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The Importance of Lunch
theodp writes "I've been on teams that eat together every day,' writes Joel-on-Software Spolsky, 'and it's awesome. I've been on teams that don't, and lunch every day is, at best, lonely.' Spolsky is firmly in the camp that believes where and with whom we eat lunch is a much bigger deal than most people care to admit. 'There's a lot of stuff that's accidental about Fog Creek and Stack Exchange,' he concludes, 'but lunch is not one of them. Ten years ago Michael and I set out with the rather ambitious goal of making a great place to work. Eating together is a critical part of what it means to be human and what it means to have a humane workplace, and that's been a part of our values from day one.'"
At Fog Creek (Joel's company), I believe they have catered lunches every day. He's not the sort of manager who orders people to have lunch together, he's the sort of manager who provides lunch for everyone who wants it in order to encourage people to have lunch together.
It's very much a matter of carrots and sticks, which the Slashdot summary doesn't clarify at all.
Ad hominem much? If you would rather hear from all these other people, you should write them an email. Nobody is forcing you to read Joel's articles, let alone to agree with them. By the way, Joel also runs stackoverflow.com, which is huge.