Timing is everything. Google’s feed reader was … not exactly a success story. Yesterday they released a brand new, GMail-influenced, feed reader. This morning, it’s the talk of the blogosphere. The echo chamber loves new shining objects, especially Google branded shining objects. What else is new today? Bloglines released an update that solves two of my pet peeves. But you won’t read about it, with all the noise Google is making. I’m already using Bloglines, but going to try Google Reader for a while and see which one I like better.
Loose lips and tight ships. Steve Yegge’s post is stirring up an argument about the virtues of the Google methodology vs the Agile methodology. It’s a long post but a fast read, I enjoy reading his posts. But one thing is missing, I feel like there’s one thing his post does not disclose, and without it, doesn’t apply to me.
In commercial software, we know this truth to be self evident: sales fix everything. (In open source, that would be “downloads fix everythingâ€). When you’re making bank you don’t pay the same attention to software metrics, development methodologies or software architectures. Whatever you’re doing so far works, so you just keep doing it.
Perhaps Google is successful because it found the right mix. Or perhaps Google is successful because – like MS, Sun, Oracle, Netscape before it – it’s riding the crest of a big wave, and everything else works as long as it doesn’t get in the way. Let’s see how they feel about the processes when their growth stops. Meanwhile, I’ll be reading my lessons from companies that are running a tight ship because, like it or not, that’s the reality for most of us.
Trust the people or trust the process. On the other hand, Google does have one thing going for it, as evident by Steve’s post. It trusts it’s people. What happens when you can’t easily hire rock stars, when projects have to fight for visibility and budget? You get a lot more politics, and unlike quantum states, politics cannot co-exist with trust. And when you can’t trust the people, you replace them with processes. Practices, methodologies, architecture are all synonyms of corporate processes. They all replace thinking and initiatives.
Language wars, II. The last two items, influenced by Raganwald’s Wasabi cannot cure rotten fish. It’s a good read. Though one point I don’t agree with: “We think that some languages are better than others, that some languages help eliminate certain classes of bugs … We know that the quality of the result is almost entirely driven by the quality of the programmer.†Quality programmers know which tools to pick for the job. Picking the “right tool†will not turn mediocre developers into rock stars, you can write crap in any language. It’s not the tools, but the people who use them. But no quality programmer will agree to becoming mediocre by picking the wrong tools. If you can’t let people choose the right tools, you might as well list “mediocre†as a skill in your job postings.
Reg Braithwaite
Assaf