My latest article, title “Show Me The Money” about what it means to be a software developer in recessionary times, has been posted on VisualStudioMagazine.com.
With a loss of 538,000 jobs in November announced today, I really, really wish I hadn’t been quite so prescient when I submitted this a month or two ago….
Over the past year or two I’ve kept an eye on the various online consulting sites – Elance, guru.com, RentACoder, oDesk. I’ve actually used RentACoder once (as a buyer on a very small project) and was satisfied with the results – though I suspect I spent more time writing the spec and managing the programmers than I would if I had done the work myself.
I do think we are likely moving into a recession the likes of which our parents and grandparents talked about (shhhh… let’s not use the D word). But I also think it is a very different world – and whatever ends up happening will not be like the 1930’s. One of the big differences is, of course, the Internet.
These online consultant sites (and more that I expect will appear) are part of the difference. I expect more people (not just software developers) will find themselves taking on project based jobs as compared to employment as things get worse.
Yesterday I wrote a column introducing these four online consulting sites – if you are not familiar with them you might want to check it out.
For those who are familiar with the concept, and perhaps with one or two of them, you might be interested in my follow-up column that compares key features of all four sites.
I’d be interested in hearing of experiences you may have had (good or bad) with any of them.
Ted Neward posted a great article today “Do you fall prey to technical folk etymology?” in which he suggests (correctly) that we based our technical decisions on emotional context.
Ted is a fine writer, and his points intelligently argued. I am perhaps a bit more direct (crass?) and less politically correct, so I thought I might elaborate a bit on his thoughts. It is not just that our technical decisions are influenced by emotional context. In fact, the Dilbert Principle applies – we are all sometimes idiots.
As technologists we delude ourselves into thinking that we make clear-headed decisions based on logic. Nothing can be further from the truth. Not only are we influenced by emotional factors, they are often the dominant factor in our technical choices.
I remember noticing even as a kid how fads would come and go in our neighborhood. One week it would be spinning tops, another paper airplanes, another endless games of Monopoly (today’s equivalent would be video games and web sites – and I date myself intentionally for reasons that will soon become apparent). Technology fads operate in much the same way, though the time span is measured in months and a few years instead of weeks and months.
The C# vs. VB .NET debate has been raging for years, with the VB .NET folks claiming (correctly) that it’s a fine language and raging that Microsoft insiders refuse to give it the support and respect it deserves. Meanwhile the C# folks feign obliviousness (oh, we didn’t provide VB .NET support or samples for that new SDK? Oh… well… uh… we didn’t have the resources?).
This misses the point entirely. The C# vs. VB .NET dilemma is purely emotional. The VB .NET folk (of which I am one) will continue to use the language because, gosh, it really is a bit more productive than C#. Besides, any good VB .NET programmer can read C# examples or even code C# if necessary because we know it’s all about the framework, and any half competent VB .NET programmer can do C# in a matter of hours, if not days.
Meanwhile the C# developers within (and outside of) Microsoft will ignore, denigrate or avoid VB .NET because, let’s face it, it gives them something to feel superior about. When a C# developer says “VB .NET is the language of idiots”, by implication that developer is not an idiot. That’s a strong emotional statement – especially given that the rapid pace of technology change means that each and every one of us spends more and more time feeling like an idiot (which we are, in the sense that the percentage of available knowledge that we know continues to decrease because what there is to learn increases faster than anyone can possibly learn it – I’m just one of the relatively few people willing to admit it openly).
If a C# programmer, can gain some emotional comfort to offset this by labeling VB .NET developers idiots, who can blame him or her?
I’ve reached a point in my career where many working software developers are younger than I am (many of my contemporaries have become managers or architects, and while I do some of that, I still write lots of production code – mostly because coding is what I enjoy most). I’d always bought into the idea that software development was a “young person’s game” and wondered how long I’d be doing it – but I’m beginning to wonder if that too was an emotional belief unfounded in truth. I’ll write more on that later.
What I do know, that many younger programmers don’t, is that the amazing “new” technology that they are excited about that is sure to change software development forever is, more likely than not, just another fad. Moreover, I also know that most of the new technologies coming from major vendors (including Microsoft), though always labeled as “new technology that is going to change the way people develop software or use technology” is, more likely than not, just marketing hype that is trying to create another fad.
Ok, that’s phrased a bit cynically – because it makes it sound like they are being manipulative. They aren’t (mostly) – it’s just that they, like everyone else, are viewing the technology through an emotional lens. My emotional lens is scarred and cloudy, not because I’m a pillar of reason (I’m not), but because after you’ve lived through enough fads you get better at spotting them. Or put another way, once you’ve been burned often enough you start thinking twice about what part of the technology furnace you shove your hand into.
