What is wrong with a great majority of software companies in South Africa (and possible the everywhere else, but I can only speak from my experience here)?

I think this quote from Steve Yegge sums it up well [1]:

"Software companies that prize managers above engineers are guided by their own Invisible Hand to become a henhouse of clucky managers pecking viciously at harried engineers. Sadly, most software companies fall into this trap, because they're borrowing traditional ideas about management from non-tech industries, and they're not bright enough to think through the implications, let alone design a better system."

This article is about why, when it comes to software developers, managers are usually bad. What is really required is the mindset of a leader; "A leader doesn't fixate on management, which is after all just a bureaucratic framework that attempts to simulate leadership through process and protocol."

It is well worth the read.

[1] (Not) Managing Software Developers

I laughed. These guys can be a bit out there, but I have never come across another strip that just keeps rolling out the classics like they do. What just amazes (and kills) me is how they convey so much expression in two dots and a line...

Anyone who believes that the SAPS* is full of corrupt, lazy, good for nothing, bribe-taking a-holes (and that is more often than not the opinion of the proverbial man-in-the-street, and often deservedly so), should read this.

Next time you see a member of the flying squad patrolling the streets, smile, wave - maybe buy them a cup of hot coffee from the local garage shop. These guys are putting their lives on the line every day. Help them remember that we, as South Africans, are worth that.

* For overseas readers, yes, they actually called themselves that. I don't know either.

I have worked for a fair number of companies in my eight and a bit years as a software developer, both full time and as a contractor. Thinking back to the kind of managers that I worked under and their management styles, some of them 'got it', but most of them just flat out didn't.

This is a list of the top 10 mistakes that managers make when leading geeks, and I am sure most of us have seen them all (I have, twice over). Do yourself a favour and send this article around the company that you work for - the more managers that see it and take it to heart, the better for all of us.

In my experience as a software developer the best companies to work for have been those led by people who have prior experience as developers themselves - so that is an interesting point to bear in mind, and a good question to ask in a job interview.

Free, no strings attached.

[via ISerializable]

Just for fun (and to make things more exciting) I am putting together a bet pool for World Cup Soccer tournament starting next month on the 9th. The details of the tournament / teams can be found here, for those who want to  play along but don't follow the game normally

How does it Work? *

1. R100 gets you in
2. South Africans only please - I don't want to spend the tournament trying to do currency calculations.
3. You pick a team in the Soccer world cup.
4. The person whose team get the furthest, wins the pool.
5. Entries close by the kick-off of the first game.
6. No money, no entry.
7. You are not obliged to buy any of the losers any drinks should you win.
8. More than one winner, we spilt the pool.
9. You can enter for as many teams as you like, R100 a pop.
   

If you are in then contact me for bank details, and I will keep all those who enter posted on the pot size, team choices etc.


* Blatantly plagarising from Die Emmers rules..

The world and his wife will have linked to this by the time the sun goes down, but I think it is a historical event, so what the hell - from the Google site:

Google Web Toolkit (GWT) is a Java software development framework that makes writing AJAX applications like Google Maps and Gmail easy for developers who don't speak browser quirks as a second language. Writing dynamic web applications today is a tedious and error-prone process; you spend 90% of your time working around subtle incompatabilities between web browsers and platforms, and JavaScript's lack of modularity makes sharing, testing, and reusing AJAX components difficult and fragile.

GWT lets you avoid many of these headaches while offering your users the same dynamic, standards-compliant experience. You write your front end in the Java programming language, and the GWT compiler converts your Java classes to browser-compliant JavaScript and HTML.

[GWT]

We are busy putting together an FAQ for the site. What questions do you think it would help new people to the site to see answered?

Please give us feedback either through commenting on this post, or in the forums here.

Any and all constructive feedback would be greatly appreciated.

After installing the new Google Desktop this morning, my MSN Messenger BETA installation has mysteriously been deleted from my machine.

Coincidence?