Jon Evans People Quotations

Basically, a manager's job is to make other people more productive. What's one really good way to do that? Do the work that is getting in their way. Which means find out what kind of important work your developers dislike the most, and do it for them.

The tech industry used to be home to a disproportionate number of misfits and weirdos. Geeks. Nerds. People who needed to know how machines worked: needed to take them apart, make them better, and put them back together again.

It's kind of ridiculous that they fluctuate so much. It's almost like they're trying to get people used to paying higher prices, so when they do come down, they feel good about it. But they're still higher than they were.

I don't mind that Bill Gates is a mega zillionaire; he's done a lot of really interesting and innovative stuff. I do mind that a lot of unworthy people rode his coattails to minizillionaire status, e.g. the inventor of Hungarian notation, probably the dumbest widely-promulgated idea in the history of the field.

The great irony of management is that the higher up you go, the less actual control you have. When you are but a humble coder, you make the computer do exactly what you want; when you're a manager, you only hope that people understand what you want, and then trust/pray that they do it both correctly and in a timely manner.