• Mark Hutchinson (unregistered)

    Alex

    I did a double-take when I read your name associated with the IASA webinar. Congrats. I'll try to catch it.

  • Marvin Minsky (unregistered)

    Why is space limited at a webinar?

  • MichaelM (unregistered)

    I loved re-reading that article.

    I am once again feeling that antsy "I gotta get out of here" feeling at my current job. Even though the company is good to me and the work is reasonably fun. It's not a challenge anymore and I'm not learning new things.

  • Scott F. (unregistered)

    I guess I am one of the lucky ones. I have spent the last 20 years hopping from job to job as self employed developer. Except for my current project I never stayed anywhere very long. At the location I work at now I have been there for 5+ years.

    I think the difference is that I don't do the same thing for very long and I am constantly working with different projects. Actually now that I think about it, I have been at the same place doing different jobs. I have worked on nearly 12 projects large and small, from the design stages to production. I never get bored and I am constantly being challenged to learn and develop new skills.

    I love what I do.

  • Tale (unregistered)

    Man, I really hate that word. Webinar. I recognize the need to want to have a name for that type of thing, it's just so ... bleah.

  • Ken (unregistered) in reply to Marvin Minsky

    Watching a live performance by > x users requires resources and when only the host is paying I think they have a right to say no more than x users. I've seen webinars with too many people. Video is jumpy and shitty.

  • (cs)

    Another way to look as it they move on after the project comes to the support mode. They don't want to deal with the real issues post release and "having learned" everything they can they move on to "learn new" things at their next gig. It's seems to be part of the it take 10% of the effort to get 90% of the job done mentality.

  • Tim (unregistered) in reply to Tale
    Tale:
    Man, I really hate that word. Webinar. I recognize the need to want to have a name for that type of thing, it's just so ... bleah.

    "Everyone knows that putting 'web' in front of words automatically makes them crappier. Just look what happened to 'pages,' and 'cams,' and 'logs.' And who could forget the fall of the mighty 'isode.' Ohh, so tragic."

    -Strongbad, http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail181.html

  • (cs) in reply to Tale
    Tale:
    Man, I really hate that word. Webinar. I recognize the need to want to have a name for that type of thing, it's just so ... bleah.
    Yes, TRWTF is using the word "webinar" without irony.

    I don't mind the word "webcast" or the like, but "webinar" just makes my teeth hurt for some reason.

  • Xythar (unregistered)

    Invited who to speak? I think you a word out.

  • (cs)

    Unfortunately, I think my hopping jobs every few years has come to an end. I will be with my current company for the foreseeable future. Luckily, it's a pretty good company to work for

  • neveralull (unregistered)

    I've worked at only 4 companies in 38 years, but the first three were such large diverse firms that I would transfer among divisions and departments every couple of years (whether I wanted to or not) working on all new things, with all new people, for all new managers - and yet keep my benefits, etc. I highly recommend it.

  • (cs)

    What the hell is a webinar?

  • Cheong (unregistered)

    On the other hand, if employer need the talented employee to "put out the fire" of here and there for extended period, they could leave just because they're mentally too tired and cannot stand it anyone.

    Increasing the AL can considerably have better effect than increase the salary for them.

  • (cs) in reply to tOmcOlins
    tOmcOlins:
    What the hell is a webinar?
    Hmm … I suspect a troll, but … It's a 'Web Seminar' (geddit?!?!!?!!), or if you prefer, a seminar delivered as audio+video over the Web. Some of these are live, some are pre-recorded; either way, as others have already said, limiting the number of 'attendees' (or 'viewers') keeps the video quality high.

    Some 'Webinars' charge money to view them (akin to pay-per-view), some don't. I'm told they're quite popular with the likes of Microsoft, Apple, etc.

  • Mr Private (unregistered)

    Disagree with the premise. I prefer to stick around for a while and get some degree of leadership.

    In my neck of the woods, a CV that showed 10 jobs in 10 years would ring alarm bells.

  • (cs)

    That is all.

  • (username *)me (unregistered)

    I quit!

    Has anyone else crawled through the "supplicant entrance". I did it recently (after about 3 months) only to find the place was going out of business. After it's all said and done it's about not how embarrassing it is, it's about how much copper wire you can strip out of the walls.

    CAPTCHA - Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart. The sheer number of erroneous definitions of this term is astounding.

  • (cs) in reply to tOmcOlins
    tOmcOlins:
    What the hell is a webinar?
    That question has been answered, but I'd like to ask a followup: What's the point of a webinar?

