Google's Ph.D. Advantage

Frisky070802 writes "The New York Times reports on Google's success and desire in hiring Ph.D.'s (free registration required). It says that Google's willingness to let every employee spend 20% of his or her time on an independent project is a compelling motivator and that they estimate that Google has as many Ph.D.'s working for it as Microsoft, which is 30 times larger. How many other companies put "Ph.D. a plus" in their want ads?"

Is a PHD so great?

[harryjrsd (778693)]

BS = (obvious)
PHD = Piled Higher and Deeper

or as a guy with a PHD once told me...

[Hooya (518216)]

PHD = Permanent Head Damage

Re:Is a PHD so great?

[elhaf (755704)]

I used to think the same thing until I stared working on one. Investigate what it really means to get one, and what it takes, and you might think different(ly).

Re:Is a PHD so great?

[by Anonymous Coward]

The question is: is it really relevant for most jobs? I doubt it.

Re:Is a PHD so great?

[jabberjaw (683624)]

Start here [phdcomics.com].

Well, I have some perspective on this

[Sycraft-fu (314770)]

I do computer support for an engineering department on campus. Means I deal with supporting PhDs (and masters students and undergrads). For many of the PhDs, this isn't an unfair generalization. They are so focused on their one little area of expertise, that they seem to loose all basic knowledge. This is an engineering department here, so people should have a little technical skill. None the less I've solved printer problems that stumped a room full of masters and PhD students by turning the printer on (really, twice). They ought to have the basic electrical knowledge and problem solving skills to figure this out. The DID at one time to pass the undergrad courses.

Now that's not to say there aren't some really smart PhDs out there. We have them here too and they are fun to work with. But there are plenty that aren't.

Working here has really shown me that having a PhD doesn't mean your smart, just means that you could play the game long enough and well enough.

Don't have to be rich

[willy_me (212994)]

at least in Canada. Typically, PhD students teach while they're working on their PhD. They don't have to, but they can typically pay their way through school. Other then that there is always student loans. My sister has ~100g of debt from ~8 years of student loans, but with her MD it won't take her long to pay it off.

On a side note, The University of Northern British Columbia, UNBC [www.unbc.ca], has recently halved their tuition for Master degrees and removed tuition completely for their PhD programs. Granted, it'll still be a couple of years before they offer a PhD in CompSci, but one can't complain about being free.. I guess they're doing this because they want to become a more research oriented university - and it sucks to live in northern BC... trust me, I know.. (On the bright side, there are some great profs and a really low student/prof ratio. And the cost of living - I'm paying $300/month cnd, everything included.)

Re:Is a PHD so great?

[It'sYerMam (762418)]

A PhD is not necessarily so you learn about the subject. My dad did a PhD in Chemistry, and wrote a thesis on "The Hydration of Tri-Calcium Silicate" (Making cement, to you and me.)
He now works as a computer programmer.
This may seem a little weird, but if you think about it, a PhD [hopefully] shows that you're willing to apply yourself to something and do hard work. People with PhDs should be the most intelligent of the bunch, as they managed to get the thing.

So Dad's PhD is a prestige degree - from Oxford, no less. It shows that he has skills beyond merely chemistry.

Re:Is a PHD so great?

[cperciva (102828)]

So Dad's PhD is a prestige degree - from Oxford, no less.

Liar. Oxford doesn't give out PhDs.

Re:Is a PHD so great?

[cperciva (102828)]

Liar. Oxford doesn't give out PhDs.

Since the moderators obviously didn't understand the joke: A doctorate from Oxford is a D.Phil (short for "Doctor of Philosophy"), in contrast to most other universities, which use the term PhD (Philosophiae Doctor, which is exactly the same thing in Latin).

Re:Is a PHD so great?

[Austerity Empowers (669817)]

I have a MS in EE. I was offered a scholarship to do a PhD. However during my MS thesis work I worked closely with PhD candidates and suffered perhaps a fraction of what they did. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy what I do, but I eat corporate shit for $$$ alone, so I declined. My observations are as follows:

1) PhD is a lot of work for yourself, and 1000x more work doing your professors busy work (papers etc.)

2) PhD slave labor wages are less than those of any given malaysian factory child if you count the total number of hours worked and divide that into your scholarship/stipend/grant/etc.

