Why should IT people be any different from other employees? At my previous company we went out all the time to different bars and clubs. A lot of my former colleagues are now close personal friends.
But, coming to think of it, I must say that after having worked with different categories of people, IT people tend to socialize less than other. Idiots.
...was the other information on the AI site about how they are working on the Child Machine HAL. Can you teach them how to do Java? In that case I could "work" from home more often...
A friend of mine was holding a very important 2 hour demo for an important customer in our office. The customer had sent several people so he decided to hook up the demo machine to the projector which created a 4 by 3 meter image of his screen.
As the demo was for several hours there was a 15 minute break in the middle. Being in our office he was connected to the network and during the break he decided to check his email. At that time someone had sent him the "You have been bearded" exe. As he had several windows on his desktop he never saw the x-rated image that the program placed on his desktop.
Client reps return after the break. The demo progresses smoothly. After the demo finished he shut down all windows while he is talking about the work etchics and dedication of our programmers. After shutting down the last window his desktop (with the heavily bearded girl as the desktop image) is displayed in 4 by 3 meters in front of the customer.
There is a 10 second silence after which he discovers why all eyes are staring at the image. His first reaction is to close the lid on his laptop. As we all know this does not remove the 4 by 3 meter image produced by the projector. His next reaction is to remove all cables attached to the laptop which eventually removed the 4 by 3 meter x-rated image.
The customer was very satisfied with the demo. One guy even asked if he could borrow the demo computer back to his office...
Yes I have. In my experience it is very difficult to use XP if you don't have a team of experienced programmers. The way you implement XP as a methodology is also important. I takes a while for everybody to get used to and my recommendation is to pick out the practices that best fits your need and implement those one at a time.
I would also not recommend using XP if you are using a team of consultants for the short term. What usually happens first when you implement XP is that documentation tends to become poor. This is bad if the developers are leaving your company next month.
Those XP features that I have seen to be most useful are:
"Pair" programming or rather more extensive code reviews whitout having to sit in each other's lap. Two developers are always responsible for a certain area.
Short release cycles (yes 6 weeks is possible for a major B2B site)
Extensive testing with as much help as possible from an automated tool such as a Build Manager, Rational teamtest etc
Heavy focus on feature prioritization. This will involve people who might not be used to prioritization for short cycles.
Also make sure that you do "sunset reviews" (including the entire team) after each cycle to continually gather feedback on how the previous cycle worked out and how to improve the coming cycle.
All in all it is not that "Extreme" but more like common sense.
If you are an experienced programmer you might be able to get a very decent job in Sweden (there is a shortage of professional IT people). Salaries vary quite dramatically depending on which city you go to with Stockholm (the capital) at the top of the list. But, as someone else pointed out, that is because the cost of living is higher here.
Be prepared to put a lot of effort into finding an apartment. If you sublet a 2 room flat here you will probably be paying around 1200 USD/mo for it if you are looking at central stockholm.
Experienced programmers can make about 40-50' SEK/mo working for a swedish company. This is a lot lower than the US rates I assume.
Slashdot Mirror
Why should IT people be any different from other employees? At my previous company we went out all the time to different bars and clubs. A lot of my former colleagues are now close personal friends.
But, coming to think of it, I must say that after having worked with different categories of people, IT people tend to socialize less than other. Idiots.
...oups. That includes me I guess.
...was the other information on the AI site about how they are working on the Child Machine HAL. Can you teach them how to do Java? In that case I could "work" from home more often...
A friend of mine was holding a very important 2 hour demo for an important customer in our office. The customer had sent several people so he decided to hook up the demo machine to the projector which created a 4 by 3 meter image of his screen.
As the demo was for several hours there was a 15 minute break in the middle. Being in our office he was connected to the network and during the break he decided to check his email. At that time someone had sent him the "You have been bearded" exe. As he had several windows on his desktop he never saw the x-rated image that the program placed on his desktop.
Client reps return after the break. The demo progresses smoothly. After the demo finished he shut down all windows while he is talking about the work etchics and dedication of our programmers. After shutting down the last window his desktop (with the heavily bearded girl as the desktop image) is displayed in 4 by 3 meters in front of the customer.
There is a 10 second silence after which he discovers why all eyes are staring at the image. His first reaction is to close the lid on his laptop. As we all know this does not remove the 4 by 3 meter image produced by the projector. His next reaction is to remove all cables attached to the laptop which eventually removed the 4 by 3 meter x-rated image.
The customer was very satisfied with the demo. One guy even asked if he could borrow the demo computer back to his office...
I would also not recommend using XP if you are using a team of consultants for the short term. What usually happens first when you implement XP is that documentation tends to become poor. This is bad if the developers are leaving your company next month.
Those XP features that I have seen to be most useful are:
"Pair" programming or rather more extensive code reviews whitout having to sit in each other's lap. Two developers are always responsible for a certain area.
Short release cycles (yes 6 weeks is possible for a major B2B site)
Extensive testing with as much help as possible from an automated tool such as a Build Manager, Rational teamtest etc
Heavy focus on feature prioritization. This will involve people who might not be used to prioritization for short cycles.
Also make sure that you do "sunset reviews" (including the entire team) after each cycle to continually gather feedback on how the previous cycle worked out and how to improve the coming cycle.
All in all it is not that "Extreme" but more like common sense.
Peter
Hopefully someone would create a browser that was fully compliant with HTML4 without going going down the dark Netscape track first...
If you are an experienced programmer you might be able to get a very decent job in Sweden (there is a shortage of professional IT people). Salaries vary quite dramatically depending on which city you go to with Stockholm (the capital) at the top of the list. But, as someone else pointed out, that is because the cost of living is higher here.
Be prepared to put a lot of effort into finding an apartment. If you sublet a 2 room flat here you will probably be paying around 1200 USD/mo for it if you are looking at central stockholm.
Experienced programmers can make about 40-50' SEK/mo working for a swedish company. This is a lot lower than the US rates I assume.