I don’t know that I’ve gotten better at making reasoned technological choices – but I’ve gotten a lot better at avoiding emotional and unreasonable technological choices – and in figuring out when it is ok to make a technology choice based on emotion.
Ted asks at the end of his post:
“In short, I actively seek to defeat technical folk etymology, if only in the small area I personally can affect.
Do you?”
You can’t defeat it – emotions will almost always trump reason. But sometimes you can co-opt it. Fads aren’t defeated by reason – they burn themselves out naturally only to be replaced by the next fad. Just remember that when you’re trying to prevent someone from making a terrible choice based on emotions, it’s not enough to use sound reasoning – you need to come up with an emotional argument as well if you hope to succeed.
They say life is a balancing act. Certainly one I share with most of you is figuring out how to balance time between learning new technology and actually getting work done. This is particularly challenging for those of us who spend all or part of our time writing or teaching others – especially at times when another version of Visual Studio and the .NET framework is heading towards us with the inevitability of freight train with no brakes.
Lately things have been a bit quiet here. I haven’t posted much on my blog. I don’t speak at too many conferences (though I will be at devconnections next week and probably in Spring – it’s actually a very cool conference, so I do encourage you to consider it if you’re looking for one to attend). I’m not writing much.
Why?
Well, I know this may sound odd coming from someone who obviously (if you look around this site) has very diverse interests. But the truth is that despite the time spent writing, speaking, developing other sites (like searchdotnet.com), I’ve always been and continue to be primarily a coder.
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So this morning I noticed Google launched a new custom search tool – where you can basically customize the Google search engine to search across a set of sites and perform other customizations. Basically a domain specific search.
Is I mentioned in my last post, I consider discoverability one of the greatest challenges facing developers today (it’s certainly the single greatest challenge I face in my daily work). Somewhere out there are answers to almost every technical problem – but how to find it?
Using Google custom search to create a .NET domain specific search engine was a no-brainer. A quick visit to GoDaddy and who would have believed it: SearchDotNet.com was available!
So here it is – a Google powered .NET domain specific search. I’m still early in the process of adding sites. Some of the choices are obvious (MSDN, duh!). Other sites are those that I’ve had the most luck with finding answers to problems I found challenging.
I’m particularly interested in finding more “experts” sites – those that help answer really tough problems, or those that have advanced content – but that are often lost in the noise. These will get the “by_experts” tag that allow them to really stand out.
So, if you have favorite sites that you think just HAVE to be included in the list, please let me know (by Email or comments). I’m not trying to just build a list of all .NET sites – quite the opposite. There are plenty of aggregators (not to mention general Google search) that are great at searching everything. What I need (and am trying to implement) is a tool I can use for an initial search that has a higher probability of finding a good solution to problems – especially on more advanced topics. Then, if it fails, I’ll go to the broader web search.
Plus, I’ll be adding content to the site on the topic of discoverability in general. Keeping up with rapidly changing technology is no easy thing, and hopefully I can make a contribution to that effort as well.
Update: 14 years have gone by and I’ve long since abandoned that site. However, the concept is still sound – and I’m using it now at SearchTheForce.com – a custom search engine for all things Salesforce.
I noticed earlier today that Rob Caron at Microsoft was glad I posted my first entry to the MSDN Wiki. While I really don’t consider my posting to be any sort of a milestone, it did remind me that the Wiki project is no longer under NDA so I can actually comment on it.
So here goes.
As someone who has been doing Windows software development since version 1.0, I long considered MSDN the single most important product Microsoft ever shipped – you had to have suffered through the painful lack of documentation earlier on to really appreciate what a revolution it was. The complexity of Windows programming is ever increasing, and MSDN remains the foundation that every developer relies on. While it’s true that for most of us the front-end for searching MSDN is now Google, the content remains the gold standard.
But as good as MSDN is, it’s not good enough. There are far too many holes (and probably always will be – I doubt any doc team could keep up). Even now, it’s extremely common for me to have to search the web for solutions to problems – answers that should be in MSDN but are not.
None of the search engines are good enough for what is needed – a cross linking of information (samples, best practices, caveats and bug reports) that is relevant to each MSDN entry. This problem – discoverability of knowledge that already exists – is the biggest problem faced by any software developer today.
I’ve known about the MSDN Wiki project for a while, but have been too busy with other things to pay close attention. That said, I believe that the MSDN Wiki project is the single most important project going on at Microsoft in terms of software development.
My plan is to add content to it any time I run into something that I get stuck on and have to research – something that should have been in the docs in the first place. I invite and encourage everyone to join in.
I also challenge Microsoft to encourage every one of their software developers to contribute to those areas where they were involved in the development.
The MSDN Wiki project has enormous potential, and I am very excited to see it becoming a reality.
Check it out: http://msdnwiki.microsoft.com