The Bionic Office

hondo77 writes "Joel Spolsky has finally moved Fog Creek Software into their new digs. Read about what went into the design of "the ultimate software development environment" from your (my) cube and drool."

Comments

biggest pet peeve

[British]

My biggest pet peeve at the office is having almost no room between the table and wall to get a power plug through. I'm sometimes bashing the plug(or the ferrite core) behind the table so I can get it to the outlet or Ethernet port.

All cubicle tables should have a notch cut out for this purpose.

Re:biggest pet peeve

[Schwartzboy]

Amen. I can't even count the number of workspaces I've had, either at my own workplace or at client sites, that have the plugs at ground level & right up against, say, the 76-ton (empty weight) steel file cabinet full of small rocks. While I don't see a great deal of use for the HDTV in an environment where people are supposed to be working, I'm a huge fan of this line-of-sight stuff, and other than the "dear God I'm blind" shade of green, it really does look like a nifty place to work.
Big straight tables for collaborative sitting/hanging out/pair work and doors that close, plus millions of LAN ports (no mention of any wireless stuff that I could find, though) and color-coded sockets to easily figure out what goes where based on which electronics need UPS goodness, and did I mention the doors? This article should be from the "Geek Eye for the Clueless PHB Guy Who Likes to Pack Coders in Like Sad Little Cube-Dwelling Sardines" department. Heck, I can see all kinds of potential for enhanced productivity (or at least more /. reading and LAN gaming) in this setup just for me and a bunch of my best geek buddies.

It's a pitiful wasted dream to imagine that programming-types working for non-software companies will ever see this sort of environment, if the idea takes off anywhere else at all. Pity the child who reads this article and will never live to touch the promised land...

Optimal office

[Dancin_Santa]

1) Big window overlooking moutain range or lake

2) Ethernet jack built into wall

3) Large, multipart desk

4) Large, swiveling, high-backed chair

5) Carpet

6) Door that can be shut

7) Glass window to see who is knocking at the door

Super ultra elite developers

[bartlog]

One thing I've noticed, of which this article is a very good example, is how most everyone who hires software developers claims to be hiring (or at least looking for) the very best of the best.
'We have an elite team'.
'On a scale of one to ten, all our developers are at least a nine.'
'We hire only the top two percent.'

And of course in this article Joel kicks it up a notch by claiming to be after the 99.9th percentile. Makes you whether the industry is vastly deluded as to the actual abilities of those they hire...

Re:Super ultra elite developers

[pVoid]

Let me tell you something, I can type page after page of relatively bug free C++ code as fast as I can type it.

I learned as soon as I got into a working environment that it's basically pointless. After a project reaches a size, or deadline where a single person isn't good enough to implement it alone, things start changing, and most of the bottlenecks come from incompatible internal structures that end up being re-written. We had a programmer like that in our team (after I was no longer that kind of programmer), and he was looked upon by everyone else as the black sheep. He would spurt out 500 lines of code at the end of a week, and the rest of the team (5 people) would spend a week after that stiching it all together.

Unless these people you talk about were the borg, and could neurally interface with each other, I'm pretty sure what you say is impossible.

I'll tell you one programmer I met that to this impresses me to no end: before he was our DB developper he had worked for Sybase. I would ask him to write stored procs for our DB. He would send me .txt files of the stored procs that he'd written in notepad. Would never run the stored procs to see if they worked. They just did. Probably around 200 non trivial stored procs he wrote (with complexe cursor work etc), and the *only* time I got an error was a mistyped keyword. And as far as spec goes, he was always dead on what I had asked him.

But as the grandparent post indicated, I was his interface to the world of humans, aside from me, he was incapable of talking to anyone.

Re:Super ultra elite developers

[crazyphilman]

I've met a lot of programmers, some good, some bad, from a wide variety of backgrounds including everything from Harvard grads to CC dropouts. I think that when you've met enough people, you find that programming "brilliance" is a lot like physical beauty in women. In other words, it's everywhere, but most people fail to notice it.

Here's what I mean:

There's a wide range of physical beauty in women, going from the truly hideous to the utterly fine. But somewhere to the left of the middle of the range lies "attractive". Once someone is attractive, they're attractive, period. Any additional beauty is just a tiny little incremental change -- beauty isn't linear.

I think that most people who studied computer science in college (and took it seriously) are the comp. sci equivalent of "attractive", at least. They understand the subject, they know the basic constructs, and they understand the languages they work with. Given the opportunity, and a little bit of respect, they produce great work.

So, it's all about perception. Stop trying to look for tiny super-elites, and you'll see talent everywhere you look. That's one of the secrets of life, by the way. The most amazing things are usually right underfoot. Poor Joel seems to have missed this basic truth. 99.9th percentile, indeed. I hope none of them have a bridge for sale... ;)

Developer Office Design

[Fnkmaster]

I agree with a lot of Spolsky's office design rant here, but I am not sure about the part about trying to get developers to live in the office, and that being key to software development success. Sure, you do want people to be happy in the office environment when they sometimes put in an extra long week, but do you really want to operate under the assumption that developers should "essentially live in" the office? I thought that in the post-1999 era, we realized that people need to have balance in their lives, that we can work hard sometimes, but that we should never have to put in consistent, regular 80 hour work weeks.

