Programmers and Bees; Software - How Software Companies Die

"Programmers and Bees; Software - How Software Companies Die

By Orson Scott Card

You can domesticate programmers the way beekeepers tame bees. The environment that nurtures creative programmers kills management and marketing types - and vice versa. Programming is the Great Game. It consumes you, body and soul. When you are caught up in it, nothing else matters. When you emerge into daylight, you might well discover that you are a hundred pounds overweight, your underwear is older than the average first grader, and judging from the number of pizza boxes lying around, it must be spring already. Nevertheless, you do not care, because your program runs, and the code is fast, clever, and tight. You won. You are aware that some people think you are a nerd. So what? They are not players. They have never jousted with Windows or gone hand to hand with DOS. To them C++ is a decent grade, almost a B - not a language. They barely exist. Like soldiers or artists, you do not care about the opinions of civilians. You are building something intricate and fine. They will never understand it.

BEEKEEPING
Here is the secret that every successful software company is based on: You can domesticate programmers the way beekeepers tame bees. You cannot exactly communicate with them, but you can get them to swarm in one place and when they are not looking, you can carry off the honey. You keep these bees from stinging by paying them money. More money than they know what to do with. However, that is less than you might think. You see, all these programmers keep hearing their fathers' voices in their heads saying, "When are you going to join the real world?" All you have to pay them is enough money that they can answer (also in their heads) "Jeez, Dad, I'm making more than you." On average, this is cheap. In addition, you get them to stay in the hive by giving them other coders to swarm with. The only person whose praise matters is another programmer. Less-talented programmers will idolize them; evenly matched ones will challenge and goad one another; and if you want to get a good swarm, you make sure that you have at least one certified genius coder that they can all look up to, even if he glances at other people's code only long enough to sneer at it. He is a Player, thinks the junior programmer. He looked at my code. That is enough. If a software company provides such a hive, the coders will give up sleep, love, health, and clean laundry, while the company keeps the bulk of the money.

OUT OF CONTROL
Here is the problem that ends up killing company after company. All successful software companies had, as their dominant personality, a leader who nurtured programmers. However, no company can keep such a leader forever. Either he cashes out, or he brings in management types who end up driving him out, or he changes and becomes a management type himself. One way or another, marketers get control. But... control of what? Instead of finding assembly lines of productive workers, they quickly discover that their product is produced by utterly unpredictable, uncooperative, disobedient, and worst of all, unattractive people who resist all attempts at management. Put them on a time clock, dress them in suits, and they become sullen and start sabotaging the product. Worst of all, you can sense that they are making fun of you with every word they say.

SMOKED OUT
The shock is greater for the coder, though. He suddenly finds that alien creatures control his life. Meetings, Schedules, Reports. And now someone demands that he PLAN all his programming and then stick to the plan, never improving, never tweaking, and never, never touching some other team's code. The lousy young programmer who once worshiped him is now his tyrannical boss, a position he got because he played golf with some sphincter in a suit. The hive has been ruined. The best coders leave. Moreover, the marketers, comfortable now because power neckties surround them and they have things under control, are baffled that each new iteration of their software loses market share as the code bloats and the bugs proliferate. Have to get some better packaging. Yeah, that's it."

<Note from JobFairy.com: Perfect. This is exactly how it happens.>