a while

I've been kinda busy and neglecting this blog. My bad. I've got a few geek thoughts to document about Windows Workflow and some TSql things that are pretty cool. Also been playing with Studio2010 a bit.

If I can get that documented this weekend, I will.

Until then, I ran across this quote from Einstein. At first I blew by it, but then I realized how it fits software development. The quote is:

"A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it."

The part that's always disappointed me about IT is that cleverness is rewarded but wisdom is not. If you write terrible code that blows up and you work all weekend to fix it, you're a hero. A friend was telling me that Intel used to reward people for the number of bugs they found. Unfortunately, the people they rewarded were the people who were writing the code to begin with. The clever people added a lot of very complex bugs and then were heroes for finding them. And they got a bonus for each one.

I've seen that. One of my prior employers used to give spot bonuses for extra work. The people who won them were always the folks who did crappy work, but then would work all weekend to fix the problems it caused. I remember a couple cases where the systems were so bad, that they asked me to take a look at them. I corrected the issues, so that they didn't fail anymore. And I got... nothin'. Not even an "atta-boy".

Of course, on the positive side, I got to sleep at nights, since my stuff didn't blow.

:D