21–30 of 171 posts
I'm a bit confused by this post. The author seems to celebrate a private office. I strongly prefer open work spaces that you share with others, as do many companies I've worked with/seen. Care to share your opinion? I'm curious...
See the 14 steps which turn a 5 minute code change into a multi-man-month-mammoth: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ericlippert/archive/2003/10/28/53298...
Or the now infamous Windows Shutdown "crapfest": http://moishelettvin.blogspot.com/2006/11/windows-shutdown-c...
There's more. And I have no problem with the author stating how great coding is (because he has an office and a nice computer!). However, while your right hand is telling us how great it is and we shouldn't assume otherwise, your left hand is telling us how horrible it is.
I am so sure of this because being at Amazon since April last year, I havent coded more then 700 lines of code, bulk of which was supporting new features in the already behemoth software.
I always wanted to work for a big company and I was super happy when I finally got a job offer but lately I have realized that the biggest downside of working for a big company is that you dont code, you just add features in to all the in use product, attend meeting and specific for Amazon, be on the pager 24X7.
For all you guys coming fresh out of colleges, head to bay area and join a start up, ditch these big companies.
"Most people in Windows have a private office – with a door" At my office we've made an effort to keep our workspace communal to the point of removing the 12" dividers that were included with our work tables. This, as you might guess, does result in some distraction but in fostering the relationships at the office people are more apt to like being there. I'm curious how other large companies and startups handle this.…
I've worked in both environments. Honestly, the best environment, IMO, is working from home -- office is second. Shared office spaces are a distant fourth. I'm the type of person who needs a lot of solitude at some times, and at other times, I love to blast music, pace, juggle, and gorge on chips. When I need the solitude, when I'm in the zone, I don't want you taking a call from your gf, or deciding with some other…
I'm a bit confused by this post. The author seems to celebrate a private office. I strongly prefer open work spaces that you share with others, as do many companies I've worked with/seen. Care to share your opinion? I'm curious...
If I had a choice I would choose a private office every time.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Laptops are officially only for managers and Program managers. As a dev/test you can get a loaner for a presentation or find one, somehow.
"Laptops are officially only for managers and Program managers." Heh! That's what I thought :-p Not surprised to hear MS works that way :-). Funny way to economise, making laptops status symbols. I think Google gives devs nice laptops and is probably better off for it.
If developers always have the fastest machines available, how will they test or care about speed? I hope they have automated benchmarks of common tasks at least. (Although it is obviously good to have things compile as fast as possible.)
Performance tests are done separately on machines on a lab and there's lot of them, with components on and off,different configurations etc. In some cases you can simulate slowness like latency or less bandwidth ,as in a client with a 14.4k modem connection, with things like wansim. That allows to automate as much as possible.
I'm a bit confused by this post. The author seems to celebrate a private office. I strongly prefer open work spaces that you share with others, as do many companies I've worked with/seen. Care to share your opinion? I'm curious...
From experience, my most preferred to least preferred office options are
(1) Work from home (2) private soundproof office with a door (3) shared sound proof office (2 or 3 people in a medium/large room) with a door(4) open work spaces with a maximum of 5-8 people (5) standard cube (6) crowded and noisy "open work spaces" where you can't hear yourself think / get interrupted all the time, especially the "agile" version with enforced pairing and the "buzz of conversation" and so on.
The best options give you silence. The least inundate you in noise.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Laptops are officially only for managers and Program managers. As a dev/test you can get a loaner for a presentation or find one, somehow.
"Laptops are officially only for managers and Program managers." Heh! That's what I thought :-p Not surprised to hear MS works that way :-). Funny way to economise, making laptops status symbols. I think Google gives devs nice laptops and is probably better off for it.
I turned down Microsoft when they recruited me in college. Wow, what a great decision. Now, I run a software firm where no one has an office, everyone pairs (including owners and interns), we have a /slightly/ better ratio than 1 test per 100 SLOC, etc.
Has TDD really resulted in this becoming a status symbol? :P