Re: work times & accommodation @tokyo, WAS: Re: [tlug] Embedded linux dev wanting to find work in Tokyo.. Seeking advice.

[Curt Sampson <cjs@example.com>]

On 2008-07-23 02:28 +0900 (Wed), Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:

> I think the resource costs and coordination problem, not to mention
> risk aversion, involved in changing these practices are a bigger
> constraint than irrational decision-making.

Well, that's not been my experience with introducing (or trying to
introduce) agile development into various companies. In almost all
cases, one hits a point sooner or later where people will (usually)
admit that further changes would provide benefits, and often even that
what they're doing now is sub-optimal and that they know how to fix it.
But even in small groups, where the cost of the change is relatively
cheap and the savings are obvious, often they just don't fix whatever it
is. It appears to be a matter of people's comfort level with change.

>  > Actually, I no longer buy the idea that Google is startup-like-
>  > disruptive. In some areas they might be, but I can see definite areas
>  > where they are actively opposing the use of better technology.
> 
> *sigh* Startups are generally not disruptive.  Better technology per
> se has nothing to do with disruption.

Ok, please replace "disruption" with "able to seize and use improved
technologies and practices." That was what I really meant.

>  > One example would be in programming languages; they're stuck on C++,
>  > Java and Python, essentially, all of which have large known weaknesses
>  > that other more modern languages are solving. This is particularly
>  > ironic because the main reason poor languages are used is because
>  > companies don't have smart enough developers or feel they can't be
>  > sure of continuing to attract enough smart enough developers, which is
>  > obviously a not problem for Google.
> 
> Communication is the key, not the strength of the language used.

Communication is more important than the strength of the language used,
certainly, but that's like saying that a car's roundness of wheels is
more important than engine power. Sure, if it's got rectangular wheels,
it's dead in the, er, water. But having the roundest wheels in the world
with a week engine will lose to wheels slightly out of round but a much
more powerful engine.

Strength of language is one of the more important factors in programming
productivty. In fact, one of the reasons for this is that it aids
communication.

> Programmers need to work together, often with predecessors who are no
> longer with the company.

I well know this, and more powerful languages support that.

> Have you ever been a project manager in a company the size of Google?

While I didn't have the official title, I have shared management duties
on small (a few dozen people involved) projects in very large (tens of
thousands of employees) companies, yes.

It doesn't seem terribly relevant, though, since my main point is that
Google appears to be more like companies its own size rather than like a
startup, though other people have been saying the opposite.

>  > The apparent reason for this, from what I've seen, is that they have
>  > relatively primitive application deployment systems they they aren't
>  > trying to improve. This is also an old problem that much work has gone
>  > into solving.
> 
> I think you sound like the man with a hammer to whom every problem
> looks like a nail.  These are precisely the areas you pride yourself
> on, which leads me to ask what evidence you have that these
> technologies (which admittedly have been successful for you with your
> clients) would really solve the problems of companies like Google?

Which technologies? The deployment stuff, or better languages?

For the deployment issue, I'm sure there are always improvements that
can be made to deployment systems that will help things, but I brought
that up because it's the excuse that I've heard for Google to restrict
the languages their programmers may use to a small, rather weak set.

As for languages themselves, there is ample evidence that some are more
powerful than others, and every language Google is using has come under
pretty heavy criticism for various things. Are you really going to argue
that, given the choices of any languages at all in the world, and a
group of very, very smart programmers, C++, Java and Python would be the
most powerful (or nearly so) set of languages to use? I don't think that
even many Google staff would argue that.

>  > Actually, I'm about ready to buy Robert X. Cringly's opinion that once
>  > a company grows beyond a certain size, it simply can't be disruptive
>  > any more. There are too many non-entrepreneurs in it, or whatever. (He
>  > posits that this was the issue with Windows Vista;
> 
> Anybody who links Windows Vista to the notion of disruptive innovation
> needs to be beaten with a cluebat until unconscious.[1]....

Sorry, that was my misuse of the word "disruptive." How about, "ability
to change and make things better." While Windows Vista has some
sustaining innovations in it, it also does a lot of things a lot worse
than Windows XP, to the point where a noticable number of customers
prefer to forego the innovations to avoid the bad side. His argument
is that there was nobody at MS trying to produce an OS that a sizable
fraction of their customers would think was worse than the previous
version, but they couldn't help it.

cjs
-- 
Curt Sampson       <cjs@example.com>        +81 90 7737 2974   
Mobile sites and software consulting: http://www.starling-software.com