Re: Do I Really Need A Supervisor?

["John G. Volan" <johnvolan@sprintmail.com>]

(Apologies to all if this already went out, had some problems with my
news/mail settings...)

Robert Dewar wrote (quoting Randall Edick):
> 
> I don't think you want a central management group.  You want a
> central TECHNICAL group.>>
> 
> I know many programmers feel this way, but I certainly would not hire them.
> Pretty strong central management is essential to software quality in my
> view.

Robert, to co-opt one of your favorite words, I think you're _confusing_
two distinct notions: "management" and "technical leadership."

By "management" I mean the sort of people described in poor Auntie
Alias' tirade: Beaurocrats who all too frequently have little or no
technical expertise but who, by virtue of their MBAs, hold the reigns of
power in an organization. At their best, they enable the technical staff
to do their jobs efficiently, at their worst they waste the
organization's energy with political empire-building. In either case,
they contribute very little indeed to the actual technical content of
the organization's product.

But "technical leadership" is something altogether different. A
technical leader is someone who is both "technical" -- contributing
substantially to the actual technical content of the product -- and also
a "leader" -- someone who provides the architectural vision that unifies
the technical product, and who willingly takes on and bears the
responsibility for enforcing/promoting/preserving/extending that vision.

There are many great examples of this latter notion even just within
this newsgroup. Certainly the honorable Messrs. Stallman and Kenner of
GNU fame fall into this category. The team leaders on the Ada83 and
Ada95 projects, Jean Ichbiah and Tucker Taft, are classic examples.  And
of course, let's not forget RBKD himself... :-)

With managers, you're lucky if you just "manage" to get your software
built. But I'd wager that, behind every truly excellent piece of
software you can name, you can name a strong technical leader
responsible for it.

I say, let us have more people of the latter sort, and heaven spare us
from the former! :-)

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P.S. Which category do you think Bill Gates would fall into...?