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The Price of (Dev) Happiness: Part One

blog.fogcreek.com

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Re: The Price of (Dev) Happiness: Part One

#71

Post by seanalltogether »

kenjackson wrote: post #23
seanalltogether wrote: post #8

How many dev shops still give everyone workstations? Our company is entirely on laptops and I don't know a single person here that wants a workstation.

I can't do serious dev work on a laptop. Too underpowered. Everyone here gets a laptop, but it's for working in bed, or on the road, at your child's birth, etc... But for day to day dev work, a high-end workstation is a fair bit more productive. At least for the type of dev work we do.

We do client work that encompasses everything, C++, ObjC, Java backends, Java Frontends, Flash, HTML/JS, etc. I'm not sure what serious dev work implies?

Re: The Price of (Dev) Happiness: Part One

#72

Post by smackfu »

spenrose wrote: post #54
spolsky wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love the way people on the Internet always find a way to misinterpret every post in the worst possible way, no matter how little sense they make. After reading a detailed article about how we spend over $5000 to make sure our developers are comfortable at work, do you really think that we then CHAIN them to an Aeron chair and REQUIRE that they use 30" monitors even if they prefer sitting cross-legged on the floor w…

The problem with viral* marketing is that you give up control of the message. * (or whatever the correct term is for HN-linked recruitment-ads-as-blog-posts)

Exactly: "But I wrote an article about how great our company was!!!"

Re: The Price of (Dev) Happiness: Part One

#73

Post by pedoh »

The big takeaway for me from this article is "treat your employees well". It may be that some devs prefer sitting in a beanbag chair with a 13" laptop. Do you think Fog Creek is going to say no? Heck no. They're going to do whatever it takes to keep your developers (and all employees) happy. We are at work a huge percentage of our lives. Not being happy at work is depressing, particularly when the employing company can take steps like this to make the environment welcoming and positive.

I think that from an employer perspective, sometimes it's the "little" things that pile up and really make a difference. For example, how much does having bagels, cream cheese, coffee, and fresh fruit available every morning really cost a company? In the grand scheme of things, probably not very much. But for those people who need something to kickstart their day, offering this sort of freebie is going to make them happy.

In my opinion, the desk setup as described above would make me FAR happier than free breakfast. Knowing that a company does this for their employees would certainly push that company to the top of the list of companies to work for.

Re: The Price of (Dev) Happiness: Part One

#74

Post by damoncali »

spolsky wrote: post #48
ry0ohki wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Joel doesn't believe in telecommuting. One way to ensure it stays that way is workstations. (And if you can't work from home, you do get more power for less money in a workstation)

Some corrections: (1) it doesn't matter what I believe in. We now have telecommuters at both Stack Exchange and Fog Creek and for the right individual, it's fine. (2) this doesn't follow. Do you really think we give people desktop computers simply to make it impossible for them to work from home? That's silly. Anyway, the telecommuters we do have almost exclusively use desktop computers. You know why? Because once yo…

Because once you've programmed on a 30" monitor, you'll never go back to programming on a laptop.

Total sidebar, but I actually have found 30" to be too big. I could not get my neck to stop hurting from trying to use the whole screen, and wound up using the innermost 23-24". So I ditched it for a 23" monitor.

Was I doing something wrong? I really wanted to like the 30", but I just couldn't get it to work without putting it too far away from me to see normal sized fonts. Anyone else run into this problem?

Re: The Price of (Dev) Happiness: Part One

#75

Post by damoncali »

gte910h wrote: post #3
Jem wrote: post #2

I had no idea that some people like to code standing up; why is this? (Genuine curiosity, someone enlighten me please :))

Sitting for a very long time is bad for you. It causes increased chance of death, causes your back to hurt, makes you fatter, and lets your energy level go down after hours of doing it. It's not so much the "coding" part as the "sitting at a desk for 10+ hours a day" part that makes standing desks so attractive to programmers. http://pressroom.cancer.org/index.php?s=43&item=257 http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/article…

Do people really sit for 10 hours? I can't stop myself from getting up to walk around every half hour or so.

