Awesome article about how to organize startup software companies
Twitter
Facebook
Delicious
Digg
Stumble
Reddit
Joel on Software always has good insight to share but sometimes his writing style transcends beyond the post and the text and becomes a masterpiece. His article "The Development Abstraction Layer" is just that.
Take this hilarious paragraph for instance:
Programmers need a Subversion repository. Getting a Subversion repository means you need a network, and a server, which has to be bought, installed, backed up, and provisioned with uninterruptible power, and that server generates a lot of heat, which means it need to be in a room with an extra air conditioner, and that air conditioner needs access to the outside of the building, which means installing an 80 pound fan unit on the wall outside the building, which makes the building owners nervous, so they need to bring their engineer around, to negotiate where the air conditioner unit will go (decision: on the outside wall, up here on the 18th floor, at the most inconvenient place possible), and the building gets their lawyers involved, because we’re going to have to sign away our firstborn to be allowed to do this, and then the air conditioning installer guys show up with rigging gear that wouldn’t be out of place in a Barbie play-set, which makes our construction foreman nervous, and he doesn’t allow them to climb out of the 18th floor window in a Mattel harness made out of 1/2" pink plastic, I swear to God it could be Disco Barbie’s belt, and somebody has to call the building agent again and see why the hell they suddenly realized, 12 weeks into a construction project, that another contract amendment is going to be needed for this goddamned air conditioner that they knew about before Christmas and they only just figured it out, and if your programmers even spend one minute thinking about this that’s one minute too many.
Also, some great insight like this one:
Here’s something Pradeep Singh taught me today: if only 20% of your staff is programmers, and you can save 50% on salary by outsourcing programmers to India, well, how much of a competitive advantage are you really going to get out of that 10% savings?
Go check it out.
6:37 am
errr … i lost the guy when he talks about setting up SVN and consequently setting up a server for it … mmm … well, here’s a thought: how on earth someone would know to install an SVN repo if they don’t know a server goes along with it ? (also, why not get a good GIT or SVN hosting if its only about a repo ?)
so it’s like buying a door knob and realizing you need a door and probably a house to go with it !
anyhoo, the guy is good, I use FogBugz already and yeh it’s better than most.