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2003-05-10Software Engineering and DevelopmentTeam DevelopmentReturn of the super programmer? What's the fit?Star Search: Power Programmers. John Parkinson's April 1, 2003 (uh oh?!) article on Power Programmers or 10X Programmers, the ones that seem to be an order-of-magnitude more capable and will be the 5% of the team who produce 75% of the final code.There are a number of important observations. «This was my introduction to "Power Programmers"�sometimes called 10x programmers because they are an order of magnitude better than everyone else. Power Programmers achieve this performance without turning to sophisticated tools or methodologies and without necessarily requiring heroic work efforts�although they do tend to have odd or very individualistic working habits. I could never find very many of them�in my best year I had around ten out of a staff of nearly 150�and they were pretty hard to keep around for the long term. Yet it's amazing to look back at how many great software products (think Lotus 1-2-3) and systems (think everything Internet pre-Netscape) we owe to these supercapable programmers.» «Since discovering Squeak and inSORS, I've found quite a few other Power Programmer groups and individuals writing great code very productively. Data compressors, video codecs, security products, speech recognition technology, even developer tools are attracting Power Programmers. Few of them use the tools and methods of corporate IT, or even of large software companies�and they don't seem to be missing them a bit. Nor do they pay much attention to the codified processes and principles of software quality management, whilst still producing stable, efficient code fast and efficiently.» «'What can we learn from this? I'm not yet ready to suggest that we can replace the whole software development process with Power Programmers. But I am just about ready to suggest that we have gone too far in trying to normalize performance in software development, and that we may be following a blind alley as far as future capability models go. We may have simultaneously made software development so restrictive, and yet so complex, that programmers good enough to do what we need can't tolerate the methods and measures we make them use. «In some areas of software development, automation will be the right answer. But automation has its limits, and examining flexible manufacturing analogies to see where we can leverage the very real capabilities represented by Power Programmers looks like a really good idea right now. «It won't be easy. We will have to change a lot of things in corporate IT to attract and (to the extent possible) retain Power Programmers. And we'll probably have to upgrade significantly our management and measurement processes. But there are some things you just can't pull off with brute force, some problems you can't solve with average people, no matter how well trained and equipped. For these problems you need the most talented people you can find. You need to find a way to incorporate some Power Programmers.» ACM News Service: Star SearchCIO Insight (04/03) No. 25, P. 33; Parkinson, John John Parkinson of Cap Gemini Ernst & Young concludes that, as far back as the late 1970s, the most sophisticated and reliable software applications were chiefly the work of a small portion of programmers who were labeled 10X or Power Programmers, but these individuals fell out of favor when companies started concentrating on boosting the performance of average programmers via tools and methodologies. 2003-05-05Computing MilieuEconomics of ITMore organizing and some counter-arguments to off-shore inevitabilityInternational Backlash - Computerworld "It always amazes me how people say outsourcing is irreversible and inevitable," says Marcus Courtney, president and organizer of the Seattle-based Washington Alliance of Technology Workers. "The global economy is not like the weather. We do have control over it. The free traders like to use words like "unstoppable" because that is the language of disempowerment for people to assert their democratic freedoms. Increasing offshoring of tech jobs means few jobs created in the U.S., increased job insecurity, lower wages and benefits."And a look at the page as a source of UI design principlesI am intrigued by the use of the top of this page and the amount of location and menu information it provides, using a small corporate identification, a row of tabs, a menu line below the front tab, and a set of location .. > ... > placers below that. All in a pretty small amount of real-estate. To top it off, the tab-specific menus are pull-downs that you can roll over. I really don't like the idea of scripting the client, but this is very nice. You may need to register to visit this site. If you can, it is worthwhile. They don't send me anything I don't ask for.International Backlash - Computerworld. This is the normal page that is served up to my browser. I haven't looked at the HTML. What caught my attention was the menu bar, invovling tabs, then menus along edge of the front tab, and these menu items are actually pull-downs when rolled over. This fits into some UI standards I am working on in class. Meanwhile, the article points out that there is a Technical Association in Seattle that is organizing IT workers and others. Very interesting. International Backlash - Computerworld. This is the printable, plain version of the page. (I am researching Web site UIs). It is also an article about the backlash against off-shore outsourcing of back-office and IT work. More on the dislocations that are felt in Europe as well as North America. New Scientist: Intel to release machine-learning library. A package designed to help developers build adaptive systems that use Bayesian learning is on its way, for June release.
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