Chris Nandor wrote:
>Which reminds me of an article you may wish to read, How To Manage Geeks:
>
> http://www.fastcompany.com/online/25/geeks.html
>
>It touches on some of the issues I'm thinking of.
>
This two-year old article contains some lovely prose, including this:
"This is a golden era for geeks -- it doesn't get any better than this.
In the early 1970s, an engineering recession hit, and we reached a low
point in engineering and technical salaries. Ever since then, salaries
have been going way up. Geeks have figured out that increasing their
compensation through stock options is only fair: They expect to share in
the wealth that they help to create through technology. Today technology
salaries are at least twice the national average. In fact, tech salaries
are going through the roof, and non-tech salaries are not -- which
presents a serious problem for many companies."
I can say that I personally don't allow people to call me a geek--it's
an insult. Managers _do_ love to pat tech people on their heads and call
them pet names, but they do it for their own reasons and in their own
interests--certainly not mine. Being the charmingly eccentric mad
scientist is a fun game for a few days, but when you realize you aren't
taken seriously, it wears thin quick.
I also wonder where all these people are who spend their time fighting
management. I've only rarely had to fight with management, and it's
never been over a technical decision. I've had to justify decisions to
them, which I suppose might _seem_ like fighting to the ignorant, but
which is just part of a sensible review process. Looking back, I can
think of at least one decision made on a team where the manager, who was
a tech guy, made a bad decision (Oracle over Informix for a backend to a
trouble ticket system) which was mulitplied precisely +because+ it
wasn't reviewed. Had we had to fight over it even a little bit, the
decision would've been different, and we'd've saved lots of money, time,
and frustration.
What I'm saying here is that the stereotypes that are fomented by
articles like the one above are not good for advocacy to some target
audiences. I don't want people to look at me and say, "Hmm--he's a geek,
can't communicate, fights with management all the time. Hey! Sounds like
a perfect tech hire! Let's pay him a million bucks a week to stay the
hell away from us."
>Though personally, I think Success Stories are overrated. If I know
>Perl is good, then I will use it. I don't have anything against them, I
>just don't find them very interesting from the perspective of "can Perl
>do this?", because I know that Perl can do that.
>
Then you aren't the target audience for success stories. Perhaps not
everyone knows "Perl can do that", and certainly there is disagreement
on "Should that be done in Perl?"
>No, it isn't. The reality is that Perl is the #1 language used on the
>web.
>
Yes, I saw a poll on the Sun website that proved that to me.
Seriously, I'm not going to say that counter-FUD is a wrong tactic in
public discourse. I will say that considering counter-FUD to be any more
factual than FUD is foolish.
>The perception is that it is not used very much, or isn't very
>imporant. I don't care about perception. I care about getting my job
>done, and as long as I can demonstrate to my (?:potential)? employer
>that I will get my job done, then I am set.
>
I just find this so interesting, since I sit near the guys who maintain
our little part of the intranet, and overhear items in their
conversation like, "What's wrong with it? Was it written in Perl?" The
perception there is that Perl is a bad tool, and that IIS+VB is the only
sensible solution. They, too, have demonstrated they can get the job done.
John A
