Please tell me that you at least like Pizza! My worst experience of overbearing management here was actually far from being a trendy new language. It was working in a large investment bank and we had every one of 60 developers screaming to upgrade from Java 1.4 to 1.6
In that case, the manager flat-out refused, based on the previous 1.3 -> 1.4 upgrade which killed performance (most due to the obscene number of explicit garbage collections). In that case, one very-risk adverse individual was able to significantly hold back the entire project based on a single previous bad experience. This I definitely classify as too much choice being in the hands of management. On the other hand, I can image developers being too frivolous if it went the other way, although I haven't personally witnessed that. So I'd be very interested if somebody had. On 5 October 2010 12:31, Carl Jokl <[email protected]> wrote: > It would not have worked anyway if you had as I am t-total. I don't > even drink coffee. I can remember one of my technical managers being > quite taken back by that: "How can you be a programmer and not drink > coffee. Programmers are organisms which turn coffee into code". > In summary, I am a freaky programmer. > > To the question whether the management should be picking languages and > libraries. Unless they are technical, in an ideal world they should > not but in practice the management are usually the ones who control > the money and as such tend to call the shots. I see a lot of > technologies and presentations / seminars on technology which seem to > be marketed at management types. Pushing why technology X is the right > tool for them and using the kind of jargon that management like. At > least the management interested in leveraging corporate synergies and > thinking outside the box. The programmers have the expertise but the > management particularly upper management have the money and the power > to make decisions. > > Is this a good thing? Maybe not. However saying that, what do you > propose be done about it? I imagine only small start-ups with small > groups of developers or perhaps some contractors have room to dodge > this problem. Any company of any size is going to have some management > and directors and such. Was it not also highlighted in one of the pod- > casts about the potential danger of giving developers total free reign > on what technology they use? The danger that they will jump to use > some trendy new technology rather than a more tried and tested but > less exiting one? I would expect that depends on the experience and > maturity of the developers. I am sure there are developers who can be > trusted to make the right choice and be left alone but it depends very > much on the individual and I don't think there is a one size fits all > answer to the question. > > On Oct 5, 12:13 pm, Kevin Wright <[email protected]> wrote: > > Just don't tell them I had to bribe you with beer to say that... > > > > On 5 October 2010 12:12, Carl Jokl <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > > > On Oct 5, 11:52 am, Reinier Zwitserloot <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > Tired of Kevin's bazillion attempt to rehash the same old discussion, > > > > even after Dick asked for some rest? Chrome user? > > > > > > Have no fear! This plugin will hide everything he writes: > > >http://dl.dropbox.com/u/368812/HideKW.crx > > > > > > You can uninstall it from the extensions page (Window - Extensions). > > > > > > NB: Credit goes to Casper Bang. I merely changed a name. > > > > > > On Oct 5, 10:59 am, Kevin Wright <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > > > Given the range of alternate languages available on the Java > platform, > > > and > > > > > the quality of tooling for these, it now seems reasonable that > > > developers > > > > > could have more freedom to choose the language they work with based > on > > > their > > > > > needs: > > > > > > > e.g. > > > > > groovy for small in-house apps needed quickly > > > > > jruby for web development > > > > > scala/clojure for financial work > > > > > etc. > > > > > > > By targeting the JVM, many traditional concerns over changing > languages > > > take > > > > > on far less significance; such as the need for a new > infrastructure, > > > lack of > > > > > in-house operations knowledge and integration with an existing > > > codebase. > > > > > > > With the agile and software craftsmanship movements already > empowering > > > > > develops to make more decisions over process and planning (and to > take > > > > > responsibility for these), does it now make sense to also put more > > > control > > > > > over the choice of language into the hands of the people who will > > > actually > > > > > be using it? > > > > > > > Of course, there will be management concerns. It's important to be > > > able to > > > > > hire future developers, and fragmentation could occur if multiple > teams > > > each > > > > > chose a different language. On the other hand, are these > > > > > considerations fundamentally different when choosing libraries such > as > > > > > hibernate, spring, lambdaj or lombok, or when choosing testng in > > > preference > > > > > to lombok? and is code reuse in many organisations really high > enough > > > that > > > > > you can't already claim the codebases of different projects are > > > fragmented? > > > > > In truth, is the suffering all that great where we *already* use > > > different > > > > > languages for parts of a system (SQL and javascript anyone...)? > > > > > > > Where is the balance here? Is it really still acceptable, in this > day > > > and > > > > > age, for management to mandate that "though shalt use Java, and > only > > > Java"? > > > > > > > -- > > > > > Kevin Wright > > > > > > > mail / gtalk / msn : [email protected] > > > > > pulse / skype: kev.lee.wright > > > > > twitter: @thecoda > > > > > ....but....but....I kind of like Kevin. > > > > > -- > > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups > > > "The Java Posse" group. > > > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > > > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > > > [email protected]<javaposse%[email protected]> > <javaposse%[email protected]<javaposse%[email protected]> > > > > > . > > > For more options, visit this group at > > >http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en. > > > > -- > > Kevin Wright > > > > mail / gtalk / msn : [email protected] > > pulse / skype: kev.lee.wright > > twitter: @thecoda > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "The Java Posse" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]<javaposse%[email protected]> > . > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en. > > -- Kevin Wright mail / gtalk / msn : [email protected] pulse / skype: kev.lee.wright twitter: @thecoda -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en.
