Thank God I wasn't OS/2 Warp
29 Jul 2005
Joel Spolsky's latest article is largely a rehash of one of his earliest articles, whereby he expounds on his belief (which I share) that there's no substitute for top-notch programmers. The thing that got me thinking was his "shaky claim that most people are wrong in thinking you need an idea to make a successful software company," and this chart:
| Best Working Conditions | => | Best Programmers | => | Best Software | => | Profit! |
The problem I have with this is that you still need a pretty good idea to start with, or you're never going to get the best programmers in the first place. Great programmers aren't in it for the money; they want to work on stuff that interests them. Cool stuff. Sexy stuff. Having a great working environment with lots of other great programmers around is a big draw too, but how are you going to achieve that without the great idea in the first place?
This hits a chord with me because I know a lot of great programmers with whom I would love to start a company, but I've been waiting for the perfect idea to come along and it hasn't. But perhaps the trick is to just come up with a good-enough idea -- good enough to get one or two other great programmers to dive into it with you -- and just take it from there.
So...who's got a good-enough idea?
Another great column by Mark Morford. Complaining about a bit of hidden sex in a game that glorifies sex, drugs, and violence does seem a bit misguided. Yeah, Puritan roots!
Cool and a bit disturbing, and strangely addictive. Use your mouse to move her around. Pretty nice bit of programming.
Somebody has deemed today Embrace Your Geekness Day. So what better way to celebrate than post to my blog.
I searched around for information about the origins of this holiday, but found nothing other than lists of other obscure days (July 15th is Respect Canada Day!). How does one get a day proclaimed anyway? There are some openings left; one calendar I looked at had the 29th and 31st of this month still open. How about a Wear Flip-Flops to Work Day? (Googling for that came up with a single hit.)
