Glory Days
When I first read a blurb the d.* editor wrote about me in the introduction for What the CIO Wants You to Know series my sensibilities were pricked. What I mean to say is that I was initially taken aback, but quickly got over it. I was described as a "former developer promoted to management" (which is a fairly accurate depiction). Yet, the creativity and technical challenges of software development had been my world for so long, I suppose I didn't consider myself "former" anything. I still deal with it every day. Programmers come to my door constantly seeking help. Sometimes I am able to give it, and sometimes I'm just the sounding board they need to figure it out for themselves. The biggest difference is that before I took this job in management, I pretty much just worried about my own projects and now I have to worry about everyone's.
However, this thought thread reminded me that we often engage in somewhat delusional self-labeling. Musician and writer wannabes are probably the worst, considering ourselves (at heart) to be musicians or writers, even when we go days, weeks, or months without truly practicing or writing creatively. We’re former high school athletes who, in our mind’s view, still flex taut muscles while the crowd cheers. Meanwhile, a middle-age spread has set in as we vegetate in the fat-man chair.
Even so-called developers fall prey to such mirages, considering themselves among the cutting edge elite, when in reality they spend their days applying fixes or supporting third party products, rarely having a good opportunity to utilize their hard-earned programming skills.
You're a product of your habits. You are what you do. If it pains me so much to be called a "former developer," then I should develop...for fun, if nothing else. If I want to call myself a writer, I should write. If I want to consider myself well-read, I should read...not watch TV. If I don't want to be fat, I should exercise.
Likewise, it really pains me to interview applicants for a programmer analyst position, have the candidate say with ardor, "I really want to be a programmer analyst more than anything," but then see no evidence that they’ve done *any* programming since graduation. In this day of technology accessibility, there is hardly an excuse to be made. To me this says that they want to land a decent paying position in programming, but they don’t necessarily have a passion for programming.
Sometimes it pays to be jolted by a little introspection. If your circumstances have placed you in a position where you feel your skills atrophying, either you need to change your habits or resign yourself to basking in the laurels (as John Mellencamp likes to say) of your former glory days.
Clear as Glass
Dan, I do agree with you (and Mr. Glass) regarding the difficulty of maintenance. In another post I moaned about the challenge of finding some way for lower performers to be productive. We've kicked around the idea of having our group divided into "maintenance programmers" and "new system developers." Trouble is, the maintenance programmers almost have to be even more talented, as you say, to read other programmers' code and not break the good parts while fixing the problems. Perhaps I should have left it at third party system babysitting. I know that a lot of developers leave some places of employment because they find that all they do is install maintenance releases and watch the third-party pot boil. It seems like it was Andy who said he recently left a former place of employment because he was not being given the opportunity to work with new tools.
And no, Dan, I wasn't offended by your description. As I said, it was accurate.
No pun intended
From an outsider views,by going through comments of both Daniel Read and Donna L Davis,it appears both are corerct in their place. It is the point of view. And,it can change from person to person. One should not get offended by it.
Innocent Comment After Effects
Hi, Donna. I'm not sure whether to apologize for my short-sighted description of you, or to be happy that it seems to have spurred some good thought. :-) No jolting on my part was intended, of course.
For those who are not subscribers to the developer.* email newsletter, the comment to which Donna refers was a promotional blurb I wrote in a recent newsletter, encouraging readers to check out Donna's CIO series. The intent of the "former developer promoted to manager" description was simply to lend credibility to Donna's perspective as someone who can appreciate all of the relevant points of view in the equation: the programmer's, the team leader's, the "middle" manager's, and the executive's.
Perhaps, though, it would be more proper to take the stance, "Once a developer, always a developer."
Donna, your post has a few jolts of its own. Here's one:
I can relate to this on multiple levels, one being the acknowledgement of my own limits and relative narrowness of my on-the-job experience in a field so vast and varied as software development. You can see in developer.* part of my mission to keep broadening my perspective, to either erase those limits or learn to leverage them to my advantage (and my employer/client's) rather than stumbling over them because I don't even know they're there.
If Bob Glass were here, Donna, he would I think point out a hidden falacy in the paragraph I quoted above. As he lays out in "Software Maintenance is a Solution, Not A Problem," from Software Conflict 2.0, skilled maintenance is quite difficult, and is a specialized skill in its own right. The existence of a production system is the ultimate challenge to one's development skills, and the best proving ground and learning environment for developers that there is, in my opinion.
But really there I'm just nit-picking, which is a distraction from your excellent point, namely that "applying fixes or supporting third party products" doesn't always *feel* like much fun--especially when reading in the blogosphere, and in books and magazines, about all the people having so much more fun with the bleeding edge stuff, or applying their skills more purely as "coders."
Thanks for your unique perspective, Donna, and your willingness to go out on a limb and share it.
Best,
Dan