    With a seminar you get to meet other people interested in the topic and can ask questions of the speakers. The one webinar I attended gave absolutely no sense of anybody else watching along with me, and all the questions they answered were pre-screened (and seemingly fabricated), so there was no point in having us attend live.

    Why not just record what you're going to say, maybe in front of a live audience, and post that for anybody to watch whenever they're ready? Why set it for a specific time and limit attendence?

  • (cs) in reply to tOmcOlins
    tOmcOlins:
    What the hell is a webinar?

    It's a seminar given in a language that consists only ones and zeros. It's given by guys who call themselves "We, Binars". You know... these guys:

    [image]
  • (cs) in reply to Tim
    Tim:
    Tale:
    Man, I really hate that word. Webinar. I recognize the need to want to have a name for that type of thing, it's just so ... bleah.

    "Everyone knows that putting 'web' in front of words automatically makes them crappier. Just look what happened to 'pages,' and 'cams,' and 'logs.' And who could forget the fall of the mighty 'isode.' Ohh, so tragic."

    I once worked with someone who had a great idea. She was going to start a business that showed people how to use the Web to make money, or as she called it, "webenue".

  • (cs)

    I don't think I buy it. If you aren't learning new stuff staying at a job, there's something wrong with that job -- that doesn't mean there's something wrong with the general concept of sticking around at a given job. I've known people who spent 10+ years working together, and had a great time and learned a lot doing it.

    It matters a lot what your management is like, I think. If they encourage you to learn new things, and develop new skills, staying in one place can be great.

  • Lizard-Spock (unregistered)
    Oh yes, it’s Employment 2.0.
    You mean it's a meaningless, bullshit buzzword designed by marketing to be sticked onto old technology to claim it's something new and demand to be paid for it, whereas it used to be free?
  • Anon. (unregistered)

    Writing bad code isn't done by bad developers to secure their employment. It's written by bad developers because, guess what? They're BAD DEVELOPERS.

    If bad developers deliver bad code, it's the development managers fault. If the code has made it into production and it's bad, then it's not just a single failure, it's a whole heap of compounded failures.

    I just don't buy the "I'm useless, so I'll write useless code so they'll keep me around". In 20 years and MANY companies (both first-hand and second-hand) I've NEVER heard of a bad developer being kept around just so they can maintain their hideous code.

    The way to go about moving jobs is this. If your current job sucks, try and make it better. If you can't make it better, then and ONLY then, you change jobs.

    How many more WTFs are we going to see where people spot a WTF, but rather than trying to fix it, they simply walk away? I'll answer my own rhetoric. "Loads". THAT'S the real WTF; spotting a WTF, posting it here for kudos, and then LEAVING IT FOR SOMEONE ELSE TO DEAL WITH.

    Oh, I enjoy reading the stories, that's not an issue. However I get the feeling that these stories are still out there and still not fixed and people are still seeing them and going "wtf?"

  • (cs) in reply to Ken
    Ken:
    Watching a live performance by > x users requires resources and when only the host is paying I think they have a right to say no more than x users. I've seen webinars with too many people. Video is jumpy and shitty.
    You get that problem if you try to deliver the video and audio streams by TCP; after a while, you just max out the source's upstream bandwidth. The fix is to use multicast UDP to deliver the data so that each stream only needs to be sent once. The problem with that is that it's much less well supported by software and ISPs…
  • someguy (unregistered)

    The highest level of performance any developer can achieve is to quickly become completely and utterly expendable. That is the only definition of a job well done.

  • MaR (unregistered) in reply to Anon.
    Anon.:
    I just don't buy the "I'm useless, so I'll write useless code so they'll keep me around". In 20 years and MANY companies (both first-hand and second-hand) I've NEVER heard of a bad developer being kept around just so they can maintain their hideous code.

    I agree that bad developers don't write bad code to secure their jobs, but in my company we have several developers kept just for maintaing the old crap and they are virtually useless for anything else (despite our various training efforts). They just don't want to and know their position is secure... It's problem created over time.

    Anon.:
    How many more WTFs are we going to see where people spot a WTF, but rather than trying to fix it, they simply walk away? I'll answer my own rhetoric. "Loads". THAT'S the real WTF; spotting a WTF, posting it here for kudos, and then LEAVING IT FOR SOMEONE ELSE TO DEAL WITH.

    You are almost never allowed by management. Yes you can be cowboy trying to fix things behind their backs, but you'll be blamed for all the problems if they find out. And yes I always try to convince, argue, show benefits... Enlightened managers are rare, unfortunately.