3) If you are not a US citizen/permanent resident and are on a scholarship to get a PhD in the US, you are fucked. Bring the vasoline and bend over.

4) If your goal is simply to get a degree to get more money, stop at your masters.

5) If your PhD is not in a subject actively investigated by the corporate world be willing to accept an academic position after getting your degree, or find another subject. It's heartbreaking to see people get their degree and realize they are either stuck in academia or worse, take a job in industry doing work outside their expertise making the same they would have as a masters (i.e. degree worthless).

6) If at all possible GET A COMPANY TO FUND YOUR PHD! This is harder now than it used to be, but it is THE way to go. I can't recommend it enough, if I personally thought there was money in a PhD this is what I'd do myself. If your professor administrates whatever finances your degree, and you are above broccoli intelligence, he WILL try to hold you as long as he can (5-7 years in most schools). If your company is paying the bill they are quite good at getting you in and out ASAP. Avg stay of corporate funded PhD students in my experience was 3 years. Do this!

7) Stupid people can get PhD's far easier than smart people. Simply put, professors want stupid people out of their hair, if they can't wash em out, they graduate em. Just like elementary school.

Re:Is a PHD so great?

[by Anonymous Coward]

A PhD isn't about learning facts. It's about learning HOW to do research. It doesn't matter that one's topic is the The Hydration of Tri-Calcium Silicate". The important thing is that when told to find out something new about "The Hydration of Tri-Calcium Silicate", you can do so. The same person can also be told to find out something new about search engine algorithms, and hopefully do a good job of it.

Re:Is a PHD so great?

[nodwick (716348)]

The Phd: an exercise in self-aggrandizing behavior with little application to the real world.

That's such a sweeping generalization that it's awfully easy to take a few potshots at it. Since this is Slashdot, I assume that computers and the internet play a big role in your life. Well, the packet switching technology and ARPAnet that made it all possible owes a lot to a bunch of PhDs at UCLA led by Leonard Kleinrock [ucla.edu]. Like being able to chat with your friends on your cell phone? Ever heard of Andy Viterbi [ieee.org], who went off to found Qualcomm by hiring many of the top researchers (yes, lots of them were PhDs) and developing the CDMA technology now used in North America? And of course, there's Claude Shannon [bell-labs.com], the so-called "father of modern communications". Just a few of the more "practical" PhD guys you may have heard of.

In the event you actually research or do something worthwhile your expertise is basically a very tiny narrow slice of the pie in your discipline in which you possess astonishing depth, and you are likely no more knowledgeable about the rest of your field than a masters candidate.

Again, I'd have to disagree here. A bachelors is great for giving you a good grounding in the background material you'll need in your field. A masters degree is primarily about teaching you how to do independent thinking, which is going to be important once you start moving beyond the basics and into new innovation. At this point, you'll have started developing the skill set, but won't have the experience. A PhD is where you really get to know your field well (much better than a masters student, by the time you're done), and understand what's been done and what's left to do. It's also about learning to develop relationships with other top people in the field, both in industry and academia, and learning about more than just the technical aspects of your area.

I've worked with a number of Phd candidates in computer science, chemical engineering, history, and life sciences, and then EXPECT (yes, I said expect) one of two things to happen when they graduate:

1. A company offers them quite a bit of money to do the research that *they* love
2. *poof* Tenure track faculty position

What's wrong with aiming high? I'd hate to think anyone would start any endeavor expecting not to do well.

in reality now, its usually

1. Teach as an adjunct
2. Try to convince private industry that you're okay taking that 60k a year position as a chemical engineer.. I'm not overqualified, HONEST!

You're generalizing again. Just like in every other line of work, whether you get a "good" job or not when you enter the real world depends largely on the individual. I've certainly known people who ended up in exactly the situations you describe. On the other hand, there are also many others who are doing very well. Our lab's also got a graduate this year who's starting tenure-track at USC, and another who's tenure-track at Stanford. One of my officemates just turned down a 100K EE job (a 2-body problem), and another had several offers in the 90-100k range as well.

If you're good at what you do, there'll be good jobs for you no matter what path in life you choose. If you're a lazy slackabout, then you're screwed no matter what. There's no "right" or "wrong" answer about whether a PhD is a good choice -- it's about whether it's a good choice for YOU. This is the real reason why people tell you to do something you love -- chances are, you'll be enthusiastic about it and do it well, and success will follow naturally.

