It’s hard to pick a single best work by Joel Spolsky, but if I was forced to, I’d pick The Joel Test. It’s his own, highly irresponsible, sloppy test to rate the quality of software, and when anyone asks me what is wrong with their team I usually start by pointing the questioner at the… more
Early on in your mastery of a complex thing you are going to catastrophically overestimate your ability. Your confidence is going to be artificially high. This new job, hobby, or sport is going to appear magically easy. You’re going to feel gifted. Those watching your miraculous aptitude keep saying, “beginner’s luck”, but that’s neither what… more
We need to talk about your cat because your cat is pissing me off. Your cat is eating my socks. No. Really. Your cat has eaten four pairs of my socks. Yes, I know cats can’t digest cloth. Your cat does not have super-feline sock-eating and digestion skills. Your cat nibbles the toes off my… more
Everyone is an adjustment. When you’re interacting with anyone, you leave the core you and become slightly them. This is not a betrayal of who you are, this is the middle ground we define between any two people. It’s a place of compromise so we can communicate. There are those people with whom this is… more
“Can I work remote?” I cringe. It’s Ian and Ian is a senior engineer. He’s a rock. He gets it done. I never have to ask him twice and, after six years, Ian has every right to ask to work remote. But I’m still freaked because my first thought when anyone asks to work remote… more
As we discovered in A Glimpse and a Hook, it’s almost a miracle when the phone rings and a recruiter wants to set up a phone screen. The fact is, someone, somewhere in the organization has successfully mapped you to an open position. This is a really big deal because, in my experience, the chance… more
Tony passes me the hallway at lunch, basketball in hand, and the conversation goes like this: Me: “Hey Tony, how was basketball?” Tony: “It’s good. I was playing with Phil and he mentioned his team was working on Gimbleflibbits.” Me: “Gimbleflibbits? That sounds a whole lot like our effort on Trimbleflibbits. Did you mention we… more
Anyone who’s worked with me has stumbled on my policy on remote employees. The short answer is, “No”. The longer answer is, “The team is moving far too fast for you to miss the various hallway conversations which randomly point us in different directions.” Software is art. It’s team art. When the team collectively decides… more
There’s an article somewhere in my head which dissects the intense knee jerk reaction a lot folks have regarding managers. The question is, “Why do so many of us automatically assume that our managers are boobs?” The follow-on question is, “Even if we don’t think our managers are not boobs, why do we constantly ridicule… more
That Fez article. Oy. It took four times longer than expected to write, but I’m happy with the result even though I feel once I pass the fourth page of writing that I’m violating some weblog brevity rule. As I endlessly rewrote the article, I realized that I’ve fully embraced the ALL CAPS STANDARD as… more
