Two Banjos At Once: The Blog

No surprises here, or none for techs, anyway. A lot of the following sounds like banal repetition of common sense. But the thing about common sense is that it isn’t…common. And so, even after twenty years of Dilbert cartoons, I feel compelled to list a few points I want my non-tech colleagues to remember.

6 Things to Know About Developers

1. We hate lengthy, freeform meetings.
   I’m really disappointed I have to write this it at all. I thought all the books, blog posts, satire, and research results had convinced everyone with at least functional literacy of the total buzzkill, the utter torment, the massacre of productivity, that the typical business meeting means for programmers and developers. And format doesn’t matter–don’t think that conference call is any less loathed.

   Solution: schedule only short meetings (<1 hour) with strict agendas, if you must schedule any at all.

2. We really don’t need to see all of the marketing presentation.
   I don’t question that the marketing people worked really, really hard on what is just about the world’s best preso, the one that’s gonna reap all the financing and press attention. But I’d prefer to take your word for it; I’m about as enthusiastic and informed an audience for this material as the marketing people are for, let’s say, a prolonged discussion of JavaScript debugging tools.
3. We require specifics.
   We can tell you’re excited about your idea, and it sounds to us like a good idea, and sure, let’s build it. But we can’t act on the sparse outline of it that you’ve provided: “It’s like MySpace–only for dogs!!” says nothing to us about where you want to start.
4. We have specialties.
   Yes, there certainly are many people who can design an application, copywrite its content, write all the HTML/CSS/JavaScript for the interface, and develop all the scripting that communicates to an optimized, secure database. The people who can do all these things well are scarce. In fact, they’re usually not for hire since they’re too busy speaking at conferences or writing books.

   Scrupulous developers often qualify their self-descriptions with terms like “software,” “application,” “Java,” “Flash,” “user interface,” or “front-end” prefixed to the noun “developer.” You’ll save a lot of bother noting this qualifier, since it’ll keep you from asking software devs about JavaScript and front-end devs about Java.

5. Not all of us are white, 20-something nerdboys.
   I don’t know why this stereotype persists. Many, perhaps even most, developers of my acquaintance fail to embody at least one of the qualities listed above. Maybe I just know a select coterie of middle-aged, female, humanities-educated, and/or non-Caucasian techs. Anyway, few of us seem anticipated by the majority of tech firms, who try to lure us into their employ with promises of foosball and all-you-can-drink Red Bull.

   Snore.

6. We need fresh air and sunshine too.
   So many tech workplaces seem fashioned by prison architects: no windows, horrible, glaring fluorescent overhead lighting that is about a million times brighter than necessary, and even gray cubicle walls subdividing the room into a bunch of sensory deprivation chambers.
   
   How come you want to work from home?
   Photo by cackhanded

   Ask yourself if you could spend 8+ hours working where your devs do. Even better, take a high school algebra or trigonometry textbook, and try to work out the solutions to every problem in the textbook while seated in one of these spaces. If you can’t, it might not be entirely due to a failure in your math abilities.

What do you want everyone to know about developers?