Keeping your employees happy...

[SoTuA (683507)]

...goes a long way towards keeping your company productive.

Besides, I'm guessing that a lot of those PHD's independent projects have something to do or might eventually be integrated into google (PHDs researching information retrieval, web page ranking algorithms, you name it).

Re:Keeping your employees happy...

[quadra23 (786171)]

...goes a long way towards keeping your company productive. I agree totally. Having an army of PHD's doesn't guarantee anything unless they enjoy what they are doing and able to use all their skills effectively. It also helps if they able to branch off into things that they enjoy as hobbies for a time as well. The more flexibility an employee has in doing their job (within reason) the more successful they will be in completing the job. Just watch all the other companies following Google after this becomes a big success.

Re:Keeping your employees happy...

[by Anonymous Coward]

I like to see how google has adapted bits of the opensource development model to fit their needs. Just let people do it because they want to do it, don't force them. See, even the deleopment model is is free (as in freedom). =P

If this isn't karma whoring, I don't know what is. They aren't using the "opensource development model", they are giving their employees what they want. You're pandering to the slashdot crowd and spinning it the right way to get your comment up to +5.

I swear, these "Dude, that cool thing is totally like open source! Isn't open source great?" comments are really getting old, and they're generally just a bunch of bullshit made up to please the mods.

Umm...

[by Anonymous Coward]

How many other companies put "Ph.D. a plus" in their want ads?"

Quite a few. Any kind of scientific research, for example.

Re:Umm...

[troc (3606)]

Here at the European Patent Office a vast proportion of the patent examiners have PhDs. It's by no means mandatory but it is almost expected.

(Dr.) Troc

Re:Umm...

[Some Woman (250267)]

Very true. 3M for example doesn't even "prefer" Ph.Ds. It's a requirement for a job as a chemist. Additionally, you're allowed to work on whatever you want for 15% of your time. Supposedly Post-It notes were a 15% project.

Re:Umm...

[Chuck Milam (1998)]

"3M for example....you're allowed to work on whatever you want for 15% of your time.

At 3M, you used to be allowed to work on whatever you want for 15% of your time. Thanks to the new CEO/regime from GE, the 15% "Innovation Time" is quietly going the way of the dodo. The focus on stock price over all else (such as real, tangible, actual profits) will be the death of many a formerly powerful and truly innovative company, I expect.

Re:Umm...

[EinarH (583836)]

Errrhhh..

From Monster.com;
"Ph.D. a plus" returned: Jobs 1 to 50 of 399

"MCSE a plus" returned: Jobs 1 to 50 of 503

Re:Umm...

[by Anonymous Coward]

From monster.com:
"Ph.D. a plus" average pay: $150,000 out of 399 jobs

"MCSE a plus" average pay: $32,000 out of 503 jobs

Working smarter not harder

[afidel (530433)]

Google is proof that using a smarter aproach is often the best way to solve a problem. If Google tried to use the naive clustering model their expenses would have massivly higher and their scalability and fault tolerance would have been much lower. It seems that Google realizes that the best way to hire and retain the people that will continue to come up with the smarter aproaches is to offer them things that not many other employers are, time to do what intellectually stimulates them for instance.

Re:Working smarter not harder

[SandSpider (60727)]

>Google is proof that using a smarter aproach is often the best way to solve a problem.

Vs. the "dumber was is often the best way to solve bleeding-edge technical problems" the rest of the world has been doing?

Actually, vs. "Throwing more money and people at the problem" that the rest of the world has been doing.

=Brian

Is the PHD the best thing?

[StacyWebb (780561)]

Although having an advanced degree is great, some of the best tech sector innovators come without advanced degrees. -- Also most employees spend more than 20% of their work time on personal goals anyway.

Re:Is the PHD the best thing?

[mgs1000 (583340)]

Also most employees spend more than 20% of their work time on personal goals anyway.

Like reading Slashdot?

Re:Is the PHD the best thing?

[Saeed al-Sahaf (665390)]

I spend a good 60-65% of my time at work doing my own projects (and, yesy, about 10-15% of that looking at Slashdot and sites like it). But, I work for the government, and there isn't much to do most of the time...

