Defending the Python lanuage...

[Cliff Wells]

On Fri, 1 Feb 2002 10:54:44 -0500
Steve Holden wrote:

> "Rony" <rony.steelandt at bucodi.com> wrote ...
> 
> > I'm sorry but i definitifly don't agree with that, and here i'm
> > speaking trough personnal experience !
> > Somewhere beginning 90'ths my development team came to me saying it is
> > time to abandon language X, that we were using, because now you have
> > languge Y who has all the possible benefits; better librarys, faster
> > development, blablabla...
> > And i trusted my chief development engineer and said yes.
> > To make a long story very short, the end of it was that the new
> > language din't have all the necessary function we needed, they never
> > found a solution (even not hired outside experts on that language) and
> > we trowed away one man year of development. And that is reality...
> > I know all the arguments, like your chief engineer didn't do his job
> > and how comes that it took a year and .... but since i'm the owner of
> > the company the problem  was mine at the end. So i'm convinced that
> > managment has to be involved in such decissions.
> >
> Rony, I feel you are making the mistake of generalizing from your own
> experience. This is perfectly understandable, and something we all do.
> However, my own feeling is you should solve this problem not by becoming
> better technically, but by becoming a better recruiter.

Clearly recruiting is a difficult chore.  I myself picked two candidates to
be junior developers at a job.  One of them had me convinced that he had a
lot of aptitude (and his prior experience seemed to support his claims)
while the other was far more restrained in his assessment of his skills. 
We hired both of them and guess which one turned out to be the better hire?
 The guy with the experience was so sure he was always right that he
couldn't hear anyone's critisism and turned out to be a complete loss.  The
other guy was looking for input and advanced much faster.  He appreciated
any critisism as long as it helped him improve.  But the situation could
just have easily turned out just the opposite.

> Ultimately your mistake ws not in trusting your chief engineer, but in
> hiring an untrustworthy chief engineer.

Well, we all make mistakes.  You can't be sure that the chief engineer was
incompetent or untrustworthy based upon one incident, regardless of the
outcome.  If he consistently made bad choices then that's another matter
altogether.
 
> Fortunately it seems that you do have a natural aptitude for technical
> tasks, and so you are avoiding the problem in future by developing your
> technical knowledge and, effectively, acting as chief technical officer
as
> well as manager.

Absolutely agree.

-- 
Cliff Wells
Software Engineer
Logiplex Corporation (www.logiplex.net)
(503) 978-6726 x308
(800) 735-0555 x308

"Then with your new power you'll accomplish all sorts of cool stuff 
 in no time, and We'll All Be Sorry.  At that point you can either 
 gloat a bit, and then relent, or go ahead and send the robot army 
 after us." - Quinn Dunkan