Re: work times & accommodation @tokyo, WAS: Re: [tlug] Embedded linux dev wanting to find work in Tokyo.. Seeking advice.

[Curt Sampson <cjs@example.com>]

On 2008-07-29 16:52 +0900 (Tue), Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:

> How about if I rephrase this to "You are about to take on a task that
> requires you to double your team from 4 to 8 members.  How do you
> teach the four newbies good Haskell style?"

I wouldn't bother. I'd sit them down in the corner with a computer and
Internet connection each, say "have fun browsing the web for the next
few months," and then my team of four would go get the job done.

More seriously, what's the purpose of this requirement that I double the
team? Typically, in my experience, it would be: " because we need to get
twice as much done, and that's the way I, as a manager not very savvy
about software, have declared that that's the way we'll do it, whether
it works or not." Which is of course the root of my whole complaint in
the first place.

Everybody already knows that there's a huge difference in the
productivity of individual programmers, and that the right four-person
team will do far more work than the wrong eight-person team, or even the
wrong twenty-person team. Yes, you can make programmers interchangable
if you use them only at the very lowest productivity levels, but not
only will it cost you more money (due to communications and management
costs alone, if nothing else), but you'll most likely end up with an
inferior product because fifty dumb people put together do not make a
smart one.

cjs
-- 
Curt Sampson       <cjs@example.com>        +81 90 7737 2974   
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