  • Toukarin (unregistered) in reply to Anon.
    Anon.:
    Writing bad code isn't done by bad developers to secure their employment. It's written by bad developers because, guess what? They're BAD DEVELOPERS.
    That's so true, but...
    Anon.:
    If bad developers deliver bad code, it's the development managers fault. If the code has made it into production and it's bad, then it's not just a single failure, it's a whole heap of compounded failures.
    ...I've had managers whom I suspect started off as bad developers (as you've mentioned), basically a snowball of failures piled higher and deeper.
    Anon.:
    I just don't buy the "I'm useless, so I'll write useless code so they'll keep me around". In 20 years and MANY companies (both first-hand and second-hand) I've NEVER heard of a bad developer being kept around just so they can maintain their hideous code.
    That's not true. My previous company kept a useless developer for over 25 years before he was retrenched during the economic crisis, and the only reason he could stay that long is because he's the one and only one who can maintain a critical system. The source code has been lost, only left with compiled binaries, and none of the original developers could be found. It wasn't a bad program to start with, but over the years this crap of a guy plugged in hideous workarounds until it became a total maintenance nightmare. If it wasn't for another idiot who claimed that he could maintain it, this crappy developer would have stayed for another good 5 years at least.
    Anon.:
    The way to go about moving jobs is this. If your current job sucks, try and make it better. If you can't make it better, then and ONLY then, you change jobs.
    Isn't that similar to what the article stated?
    Original Article:
    If that employee continues to work in the same job (after hitting the value apex, ie. making things better), his value will start to decline. What was once “fresh new ideas that we can’t implement today” become “the same old boring suggestions that we’re never going to do”. Prior solutions to similar problems are greeted with “yeah, we worked on that project, too” or simply dismissed as “that was five years ago, and we’ve all heard the story.” This leads towards a loss of self actualization which ends up chipping away at motivation.
    Anon.:
    How many more WTFs are we going to see where people spot a WTF, but rather than trying to fix it, they simply walk away? I'll answer my own rhetoric. "Loads". THAT'S the real WTF; spotting a WTF, posting it here for kudos, and then LEAVING IT FOR SOMEONE ELSE TO DEAL WITH.
    Believe Jeff Atwood covered this in a much earlier article here.

    I think it's not so much about how accurate Alex's article is, it would definitely apply to varying degrees in various organizations, but the general sense of the spirit is: There are so many bad developers around and we need to find ways and means to flush them out. Embracing this new culture is but one way.

  • Techpaul (unregistered)

    Well I consider it a WTF like many other institute type sites should be listed in the webpagesthatsuck top 100.

    I had never heard of IASA, clicked the home page link and even their home page does not spell it out what it means, and even a one line statement on what they do.

  • Roy T. (unregistered)

    Embrace turnover, turnover = change Embrace change in software = Agile development Embrace change in personal = Agile HR?

    Damn why didn't I think of that?

  • (cs) in reply to Scott F.
    Scott F.:
    I guess I am one of the lucky ones. I have spent the last 20 years hopping from job to job as self employed developer. Except for my current project I never stayed anywhere very long. At the location I work at now I have been there for 5+ years.

    I think the difference is that I don't do the same thing for very long and I am constantly working with different projects. Actually now that I think about it, I have been at the same place doing different jobs. I have worked on nearly 12 projects large and small, from the design stages to production. I never get bored and I am constantly being challenged to learn and develop new skills.

    I love what I do.

    ^^ this

    Where I work I have great benefits, great working flex hours, great pay, I go to whatever seminar/conference I want to every year, and the technology is always changing (meaning I get to learn new things all of the time). Why would I want to leave? Saying that people like me with great jobs are talentless hacks that 'entrench' themselves in bad code just because we actually like our jobs is the real WTF.

    Maybe some programmers are comfortable where they are, maybe some are afraid of moving to a new city, or going to a new company and having it not work out (then being jobless). These concerns and fears don't make one a bad programmer, and it certainly doesn't mean that they write shitty code.

  • (cs) in reply to Roy T.

    I do not agree with the premise.

    It's true that job mobility for talented people is higher, as they are more wanted.

    I however do not agree that all talented people change jobs frequently. I think that it depends on the job. I think too often new development stops or slows down after a while once a couple products mature.

    I've seen places where there has been a continuous focus on new development, usually R&D divisions. My experience is, that in these kind of environment you can keep very talented and skilled people employed for decades.

    The challenge is to stay at the cutting edge of technology and science for decades, which is a hard thing to do but not impossible.

    If you want to keep talented people, you need you organisation to be ahead of the pack.

    Another thing that helps, is rewarding talent and skill and leaving them at what they do best, instead of promoting them to some management position.

