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 2008-07-30 05:04 +0900 (Wed), Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:
 > 
 > > Second, you seem to be back to that argument, but what I'm saying is
 > > that the team leader has *already* done the best she can to improve
 > > the current team's productivity, but has been asked to perform a task
 > > that is too big for it.
 > 
 > What you don't seem to realize is, they might just be f*cked.

I'm well aware of that; it's not like I haven't already cited Brooks
(although that was a different paper).  What *you* seem to want to
avoid admitting is that they might very well not be f*cked.

 > "Just double the size of the developement team and we'll get more
 > done" is the standard managerial response for people who don't
 > understand why software development is different from engineering
 > or manufacturing.

And it's the correct response: twice the size of the team can do twice
as much programming (up to variations in average productivity).  The
fallacy is assuming that doubling the size of team will allow any
given task to be done in half the time.

 > Note that I'm not saying, "go wild and let anybody who wants to write
 > any part of our systems in Haskell." I advocate a measured approach that
 > uses proper risk management at all stages. But to avoid risk by avoiding
 > this sort of thing entirely is to take a much bigger risk over the long
 > term.

OK.  But then you have to admit you have no idea what the leading edge
of Google might be doing, because it makes sense to have most of the
company following rules for now.  We know that they hire people like
Andrew Morton to just do what they feel like doing, as well as people
like Guido van Rossum to do "real work" along with making Python
better[1], and my XEmacs buddy Martin to do nothing but make Java
better.  I would be surprised if they don't have a team or two
experimenting with next generation languages.


Footnotes: 
[1]  Interestingly enough, I've never seen anybody bitch when Guido
says "I needed this at work and I think it should go in."  I mean,
this is like a super-clear conflict of interest a la Richard Keller
pushing Ada at the expense of a working compiler when he was GCC
maintainer.