PhDs are sort of a double-edged sword

[Noose For A Neck (610324)]

I guess it's a good thing to see someone hiring a lot of PhDs these days. Most people with PhDs in technical fields (especially the sciences) these days have a lot of trouble finding any kind of employment, because once someone sees that "PhD" on your resume and you're not applying for, say, thermodynamic research at GE or machine translation research at Google, they just toss it in a wastebasket.

This is what is known as "being over-qualified", and it's a killer. You wouldn't think that, after all that hard work in getting through school and finally getting a doctorate in a hard science or engineering, you'd have trouble finding work, but you do. Ever see a PhD working a helpdesk? Not a tech PhD, that's for sure.

Also, the amount of free time provided to PhDs at Google to do their own thing seems like it would be pretty standard - after all, they've hired the best and the brightest, how else do they expect to retain them? Isn't this standard at other companies, too?

Re:PhDs are sort of a double-edged sword

[pointbeing (701902)]

This is what is known as "being over-qualified", and it's a killer. You wouldn't think that, after all that hard work in getting through school and finally getting a doctorate in a hard science or engineering, you'd have trouble finding work, but you do. Ever see a PhD working a helpdesk? Not a tech PhD, that's for sure.

Having hired helpdesk technicians for years, I can say that I've never turned down a Ph.D but have turned down more than a few types with postgraduate degrees. If you've got a Masters in any IS field and are applying for a $30k helpdesk position what are the chances of you sticking with me when that good job does come along? If you decide to move on I wouldn't blame you at all - but new employees mean my company incurs siginificant training costs, and it's generally a few months before the techs are operating at a level that actually benefits the company. Hiring is an investment and I need to be able to see a return on that investment.

I know I'm part of the problem, but for helpdesk (and even Tier 2 deskside support positions) having a postgraduate degree actually hurts you - because there's no way I can keep these guys. Easier for me to just put their resume in the 'do not hire' pile ;-)

Re:PhDs are sort of a double-edged sword

[Saeed al-Sahaf (665390)]

If you've got a Masters in any IS field and are applying for a $30k helpdesk position what are the chances of you sticking with me when that good job does come along?

I'm not really trying to crack a joke here, but honestly: What are the chances ANY competent person is going to stay with a Help Desk job for any significant period of time? The customers are often frustrating, the pace can be exhausting, the work rarely has long-term personal satisfaction associated with it... If you get some PhD, hire him / her and feel very lucky to have a (presumably) competent employee for the few months that they are with you.

Hiring is an investment and I need to be able to see a return on that investment.

Get use to the "would you like fries with that" crowd, then. Face it: Help Desk is no ones ideal job. Why would anyone stick around for an extended period of time?

Here's how to solve that problem.

[MongooseCN (139203)]

I was applying for temp work and the first agency said I was over qualified and probably wouldn't enjoy the work they could give me. They said they'd look if they really wanted me to but then never got back to me with any jobs.

After that I went to some more temp agencies, but I dumbed down my resume. Instead of "software engineer" I was a "computer programmer". I put a 2.2 GPA (my school doesn't officially give out GPAs anyways...). Most of the skills in my skills list were removed and I replace them with my hobbies. All references to money, like how much money I saved a company, were removed.

Suddenly I had 2 offers for jobs at one agency and 1 offer at another agency. They were the same types of jobs that the first agency was giving out. It's surprising the number of companies willing to pay $14/hour for dumb ex-computer people.

Re:PhDs are sort of a double-edged sword

[GPLDAN (732269)]

I call posts like these, the "slashdot slant". Since very few Computer Science Ph.Ds read or even bother with slashdot, and since it's mostly filled with early-20s sysadmins - the skewed bias is sometimes laughable. They rationalize that being a Ph.D makes you overqualified and makes it hard to find a job, but they have no real evidence to back it up.

Here is a clue: I know plenty of Ph.Ds, ALL of whom are gainfully employed and highly sought after. I also know alot of 20-something sysadmins with no degrees. They're the ones out of work.

Re:PhDs are sort of a double-edged sword

[Landaras (159892)]

Someone told this story on Slashdot regarding over-qualification months (years?) ago...

Essentially, someone had a Ph.D but was looking for some sort of relatively menial but steady work so he could continue to eat.

In order to avoid being thrown out for being over-qualified and therefore requiring more pay / risk of leaving for better work, he changed his resume to the still truthful:

Education
Diploma: Smalltown High School, 1975

Hobbies
B.S in Mechanical Engineering, Foo State University, 1979
M.S. in Physics, University of Bar, 1981
Ph.D. in Physics, University of Bar, 1984

He was hired, and told that his soon-to-be employer "approved of hobbies."

