Hi, Robert, > -----Original Message----- > From: Robert Watkins [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Friday, December 17, 2004 6:59 PM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: [XP] Joel on Software > > > Kay Pentecost wrote: > > See how it would be if you *had* used ridicule: > > > > "In the best case, it allows the best people to do what > they do well with > > the schlubs doing the scut work." > > > > That statement, like many of Joels, locks people in to a particular > > role/skill/ability/level... like a statement that > "methodologies are to sell > > books," which discounts all methodologies... > > I'm having this debate at work at the moment. Management want > us to adopt a > style of development advocated by BEA: "skilled Java > programmers" sit in > the back room churning out generic controls of some sort, > whilst "less > skilled Java programmers" use WebLogic Workshop to glue the > controls together.
Sounds like a good way of boring both groups equally. <grin> > > The concerns I've got with this are several-fold, but here are three: > 1) This assumes that the less-skilled developers have more domain > knowledge, and thus know the better way to glue the controls > together. This > is not the case in my organisation at least (not as a blanket > rule, anyway). So that's an invalid assumption on management's case, right? > > 2) The fact that we do have a skills divide (and we do) is a > problem. My > preferred solution is to close the divide by training, > mentoring, and other > forms of upskilling. This is a long-term approach but it has already > demonstrated in two teams that it is extremely effective > (both of which, > BTW, are agile and using pairing extensively). Managements preferred > approach seems to be to accept the skills divide as > inevitable and work > around it. They're missing a crucial point. People grow as they live. The most motivated will learn a great deal (I use myself as an example, modestly enough <grin>) and the least motivated will learn/grow in their own way. The most motivated to learn will leave as they get better. No matter how much actually training a job offers, some of us will get more... and with more training we'll be more valuable... and if the company doesn't acknowledge that, we change companies. Every employee is an investment... and the ones who are motivated are the best investment... which the ignorant company is going to lose. Why train people to work for your competitors? > > 3) Any approach that commits to the skills divide locks the > skill divide in > place. Yes. That's a good point. The ones who don't want to be locked in place leave. > I'm convinced that the use of Workshop will seriously hinder a > developer's ability to grow past a certain point, simply because the > complexity is hidden, not removed. As an aside, this also creates the > nastiest sort of debugging problems - the ones where you > grapple with the > toolset, not the problem. Yeah. Do you know what management's rational for doing this is? And why they are seeming to ignore the successful cases you cited? Kay > > > -- > "Software is too expensive to build cheaply" > Robert Watkins http://twasink.net/ > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > To Post a message, send it to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > To Unsubscribe, send a blank message to: > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > ad-free courtesy of objectmentor.com > Yahoo! Groups Links > > > > > > > > To Post a message, send it to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To Unsubscribe, send a blank message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ad-free courtesy of objectmentor.com Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/extremeprogramming/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
