

Pycon 2010 Keynote: Everyone at a startup should code from CEO to Secretary - replicatorblog
http://theonda.org/pages/pycon2010

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junklight
Now I am sure this keynote was just trying to be provocative and make people
think but: Really? Seriously?

You think that other skills - sales, marketing , financial , even secretarial
type things require the same kind of thinking , the same kind of people as
programming.

And you also think that someone that can program will either a) be happy doing
a completely different job than their skill set or b) be worth using as a
developer if their main skill is sales , marketing etc.

Now I am sure you can find the odd person who is a brilliant sales person (for
example) and a great developer - but why? I don't want my sales people cutting
code I want them selling stuff.

There is a phrase "jack of all trades, master of none" - sounds like the kind
of people you will end up with

~~~
replicatorblog
Regarding that phrase there is a last line, usually forgotten:

"Jack of all trades, master of none, though often times better than a master
of one"

<http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-jack-of-all-trades.htm>

I don't think it is just provocation. He is talking about <20 person start ups
for the most part. The example of a sales person being able to run custom
analytics is a good example. At 20 people I don't think it is weird to expect
a sales guy to be able to format an HTML email or have an engineer go on a
sales call. There needs to be some multiple hat wearing for the venture to
succeed.

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mikeryan
The flip side of this is every programmer should understand sales, marketing,
pr, product management, project management and client services.

~~~
jnoller
Which he mentions in the actual keynote

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j_baker
As much as I like the idea, let's be realistic. How many secretaries are out
there with coding chops?

(full disclosure: I didn't read it all the way through. I could very well have
missed something)

~~~
lsc
I hire such people. Now, usually they either think of themselves as a
secretary or as a programmer, and sometimes feel put upon when asked to take
the other role, but I think it's completely realistic (and a good idea) to
populate your company entirely with people who can at least handle simple
scripting languages.

It is more expensive, either in terms of time (you /can/ find that diamond in
the rough college student who is super organised and a reasonable coder and
willing to work for $15/hr, but you have to spend a lot of time looking, and
usually kiss a few frogs, and the person will leave for better wages as soon
as others notice they are good.) or in terms of salary (anyone who can program
reasonably well really is worth quite a bit more than that.)

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revorad
This is hilarious in context of the other posts about _programmers_ not
knowing how to program.

