Tuesday, May 10, 2005
Brilliant Software Development Article - Software Terrorists
Allen Holub writes in the SD Times about the impact of software primadonnas that can wreck the entire team's productivity. Allen's right:
"The 20-to-1 productivity rule says that 5 percent of programmers are 20 times more productive than the remaining 95 percent, but what about the 5 percent at the other end of the bell curve? Consider the software terrorist: the guy who stays up all night, unwittingly but systematically destroying the entire team’s last month’s work while “improving” the code. He doesn’t tell anybody what he’s done, and he never tests. He’s created a ticking time bomb that won’t be discovered for six months."
"The 20-to-1 productivity rule says that 5 percent of programmers are 20 times more productive than the remaining 95 percent, but what about the 5 percent at the other end of the bell curve? Consider the software terrorist: the guy who stays up all night, unwittingly but systematically destroying the entire team’s last month’s work while “improving” the code. He doesn’t tell anybody what he’s done, and he never tests. He’s created a ticking time bomb that won’t be discovered for six months."
