Joel Is Feeling Grumpy Today
A grumpy but entertaining post from Joel Spolsky, ostensibly about “architecture astronauts”, that includes some choice quotes:
…this so called synchronization problem is just not an actual problem, it’s a fun programming exercise that you’re doing because it’s just hard enough to be interesting but not so hard that you can’t figure it out.
…
Between Microsoft, with their shady recruiters making unethical exploding offers to unsuspecting college students, and Google (you’re on my radar) paying untenable salaries to kids with more ultimate frisbee experience than Python, whose main job will be to play foosball in the googleplex and walk around trying to get someone…anyone…to come see the demo code they’ve just written with their “20% time,” doing some kind of, let me guess, cloud-based synchronization… between Microsoft and Google the starting salary for a smart CS grad is inching dangerously close to six figures and these smart kids, the cream of our universities, are working on hopeless and useless architecture astronomy because these companies are like cancers, driven to grow at all cost, even though they can’t think of a single useful thing to build for us, but they need another 3000-4000 comp sci grads next week. And dammit foosball doesn’t play itself.
Needs salt, but I bet he had fun writing it.
May be I missed something in the Spolsky’s blog (which I always read with interest) … but if there is anywhere a sensible description how much more meaningful are young grads’ activities in FogCreek, comparing to Google or Microsoft?
Likewise, any stats about young grads dynamics there? E.g., 95% of them stay after 3 years, comparing to 50% for MS and 75% for Google?
Just curious.
Unwritten subtitle of this article: “Why can I no longer hire smart programmers who will work for peanuts?”
To Catspaw: you might have added: and “Why MS and Google do not buy FogBugz?!”
IMHO, Spolsky, as an industry observer and critic, overgrown his persona of a Fog Creek honcho.
That is unfortunate that these smart kids are serving as foosball drivers at Google, but, at least, this is a company that created the most powerful search engine. (Or, an OS.)
Not a service utility, anyway.
For those of them, who are really worthy, hanging out in the corridors of power will serve better, eventually.