Those High Notes

These days a new full length article from Joel Spolsky is a rare enough occurrence to be worth commenting on.

The latest is Hitting the High Notes, which attempts to prove the case that the best programmers produce the best software. As Joel says himself in the article, when you put it that simply, it doesn't seem like something that should need to be proven.

Well, it certainly seems to have created some controversy on the forums, I've never seen so many new threads appear so soon about a new article. It seems strange to me that developers would want to argue that they don't have to be good to produce good software. Actually, I'm just kidding, most of the negative points raised in the forums relate to some other aspect of the article, like Joel's assertion that the best developers all want to work on shrink-wrapped software.

Hopefully without sounding like a mindless drone, I have to say I didn't have a problem with anything in the article, and to me it completely ties in with most of Joel's other articles on things like core competencies and good working environments. I totally buy into Joel's general model and advice, and I think he's done a great job of starting a company and documenting some of the basic ideas he had and lessons he's learned to give the rest of us a head start.

Despite all this, I also know that (as with most advice from successful people) it won't work 100% of the time, and that Joel himself has had a lot to do with the success of his company. His position as a respected expert on software, and the host of some staggeringly popular articles and forums, has no doubt had a massive impact on the buzz and success which surrounds Fogcreek's products. It's also not easy to figure out who are the "best" programmers. It's not necessarily just the smartest person or the fastest that we're looking for, but the ones who hit the high notes (one of the examples was the design of the iPod). The best indicator of this is probably what they have done, and what they're working on right now, which for me leaves the best programmers = best software equation with a little bit of a chicken and egg edge. But it's a small edge- I still agree with the basic idea, and I think Joel's comparisons of programming to arts rather than engineering are valid, especially in the shrink-wrap environment. If you are going to hire programmers to design and develop software, it certainly makes sense to try to hire the best you can get, and to give them an environment where they can thrive (hopefully hitting those high notes), and where they will want to stay.

So, where does all of this leave me... do I hit the High Notes? I don't know, but if I haven't already, I'd like to think I will in the future. Our software has already come so far, but I know it can go so much further, and I already have a huge list of ideas to take it there. I have to focus on the most important goal a software company can have, delivering the most useful and satisfying user-experience imaginable. That will be the ultimate high note.