stop programming are a contributing
cause of the financial woes of many a small company.
OTOH, programmers who stop programming too soon also contribute heavily
to the financial woes of companies.

-- 
Peter
Mailto:peternew -at- optonline -dot- net

Adapting old programs to fit new machines
usually means adapting new machines to
behave like old ones.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Planning to attend IPCC 01, October 24-27 in Santa Fe?  Sign up by
October 3 and get a substantial discount!  Program information, 
online registration, and more on http://ieeepcs.org/2001/

+++  Miramo -- Database/XML publishing automation.  See us at  +++
  +++  Seybold SFO, Sept. 25-27, in the Adobe Partners Pavilion  +++
  +++ More info: http://www.axialinfo.com  http://www.miramo.com +++

---
You are currently subscribed to techwr-l as: archive -at- raycomm -dot- com
To unsubscribe send a blank email to leave-techwr-l-obscured -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com
Send administrative questions to ejray -at- raycomm -dot- com -dot-  Visit 
http://www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/ for more resources and info.