Re: [tlug] STM (was: Re: work times & accommodation @tokyo)

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

Curt Sampson writes:
 > On 2008-07-29 17:06 +0900 (Tue), Stephen J. Turnbull wrote:

 > Here is my basic argument.
 > 
 >     1. Some programming languages and tools are more powerful than
 >     others.
 > 
 >     2. Those who use these languages and tools, if smart enough to use
 >     the advanced features, will be more productive than they could
 >     possibly be in a language or with a tool without those features.
 > 
 >     3. Managers in large companies, and even small ones, often freeze
 >     the technology being used to less advanced forms,

Up to here we all agree.

 >     refusing to even explore the use of better technologies, and

This seems to be an article of faith among small consulting firms
based on a skewed sample (companies whose IT groups are screwed up
enough to allow a consultant in), but I'm not in a position to contest
it.

 >     by doing this they are hurting their software development
 >     efforts in the long term.

This is really not clear.  You assert that you are made more
productive by using more advanced technologies, but that experience
doesn't extend to the environments we're talking about AFAIK.

 > So, can really, really big companies change? Well, how many Java
 > programmers does IBM have, and how committed are they to Java?

You bet they can change, IBM being one of the interesting examples.
Over decades, IBM has been as resilient as the American economy as a
whole.  It has reinvented itself at least twice to my knowledge, and
it's in the process of trying to do it again right now, based on some
of its recent department head appointments.  "Be afraid.  Be very,
very afraid."  :-)  So, your time scale of 30 years is about right.

 > Or that five years from now you can start your company on its first
 > steps in a new language or set of tools and it will rapidly catch
 > up with companies of similar size that have had people
 > experimenting with the language or set of tools for five years?

I would say that you probably can catch up to the pioneers in half the
time, yes.  If nothing else, by acquiring some of them.  And you can
probably achieve the bulk of the productivity gains in half the time,
even after the tools have become established.  This is known to work
in other fields, I see no reason why it wouldn't be true of software.