pain

[James Stroud]

On Thursday 04 August 2005 07:49 am, projecktzero wrote:
> "a manager telling me what tools to use to do my job is a bad
> manager by definition because he should realize that the people who
> best
> know what tools to use are the peope who use the tools*."
>
> I'm sorry, this doesn't make much sense to me. In an ideal world where
> all developers are all knowing and know every language inside and out,
> then allowing each developer to choose his tools(languages) would work.
> You don't see a problem with programmer Joe using Perl, Brad using
> Python, Carl uses Smalltalk, Nate uses Java, Steve using Ruby, and Ed
> using Haskell?

A library could be written in python and interfaced in java for others to use 
who are too lazy to know both.

> "* Did you know that most good chef cooks have their own knive set?
> And what do you think is the reason a restaurant manager don't tell
> them
> to use the company in-house Amefa blades instead of his global knives?
> "
>
> This is a very poor analogy. The next chef doesn't have to re-cook what
> the previous chef has done(well, that didn't work either)...er...This
> has nothing to do with programming.
>
> The manager may have his reasons for choosing the tools.

Reason: ignorance.

> Perhaps nearly 
> all projects that have been developed and are in development are using
> paticular tools. It's easy for team members to work on any project.(I'm
> speaking more of languages and frameworks not down to the editors and
> IDEs.) It would be nice if the team could decide on tools, and
> sometimes that's appropriate. Maybe they want to migrate to a new
> language or framework. Maybe there's a throw away project that could be
> a test for the new language or framework. If you want to try a
> new/different language, you need to show the benefit other than "it's
> cool/new".

A manager insisting on java is probably only thinking about name recognition 
anyway. Hey Mr. Client, were using java. Isn't that "cool"?



-- 
James Stroud
UCLA-DOE Institute for Genomics and Proteomics
Box 951570
Los Angeles, CA 90095

http://www.jamesstroud.com/