Re: The Price of (Dev) Happiness: Part One

#76

Post by Cyberwizard »

wheels wrote: post #58
spolsky wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love the way people on the Internet always find a way to misinterpret every post in the worst possible way, no matter how little sense they make. After reading a detailed article about how we spend over $5000 to make sure our developers are comfortable at work, do you really think that we then CHAIN them to an Aeron chair and REQUIRE that they use 30" monitors even if they prefer sitting cross-legged on the floor w…

After reading a detailed article about how we spend [...] do you really think that we then CHAIN them to an Aeron chair [...] The place that I worked that had such nice equipment basically did exactly that: you were given your standard issue equipment with virtually zero flexibility (amusingly other than keyboard and mouse, just like your setup). That said, the impression mostly comes from the way that you write abou…

The place that I worked that had such nice equipment basically did exactly that: you were given your standard issue equipment with virtually zero flexibility

This sounds to me like a place that grabbed the "what" and missed the "why". The two questions I would want any company I work for to ask are, "Why would our developers want to be productive for us?" and then, "What do they need to be most productive?" in that order. Give me a reason to be productive and then make sure my equipment doesn't hold me back.

The problem is a lot of people skip the first question and jump straight to the second. I personally believe they do that because the second question is quantifiable. The article is called "The Price of (Dev) Happiness: Part One" and it gives a price at the bottom. There is something a manager can put in Excel and show to superiors.

However, the "why" is more nebulous and harder to enact. Change company culture? Might take months, or years if it's even possible. But I can order $6,174 worth of equipment in an afternoon.

And this isn't just a problem in IT or even in business. There is a ton of information out there about how to lose weight. The "what" is easy to find. But people (including myself) are still overweight because they have no compelling "why".

So when I read this article, I read as a description of "what". And I think there needs to be articles about the "what" just like there needs to be information about how to lose weight. However, I am going to try to not let myself be enamored by it when deciding on a new job. I'm looking for the "why" as well.

Re: The Price of (Dev) Happiness: Part One

#78

Post by patrickyeon »

edw519 wrote: post #64

======================== | Interesting | Boring | | Work | Work | ================================== | Nice || Heaven | Read | | Office || | HN. | |--------||-------------+--------| | Bad || No one | Kill | | Office || cares. | me. | ==================================

Joel Spolsky's argument for going all out and treating their devs well is that interesting work and good pay might get them the top 1% devs, but adding a nice workplace gives them access to the top 0.1%. It is, of course, an optimization that can only really be applied once you've got "interesting work" and "competitive pay" locked down.

Re: The Price of (Dev) Happiness: Part One

#79

Post by tghw »

eterps wrote: post #77

So, how does the airtouch cope with the cables to your workstation? Or is it intended to be used with laptops?

I leave my tower on the floor next to the desk and all of the cables are long enough to reach even when it's at standing height. There is a tray below the back edge of the desk that you can rest smaller objects on, like a USB hub. I believe they also make a bracket that attaches to the underside of the desk that can hold your tower, if you need.

Re: The Price of (Dev) Happiness: Part One

#80

Post by rcthompson »

wheels wrote: post #58
spolsky wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love the way people on the Internet always find a way to misinterpret every post in the worst possible way, no matter how little sense they make. After reading a detailed article about how we spend over $5000 to make sure our developers are comfortable at work, do you really think that we then CHAIN them to an Aeron chair and REQUIRE that they use 30" monitors even if they prefer sitting cross-legged on the floor w…

After reading a detailed article about how we spend [...] do you really think that we then CHAIN them to an Aeron chair [...] The place that I worked that had such nice equipment basically did exactly that: you were given your standard issue equipment with virtually zero flexibility (amusingly other than keyboard and mouse, just like your setup). That said, the impression mostly comes from the way that you write abou…

It seemed clear to me that Joel was intentionally choosing the most expensive instance of each item (chair, monitor, desk, etc.) that a developer could reasonably want, not to suggest that every developer needs his specified setup, but rather so that he could put an absolute upper bound on what it could possibly cost you to keep a programmer happy. It was a mathematical exercise, not a recommendation.
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