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

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

Curt Sampson writes:
 > 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.

Well, that's a resource cost.  If, as a manager, you consistently
ignore people's comfort levels you will at best be hated, at worst
unemployed.  So the manager has to put time, effort, and often money
into helping people deal with rapid change.

Also, we weren't talking about general change.  We were talking about
specific practices, namely product roll-out and languages, which have
enterprise-wide implications.  This means that not only do you have to
make your own people happy with the change, you also need to get your
clients and suppliers and complementers on board.

 > >  > 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.

Well, I'm actually not really interested in going there; you're
hijacking the thread which started with a direct reference to the
innovator's dilemma, which you claimed others didn't understand. :-)

I will say that the reason I'm not interested in going there is
because I agree with you that size matters, and it is going to slow
adoption of new technologies in Google, at least as long as they can
afford to throw more money, brains, and people at overcoming the
deficiencies of Python, Java, and C++.

BTW, one of the reasons why Google sticks to those languages, I'm
told, is that they work very well together.  It's relatively easy to
port from Python to Java to C++, or to write portions of your Python
programs in C++, as you need more performance.

 > > 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.

Yeah, but how do well do they support swapping in a Ruby ROM for a
long-time Python programmer?  Do you propose that each new Haskell
programmer who knows little about Java spend at least half her time
porting old Java programs just so that when maintenance is actually
needed, she'll already have a program written in a language she
understands?  Etc, etc.

 > > 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?

Both.

 > 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.

Well, feel free to set up your straw man.  Which set of languages
would you choose?

 > 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.

Well, I would say that's exactly right; they couldn't help it.  But
that's because they are constrained by their business strategy and the
courts to make gratuitous changes and avoid simplification.  I mean,
do you dare *re*factor when the DoJ will file to break you up as soon
as it looks like any of your software can be factored in the first place?