And you, sir? What have you done lately?
In Joel Spolsky's latest tirade, we learn that:
- Microsoft is an illegal monopoly
- Microsoft and Google are hiring people to pay foosball
- FolderShare is a tool for uploading and download files to the internet that nobody has ever heard of.
Simply put, to Joel everyone else does everything wrong. He, meanwhile, is milking a not-even-ASP bug-track application (he probably couldn't figure out how to write a ColdFusion version). Or wrapping a proprietary DynamicDNS-like wrapper around invented-elsewhere VNC client (and somehow avoiding the far more evolved UltraVNC variant). Or writing the worst little CMS monstrosity ever created. Joel is bitter about the cost of CS graduates and blames Google and Microsoft (curiously leaving Yahoo out of the mix) for driving it up.
The thing is, he's not entirely wrong... when a company can't figure out or invest in a stronger product, like @Task or Team Foundation, FogBugz isn't a bad compromise. When your dad needs IT support behind his random cable-modem IP, CoPilot isn't a bad tool and far cheaper to use than WebEx or GoToMyPc. And well, the best I can say about CityDesk is that my technophobe wife can figure it out and Joel isn't pushing it.
Seriously, though... what have you done lately that really is worth bragging about, Joel? It's been how many years since FogBugz came out and it still can't track my billable time or hold my requirements docs? It's been years since CityDesk saw a new release, and CoPilot was written by a few interns...over a summer. What has your (self) vaunted managerial skill produced lately. You can only rest on your Excel project manager laurels for so long.
Posts
4 comments:
I have my issues with Joel, but he has built a (modest but) successful software business. That's more than most people have done, so I do respect him for that.
I respect him and his products, but going off the rails about something you obviously don't understand should be called out.
And I stand by my point, he's got three products, two of which are basically dev-halted and one that is glacial in evolution, but he's calling out Microsoft, when puts out more "pet projects" a DAY than he's done in years...
He was instrumental in creating StackOverflow.com, only one of the most popular developer sites on the Internet. Most of his work has been in consulting which we haven't seen the fruit of, it's not like he's been sitting on his thumb at home.
This post, ironically, is 18 months old. That's long before FogBugz 7 shipped and StackOverflow was conceived. His _team_ are the authors of that software, and in the case of StackOverflow, the team was largely Jeff Atwood.
Post a Comment