  • (cs)

    Perhaps this sort of approach works if you're an independent contractor, but then you'd spend a disproportionate amount of time on acquisition. Or perhaps it worked during the dotcom boom.

    But for an organisation, it's disastrous. You really don't want somebody who will bugger off at the first opportunity of something that is perceived as a greener pasture.

    And retaining bad programmers so that they maintain their own rubbish? Not where I work. You mess up: you go out.

  • (cs) in reply to Toukarin
    Toukarin:
    That's not true. My previous company kept a useless developer for over 25 years before he was retrenched during the economic crisis, and the only reason he could stay that long is because he's the one and only one who can maintain a critical system. The source code has been lost, only left with compiled binaries, and none of the original developers could be found. It wasn't a bad program to start with, but over the years this crap of a guy plugged in hideous workarounds until it became a total maintenance nightmare. If it wasn't for another idiot who claimed that he could maintain it, this crappy developer would have stayed for another good 5 years at least.

    In my world we fire people who manage to lose source code for critical systems. And we rewrite/refactor systems on a lot shorter cycle than 25 years. If your previous company had a piece of software that was not rewritten/refactored in 25 years, I'd wager that the company was a WTF anyway, and well deserving of a pitiful developer.

    On top of that, how can only one useless developer maintain a system that they don't even have the source for? This story reeks of inconsistency. If he didn't have the source, and he was as useless as you make out, he had to have been just developing plugins for the system or developing ancillary systems, in which case he could have documented his process and been replaced. If he was actually changing the application, then he had to have been decompiling it into some language (C or assembler maybe?) then making his changes and recompiling. If he was doing that, he was quite a bit smarter than you give him credit for.

    Toukarin:
    I think it's not so much about how accurate Alex's article is, it would definitely apply to varying degrees in various organizations, but the general sense of the spirit is: There are so many bad developers around and we need to find ways and means to flush them out. Embracing this new culture is but one way.

    So... embracing a culture where your good developers will leave in ~2-5 years is a way to flush out bad developers? I've personally stayed at companies and watched bad developers turn over faster than good developers; they often left and moved away for higher paying positions in nearby cities. What did we do? The good developers stayed behind, fixed their code, replaced their bad systems, and kept the company's software stable. Most of the good developers did eventually move on. I still keep in touch with a couple of the developers there. However, through a process of change and advancement, the company had a very enticing appeal to it that kept good developers. The bad developers were the ones who left.

    Yes, companies should accept that their good developers will eventually move on for one reason or another (advances in pay or benefits, to be closer to their families, etc.), but there's a ton of things that they can do to keep the good developers longer and cycle out the bad ones faster.

  • (cs) in reply to md5sum
    md5sum:
    If your previous company had a piece of software that was not rewritten/refactored in 25 years, I'd wager that the company was a WTF anyway, and well deserving of a pitiful developer.

    Not to perpetuate the meme, but this is not unheard in embedded systems. In my last job, we had a few pieces of software that were more than 2 decades old, and written in Forth to boot. Besides the odd new feature or bug fix, the original code was pretty much untouched. The real issue was finding the hardware to keep manufacturing these primordial beasts. Oh, did I mention they didn't have file systems?

  • (cs) in reply to frits
    frits:
    md5sum:
    If your previous company had a piece of software that was not rewritten/refactored in 25 years, I'd wager that the company was a WTF anyway, and well deserving of a pitiful developer.

    Not to perpetuate the meme, but this is not unheard in embedded systems. In my last job, we had a few pieces of software that were more than 2 decades old, and written in Forth to boot. Besides the odd new feature or bug fix, the original code was pretty much untouched. The real issue was finding the hardware to keep manufacturing these primordial beasts. Oh, did I mention they didn't have file systems?

    That's fine, but did you keep a bad developer for more than 2 decades to not touch the code? I know there's a (VERY large, and VERY well known) company here in town that still uses a system that was written in the 80's. But they keep good developers on staff to make modifications to it, they haven't yet lost the source code, and it does get refactored, although never entirely rewritten.

  • (cs) in reply to Techpaul
    Techpaul:
    Well I consider it a WTF like many other institute type sites should be listed in the webpagesthatsuck top 100.

    I had never heard of IASA, clicked the home page link and even their home page does not spell it out what it means, and even a one line statement on what they do.

    After clicking around on their home page for a while, I finally got to the "About Us" page. IASA is an acronym for "The International Association of Software Architects" and after this article, and as much bad response as he got from it, I'm surprised that they would have him speaking here...

    I'm probably going to watch the "webinar", it might be good, or it might be good for laughs...

    Oh, and for another mini-WTF, change the time zone on the meeting sign-up page.

