Ask HN: Setting up a developer field trip?

#1

Post by ljscharen » Thu, Sep 09, 2010, 3:34 AM UTC

I've been training our dev team for the past year or so on solid software development practices and have had some success. I've introduced them to version control, bug tracking, unit testing, etc. Some of these practices have taken hold (version control) and others have not (unit testing, CI). While the general response to the training has been good, I feel that the other developers would benefit by seeing how solid development practices are being applied by other dev teams.

To this end, I've floated the idea of having a "developer field trip" day where we could take our team and visit another software dev shop that already follows good practices to learn from their experiences.

If anyone thinks this could be a good idea, I'm looking for a company to host us that meets the following criteria:

   * located in central Minnesota, preferably north of St. Cloud
   * develops custom web applications (IIS/.Net)
   * multiple clients/multiple simultaneous projects
   * runs at 11 or 12 on the Joel Test

Suggestions? Feedback?

Re: Ask HN: Setting up a developer field trip?

#2

Post by alnayyir » Thu, Sep 09, 2010, 6:23 AM UTC

I'm in NYC, and I only know a Java dev in MN.

I work for a startup in Mountain View (a fairly well known one?) and I still haven't ever worked for a company that exceeded a 5 on the Joel Test.

That particular fact is why I'm considering leaving web dev altogether for embedded or something where external constraints force the development process to be more structured. We'll see though.

Re: Ask HN: Setting up a developer field trip?

#3

Post by ljscharen » Thu, Sep 09, 2010, 10:38 AM UTC

alnayyir wrote: post #2

I'm in NYC, and I only know a Java dev in MN. I work for a startup in Mountain View (a fairly well known one?) and I still haven't ever worked for a company that exceeded a 5 on the Joel Test. That particular fact is why I'm considering leaving web dev altogether for embedded or something where external constraints force the development process to be more structured. We'll see though.

Well, I can't say that an 11 on the Joel Test is a strict criteria. :) I would say we started at a zero and are at a 2 right now. This "field trip" idea is just a way of trying to accelerate the developer's growth curve. Other ideas are welcome.