Which modules do you "allow" yourself to use for production?

[Dirk Koopman]

On 23/07/13 13:22, Abigail wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 23, 2013 at 12:43:05PM +0100, Dirk Koopman wrote:
>> On 23/07/13 11:03, Abigail wrote:
>>
>> I sometimes express myself too forcefully. I am trying to suggest that
>> there is a balance to be struck. Further more, I believe that a
>> successful developer does this (after a while :-) automatically.
>
> Then there aren't many succesful developers.... I've found it very hard
> to convince people that "thou shalt not create technical debt" shouldn't
> be taken as a dogma. I've given talks at various (Perl) conferences where
> three quarters of the audience would have thrown rotten tomatoes at me
> if they had some.
>
> In my experience, most developers don't have much of a business sense,
> and instead of acknowledging that, they look down upon people whose
> specialty it is.
>

In my experience, people that look down on business are biting the hand 
that will feed them and their families. But you are right, in that there 
aren't many of this sort of programmer about. But business people also 
have a part to play here: they should understand that it *may* take more 
time to do something worthwhile and not _forever_ focus on the "quick 
win" and worry about the consequences later.

It took me (and others) time and effort to train Olivetti salesmen not 
to say "yes" to everything automatically without thought (it was a long 
time ago - the 1970s). But then having got there, they were superb at 
selling the stuff we did have and then getting sufficient margin to do 
any extra development. Mind you, one wonderful technique they had was 
inflating the price to 15+% over list/estimate and allowing themselves 
to be beaten down to 5-7% over :-).

Cooperation is truly what one needs in *any* successful business, not 
just a startup. A good business/sales operation and a development 
operation that works together as a team. Mutual respect and 
acknowledgement of each group's strengths gives a business something 
greater than the sum of its parts.

Could be one definition of profit?

Dirk