  • ClutchDude (unregistered)

    I think the chief difference is that good employees don't sit on their laurels. They are either improving the business(and themselves) or stagnating. This doesn't necessarily mean changing jobs every 2-3 years, but it does mean organizational changes.

    It's not hard to keep staff when they are 2 of the 3: a. content with the work they do (compensation and building industry specific stuff) b. content with setting they are in(near good schools or living or office setting) c. content with their future prospects (things are improving or there is a plan)

  • Zapakh (unregistered)

    Excellent talk, Alex. Thank you for putting that together.

  • Someone like Kevin (unregistered) in reply to Ken
    Ken:
    Video is jumpy and shitty.
    Bottom line: never let your video jump and shit.
  • Shawn (unregistered)

    People are not motivated by money. Giving people lots of money to stay at their current jobs only gets you people who are more interested in money than the job. People stay at their job only if it is interesting. Here a link to a story about an intern who found meaning in his boring job: http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Classic-WTF-Meaninglessness.aspx His compensation for doing the extra work: coffee.

  • RandomUser423666 (unregistered)

    I was curious to see this, but had other obligations. Was it recorded and posted anywhere?

  • ClutchDude (unregistered)

    If you've read the article, you got the gist of the talk. It was interesting, but again, if you read the article and the comments from the article, you mostly got the experience.

    I did enjoy it though, so thanks Alex for spending the time to put it together.

  • Bollogg's Crispies (unregistered) in reply to md5sum
    md5sum:
    I know there's a (VERY large, and VERY well known) company here in town that still uses a system that was written in the 80's. But they keep good developers on staff to make modifications to it, they haven't yet lost the source code, and it does get refactored, although never entirely rewritten.

    Is that in Redmond?

  • (cs)

    Wow, there's a bunch of people sippin' on Hateraid here.

    Congratulations, Alex.

  • Zer0 (unregistered) in reply to frits
    frits:
    Wow, there's a bunch of people sippin' on Hateraid here.

    Congratulations, Alex.

    Second that.

    These comments just go to show how many bad developers there really are. They greatly outnumber the really talented developers. Any competent hiring manager would echo that.

    I've never met a great developer that was ever worried about losing his or her job.

  • (cs) in reply to amischiefr
    amischiefr:
    Scott F.:
    I guess I am one of the lucky ones. I have spent the last 20 years hopping from job to job as self employed developer. Except for my current project I never stayed anywhere very long. At the location I work at now I have been there for 5+ years.

    I think the difference is that I don't do the same thing for very long and I am constantly working with different projects. Actually now that I think about it, I have been at the same place doing different jobs. I have worked on nearly 12 projects large and small, from the design stages to production. I never get bored and I am constantly being challenged to learn and develop new skills.

    I love what I do.

    ^^ this

    Where I work I have great benefits, great working flex hours, great pay, I go to whatever seminar/conference I want to every year, and the technology is always changing (meaning I get to learn new things all of the time). Why would I want to leave? Saying that people like me with great jobs are talentless hacks that 'entrench' themselves in bad code just because we actually like our jobs is the real WTF.

    Maybe some programmers are comfortable where they are, maybe some are afraid of moving to a new city, or going to a new company and having it not work out (then being jobless). These concerns and fears don't make one a bad programmer, and it certainly doesn't mean that they write shitty code.

    +1. As has already been pointed out frequent job hopping actually sets off alarm bells for hiring managers. Plus, developers who don't hang around very long never learn the neccessary skills to create maintainable code because they're already long gone when any problems crop up i.e. their code is the ideal candidate for appearing on thedailywtf.

  • Captain Obvious (unregistered) in reply to md5sum
    md5sum:
    However, through a process of change and advancement, the company had a very enticing appeal to it that kept good developers.
    md5sum:
    Yes, companies should accept that their good developers will eventually move on for one reason or another (advances in pay or benefits, to be closer to their families, etc.), but there's a ton of things that they can do to keep the good developers longer and cycle out the bad ones faster.

    Care to elaborate a bit on what those things are that companies can do? I'd be curious to hear what your experience or anyone else's experience has been regarding effective and ineffective means of retaining good developers.

  • bshock (unregistered)

    You, sir, are scum in human form. Presumably.

  • your name here (unregistered) in reply to Marvin Minsky
    Marvin Minsky:
    Why is space limited at a webinar?

    I'm guessing it's because not everyone has the server resources that YouTube has.

Leave a comment on “Announcement: A Culture of Quitting, The Webinar”

Log In or post as a guest

Replying to comment #:

Log Out

« Return to Article