

A Software Designer Knows His Office Space, Too - mqt
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/08/realestate/commercial/08sqft.html

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sfg
“Breaking bread together every day provides cohesion.”

Me and my team always went out to lunch together, but I only realised how
important this was when we were banned from doing so by management. They
wanted to give an impression of something being done by always having someone
around. The problem is that we got less done as we no longer shared ideas or
even had a clear understanding of what everyone was working on.

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michaelneale
Wow that is amazing - I didn't realise there were places that did that, or
even _could_ do that - did they also time your toilet breaks (make sure have
enough fibre !). No job is worth that sort of sillyness. No job.

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CalmQuiet
Well, it's impressive to me that JS appreciates the impact that environment
(including commons time/space) can have on productivity. The flexibility to
accommodate varied programmer work styles - likewise.

I could only wish that the Times articles had included personal comments from
the staff about how they experience. I have to be a little concerned that
office-design can run the same risk as software-design... when it springs
solely from the resident boy-genius and we don't get feedback from the end
users.

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pclark
Joel never discusses what his designers/support staff/everyone else think of
his company. I wonder if they love their office as much as the developers.

As a designer, I wouldn't be able to stand a company that values its
developers so much higher than everyone else (note: I have no idea if Joel
does this, I seriously doubt it, I'm only going via his statements on his site
about how his developers get fancy chairs/offices)

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nailer
"Mr. Spolsky used his personal interest in and amateur’s knowledge of design"

My Spolsky is a design professional, not an amateur. Would the New York Times
write the same about, say, DKNY's headquarters:

"Donna Karan used her personal interest in and amateur’s knowledge of design"

?

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tsetse-fly
They use "design" in the context of applied arts. Similar to the way that
"designer clothing" refers to fashion.

~~~
nailer
Architecture if often seen to be a type of user interface design with a high
engineering component, rather than an artform. Yet few would refer to
architects (even those with limited creativity) as people with amateur
knowledge of design.

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mynameishere
There's a standard complaint about the media. When a paper writes about a
subject you are familiar with, you tend to see the errors in it. I've read
Spolsky's (gradually diminishing) essays for years, and when the nytimes
writes about him, it's like he's some effete flower arranger, primarily
concerned with the graduations of sunlight on his atrium's interior.

What is he, really? He's a gay, Jewish New yorker who worked for microsoft,
started a business, got lucky with a completely unnecessary proprietary bug-
tracker, inspired lots of manager-types with his stylish vision of modern
workerdom, and now lives off the fat of his past efforts...

~~~
tsetse-fly
<http://antoniocangiano.com/2009/01/28/lets-all-grow-up/>

~~~
mynameishere
Any reason for that link?

