I really enjoyed reading Chris's article and I recommend it to any software developer out there to read it. However, there are a couple of points that I like to touch on.
Dilbert Writes…
Today the Pointy Haired Boss says he follows the measure twice and cut once philosophy. Dilbert then wisely points out that in software it is really much cheaper and easier to just cut because the nature of development is not like construction or furniture making. In those traditional industries physical resources are the limiting factor in determining production costs. Labor, or time is not as expensive as natural resources, like lumber. Besides to measure in software is to debug and log.
China is moving their manufacturing to aboard for both shortages of labor and to reduce production cost. Who predicted that? We need to look at labor as physical natural resource too. Labor is a form of energy. If labors don’t produce baby labors sooner or later there isn’t enough “energy” to produce enough for all. When life becomes expensive people tend to bring less life (energy) to earth.
Software Development is actually exactly like construction and has borrowed many elements from construction methodologies.
Both labor and time are actually more expensive than natural resources. Imagine the chair a company bought for the developer to sit on to work. The chair was made from natural resources that Dilbert talked about, right? Let say the chair was $500USD and the hourly rate of the developer is $15USD. Less than a week the labor cost will be higher than the cost of the chair.
Chris Writes…
In the world of software development time is the most valuable resource we have. So having seasoned and intelligent developers is the key to efficient projects.
Both time and skill (developers) are equally important. You also have contradicted Dilbert’s comment about time not being more expensive. In my opinion in the world of Software Development the done project is the most valuable resource any company can have.
Chris Writes…
I think the reality is we actually need to be fluent in all of the above, but so much more. We need to know enough networking, user experience concepts, PhotoShop (design tools) and other indirect technologies that it makes things very hard. I honestly do not know how a real software developer hopes to succeed in the near future without having a rich set of skills and experiences.
Can I ask who is going to pay for the time developers are going to spend to learn new technologies that only secure them jobs that they have to work hard for it? I can’t possibly think of any other industry that has the same trend. Imagine if the doctors have to practice on their families and friends to develop enough skills and experience to get a job. Now I know what Jack the Ripper was up to. The poor man was only trying to get a job at London’s Hospital :-)
I have a lot of respects for Bill Gates but when I read his recent interview with BBC that he said developers should also develop skills to communicate with the clients effectively made me really mad. I don’t even believe the developers should talk to the clients directly let alone to have the skills. This is not the job of the developers to talk to the clients directly within an organisation if so why then they are being called software developers? There are well defined job descriptions within a team that should do the communication with the clients.
What else do we need to know first aid, cooking, dancing, social skills, babysitting boss's kids, and how to play musical instruments at the Christmas party?
I’m sorry but those who have good I.T. skills put all their time in learning them, no time to do for anything else. We all know we need to have skills to be successful but to say something unjustified and not thought carefully would make it a trend as it is today.