- Neil Wehneman

Um..

[k98sven (324383)]

How many other companies put "Ph.D. a plus" in their want ads?"

How about: Every company which does any kind of research?

Seriously. In areas like biochem, getting a job (or at least, a good one) without a PhD is near-impossible.

Ph. D = cool job

[192939495969798999 (58312)]

If you have a Ph. D and you're working at Google, you've got a great job. Ph. D jobs are worth the work for the degree, believe me. However, don't think you'll just be able to glide into getting that degree like you can with a BS... because professors will not just let you out! A Ph.D is designed to figure out which people actually can be creative and think of new stuff, and to keep out the "Ivan make basket" (you need communications skills) or "i learned it in 24 hours, and I think I'm a god now" (how many patents do you have? I thought so) folks.

Google outsource research too!

[manmanic (662850)]

It's not only a matter of internal PhDs at the company which help along their R&D efforts. Thousands of developers outside of Google are using the Google APIs [google.com] to create new Google applications. Some notable hits are BananaSlug [bananaslug.com] and GoogleAlert [googlealert.com] (the latter of which is indeed the product of a PhD, according to this article [poynter.org]). The fact that Google is able to tempt so many to build on their platform is another sign of their popularity with the academic nerdy elite.

It's not the amount of PhDs but the amount of PHBs

[Lurker McLurker (730170)]

I think one of the reasons behind Google's success isn't just the sheer number of PhDs they have. Its the PhD's having the power, rather than the PHBs (pointy-haired bosses). It's one thing to be working with intelligent, science-oriented people. It's better to be working for intelligent, science-oriented people.

Anyone can hire PhDs. Even the government. But there may be a corporate culture that doesn't take risks, that cares too much about short-term profit, that is affected by political considerations. In Google, the nerds seem to run the show. They have the business people, and great branding. But the technical side of things is the priority.

I interviewed at Google

[MarkWatson (189759)]

To be honest, when Google flew me to California for an interview, I was luke warm about the idea of working for Google because I love my life style living in the mountains of Northern Arizona.

However, after spending a day being interviewed by 6 extremely bright and creative people, I very much wanted the job (I did not get it, oh well). It is true that bright people want to work with other bright people. Anyway, it may sound strange, but I view the interview process as a very positive experience (also, after 30 years of working, it was the only job that I tried for that I did not get, so I was able to set most ego stuff aside). In addition to the interviews themselves, I got to have lunch with Peter Norvig and before I left the Google campus a nice person let me ride a Segway :-)

It really is true that a few very good people are way better than many above average people.

One of the most fun times in my career was when I had a boss who has a PhD from MIT and hired many other PhDs and MSs from MIT - some of the best colleagues that I ever had.

Personally, I think that I am going to invest in Google stock, but I am likely to wait for a few months after the IPO (or make a low bid for the IPO).

-Mark

Ph.d. thoughts...

[algedeon (607817)]

I am about to finish my Phd in CS and during these long years, I came to realise that part of the Phd process is (maybe) to figure out what is this all about... be able to answer questions of the form "Does it help me to find a job?", "Should it be useful?" etc.

My take on this is as follows... It's not about finding a job... it's not about adding another bullet in a CV to impress someone... it doesn't have to be useful or practical.. it doesn't have to cure cancer (although some people do this for a phd)...

I think a phd is a long thought exercise. You prove to yourself (and to a bunch of other people) that in a finite amount of time, you can understand an area, the issues involved, and you can come up with something innovate, something new... a new problem or an new solution to an old problem...

how to get a job after all that, is an orthogonal issue... maybe deserving another phd... :-)

The question is, who

[melted (227442)]

who owns the fruits of their research. Most employment contracts in high-tech companies are pretty anal about that. No matter when and how you develop the code, even if your own spare time and using solely your own hardware and software, the company 0wnz0rz the code. And there are also provisions about conflict of interest...

It would be interesting to know how google manages all this mess.

Re:Link and Thoughts

[kwoff (516741)]

That link required me to register. I noticed that if I typed the original URL into the browser, I was also required to register, but when I did a search on Google http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&edition=us&ie=as cii&q=google&btnG=Search+News the story for the NY Times was a regular link. So apparently they're using the HTTP-Referer now instead of partner=GOOGLE.