I have asked developers who worked for me to work those kinds of ridiculous hours before, and I've asked it of myself, mostly because I was forced to by forces outside of my control. These days I prefer to operate under the assumption that work should be scheduled around a 40-50 hour work week, and the office/working environment should be a nice and pleasant one, but it shouldn't supercede home, and you shouldn't have to eat dinner at work every day, spend all your free time with your co-workers, etc.

Re:Developer Office Design

[bmj]

I agree with you completely...but...

There's certainly a group of programmers (most of whom are good programmers) who really truly love what they do, and will work terrible hours because of that love. And I mean programmers who are doing _interesting_ stuff, not just chugging along in the corporate environment. Most of these folks don't really have lives outside of work, and if they do, they are the sorts of lives that can be put on hold for indefinite periods of time. I too lazy to find the link, but there was a story a month or two ago about how the best scientists and researchers are unmarried. Duh! Of course they are. No person can serve two masters, as it were.

That said, I think the Fog Creek offices would be perfect for the average 9-5 programmer. They allow for greater productivity, thus allowing more actual work in an 8 hour day. And these are the type of people that would be more impressed with such a setup. A good programmer who doesn't necessarily want to live in their office would be more likely to join a company with an office like Fog Creek's, rather than just another cube farm somewhere else.

Joel = John Romero?

[truffle]

The only reason this article is newsworthy is because of Dot Bomb flashback syndrome. We'd all like to live in the magical world where employers spend tonnes on us because we're so damned valuable. The article seems to suggest it's cost effective to spend a lot of money to get the 99.9th percentile of coder, but is it really? Are you really just getting the 85% percentile of coder, but calling them the 99.9th percent to foster a sense of l33tness?

I mean it's a nice office and all, but this isn't really news. It's one guy who made a cool office.

Not much chance any of us will be getting cool offices any time soon.

Re:Nice office... but who is going to pay for this

[kfg]

When you start your own company your first desk should be an old door propped up with a couple of old milk crates. You have more important things to spend your money on when you start up.

If more "dot coms" had understood that instead of burning their money on fancy digs, pool tables and Porsches a few more of them might still be around.

Oh yeah, and clear idea of how you're going to make a profit to earn fancy desks, chairs and cars wouldn't be a bad idea either.

KFG

Re:colour me unimpressed

[etcshadow]

I think part of what's revolutionary about it is a manager making a rational economic argument for why it is worthwhile to spend this kind of money on giving developers a nice work area, and then putting their money where their mouth is (damn english, lacking proper indirect third-person singular pronoun).

It would be nice if my company could see things this way, instead of making lame-ass defeneses that "We can't treat the programmers specially, when there are non-programming paper-pushing staff right down the hall. If they get cubicles, we can't give you nice offices. While we agree that you *deserve* better, they'll get pissed off at the disparity." Hell, they probably tell those people "We really can't do better for you... I mean, we *already* treat you as well as the programmers!"

<aside>
By the way, the word is "color", friend. KIDDING!
</aside>

Kill the Programmers

[Ridgelift]

"Your business success will depend on the extent to which programmers essentially live at your office. For this to be a common choice, your office had better be nicer than the average programmer's home."

What crap! The best office I've ever had is the one I have now - a home office. Any employer that sucks the marrow out of their staff by having them work 90 hours a week will only burn their staff out.

Maybe I won't create the greatest apps overnight, but next week is just fine. Plus I have a healthy relationship with my 2 year old son, a beautiful wife, and another child on the way. I love programming, and having worked with computers for over 20 years. Because I take care of my health and mind, I'll still be here 20 years from now while slave drivers like Joel Spolsky have moved on to greener pastures with other anti-human ideals.

The candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long.

I love programing

[bluGill]

I was out of programing for a while, and to pay the bills I went into construction. I had a beatiful office then: outside with fresh air. I got to play with toys all day. (saws and nailers mostly, but once in a while I could attempt to get the 4 wheel drive forklift stuck) I hated it. Oh, I like working with my hands and building things, but I don't like doing it all day. I several times found myself standing on a 2x4 20 feet in the air and wishing I was anywhere else, (preferably the ground) while the other guy ran across the other wall and then teased me for not being at the other end already. I had to listen to the radio station the foreman picked. Then I finially got home after working 10 hours, and was dead tired. Even when I had a moment free, I couldn't pick up my mandolin because my body hurt too much.

I'm now back in programing, and I love it. I get paid to read code all day. I sit inside an office (with a window that I never look out of) that is air conditioned. I write code! They pay me to write code! Once in a while I have to test my code, and that isn't nearly as much fun, but my job is writing code. I work less hours. I can choose my radio station, or bring my own CDs, or work in silence, my choice. When I get home I can play mandolin without pain.

To each his own. I've tried your plan. The work was different, but I didn't like it.