Great article on code rot

OK, this is waaay more technical than most of the things that I reference, and I apologize to those of you who are innocently reading along, expecting my usual software engineering from the management perspective entries and links.

…but this is really good. Read the gist of it; if you are involved in software, you really ought to know: code rot is real, challenging, and is all about unmaintained and unreleased code.

http://wordaligned.org/articles/code-rot

Thanks to Bruce Rennie for pointing this out at work.

Dak

Building teams: Developers, not Programmers

If you aren’t in the software development business, this post is not for you.  These aren’t the droids you are looking for.  Move along!

Once upon a time, it was Good Enough to have wicked good coding skills.  Master programmers would hand out assignments to the rest of the team, who would code up the concepts and go their merry way.  However, those times are long gone; not only are coding skills regularly taught in high school (all over the world), but even the higher level skill of programming to specifications, not designs, has become a commodity.

I personally believe that the best answer to the commodification of skills is refactor jobs and skill sets.  With this in mind, I am thoroughly convinced that people who were once content to be “programmers” need to be “developers”– consumate professionals able to solve the “whole problem” and take a design task from concept to production.

The fundamentals of business and career growth remain the same: find a need and fill it.  However, there’s no longer a need for 100% code jockeys.  That’s OK; solving the real problem is more fun, and pays better.  (Anyone who I have worked with over the years will recognize that I’m consistent on this point…and most of them have moved on to bigger and better things.  If you are reading this, do drop me a line or post a comment.)

As always, best regards,

Dak

When all hope is lost…that is the bottom of the market

We’re not there yet, folks. I’m thrilled about the upturn in the market for the past three days (and you should be, too).  At this point there’s a horde of people panicked to get their money out.  They will.  This will drive the market down.  That’s completely natural.

This will happen a few times before the next great bull rush.

Don’t worry about it.  Relax.  Dollar cost average your way into the market, and keep in mind:  up or down, in 5 years or so, this will have been a very good time to invest.

Dak