How to Care For and Feed Software Developers

Ever notice how many articles there are on managing software developers? It's like they are rare, fragile, and precious, and must be given all manner of special treatment. Nobody ever writes about how to manage system and network administrators, or writers, or janitors, or forum managers, or ice cream truck vendors, or what-have-you.

Did you read the article? It's not about managing software developers. It's about syadmins. Sysadmins expect that most users don't know systems and network administration but a sysadmin should also realise that many developers don't know much about that, even though they're geeks and brilliant programmers.

He has a bit of a point, but I am convinced that any developer worth his salt should know teh basics of systems and network administration. How else can a developer build reliable, scalable and fault tolerant software?

Yes I read it-- it's all "how system administrators should be all cool and patient with their weirdo devs." I exaggerate, of course, but I do not recall the last time I saw an article that said "You're a developer, not a rock star. Take a bath, show up on time, and be nice once in awhile."

Gee, I always try to stay on extra good terms with the system administrators. At least when they present themselves as humans, and not just user IDs on the other end of a ticket tracking entity *cough*IBM Global Services*cough*. And for exactly the reasons Sander gives. How else can you write a program that doesn't crash all over the place, uses only what resources it needs, and can be administered in a sensible fashion?

I've always been a bit confused about why corporations want to split work along the lines that they do. I spent two years doing development, and sysadmin of linux and solaris boxes.

I guess if you want to spread the blame so thinly that nobody can go to jail for a screw-up, you need to pigeon-hole your workers pretty closely.

> I guess if you want to spread the blame so thinly that nobody can go to jail for a screw-up, you need to pigeon-hole your workers pretty closely.

Being fired more so than going to jail, but yes, that's the idea. You're overlooking the other side of the coin in such environments however, which is to have so many procedures and rules in place that you can fire anyone you want at any time, because someone is almost certainly breaking at least one of them.

Can you tell what type of environment I work in?

Quoting:*cough*IBM Global Services*cough*

I did a total of four IBM contracts, two with Global Services, ending in 2000. IME how integrated Global Services is into the organziation they are supporting and how they respond to service requests is generally determined by the organization contracting with IBM, not by any Global Services policy. This may be a case of blaming the messenger.

> IME how integrated Global Services is into the organziation they are supporting and how they respond to service requests is generally determined by the organization contracting with IBM, not by any Global Services policy.

I believe that's true for most outsourcing contracts. Also, IME.

Quoting:I believe that's true for most outsourcing contracts.

Agreed. I responded to a specific derogatory comment about IBM Global Services but most outsource IT firms essentially work the same way.