Re:Link and Thoughts

[Moraelin (679338)]

Bingo. Those were my thoughts when reading about that too. Most people nowadays don't just avoid PhDs or a CS education, they just want anyone competent.

They actually think they're cleverly saving costs by hiring the cheapest incompetent monkeys possible. After all, they just bought that magical "+3 cloak of productivity (+5 against bugs)" (i.e., some snake oil baroque framework or server software), so now they don't need anyone competent on those computers any more.

Plus, hey, everyone knows that programming computers is easy. Even the neighbour's geeky kid is doing it. Surely a drooling ex-burger-flipper off the street can do it just fine too.

(Funny how the same people who can't even program their VCR's clock, or keep spyware off their computer, nevertheless think that my job is something easy, eh?)

True story: I know of a team which actually hired people via reverse online auction. Whichever monkey wants the least money, gets the job. No skill needed. (Again, it's not a joke. Sadly.)

Re:Link and Thoughts

[Animaether (411575)]

At the same time, there's the group of people who can indeed code as well as, or even better than, you but never followed a formal education on it. Thefore they lack the precious PhD title.

Just as a PhD is no guarantee that the person will grok what you're hiring them for - even if it's supposed to be right down their lane of education - the lack of a PhD doesn't guarantee that the person will not grok what you're hiring them for.

Of couse the odds are in favor of those with PhDs, not contesting that :)

Re:Link and Thoughts

[LWATCDR (28044)]

There is a BIG difference between coding and what you would want a PHD in CS for. Shure there are lots of people that can code most applications. It does not take a PHD two write a CMS, accounting system, point of sale, or even a spreadsheet. We just hired a programmer with a BS in CS. He did not know what a hash was! I bet he could not code a quick sort to save his life much less decide which sort to use for a given task. Now if you want to set up a server farm that can handle billions of searchs a day then you might want to invest in a PHD or two. A person that has a PHD might not be any better than a really talented person with out one but you can bet that a person with a PHD is not dumb, or lazy, and knows how to learn.

Re:Link and Thoughts

[banzai51 (140396)]

Seems Google is proving that PhDs are worth the money. A stark contrast to the current conventional "wisdom"

Re:Advanced Degrees

[razmaspaz (568034)]

Yeah...but Google doesn't need programmers. They need brains. Sure it is easy to write code and do it well without a degree in Computer Science. But to create an algorithm that effeciently searches millions if not billions of pages and returns the most relavent thing throughout the ENTIRE Internet is a little daunting and takes someone who has had some advanced training.

Re:Advanced Degrees

[hoggoth (414195)]

> advanced degress != coding ability/work output

If your measure is number of lines of code per day, then perhaps not.
If your measure is new algorithms and technologies that no-one has ever thought of before then I'd say the advanced degrees are a little more pertinent.

Re:Advanced Degrees

[YouHaveSnail (202852)]

I may be naive seeing as I'm only 20 years old and just getting started in the coding field (at my first job programming, I've been here just over a year), but it definitely seems to me that advanced degress != coding ability/work output.

Right, that's a pretty common mistake, and I see a lot of newbies make it. In fact, the actual relation is thus:

advanced degrees = work output * coding ability

Re:Advanced Degrees

[Glonoinha (587375)]

You are probably correct, from your point of view. A self taught coder, even a guy with a BS/CS or BA/MIS degree in his first year in a code writing position is likely to write a good tight sort routine or a nice tight SQL statement that is 12.7% faster than the bubble sort or select statement an older guy / guy with a few years of experience / guy with better 'credentials' might use - same way some AMD/ATI fanboy is going to put together a computer that uses liquid cooling to keep his overclocked record setting system running circles (18.9% faster!) around the off the shelf Dell system an older guy might be using.

What you are describing right now is a very narrow scope of vision. It is perfectly ok, and even expected from a one year guy - don't get me wrong as I'm not bagging on you. But you are seeing instant gratification, lines of code per hour, faster embedded loops and search routines, and frames per second. What you are not seeing, if I had to guess, is long term maintainability, group cohesion, the ability to integrate different routines together or reuse the existing development effort going forward, the overall architecture of the bigger system, scalability, usability in a business environment, reduced downtime when problems do occur.

In the same way that the overclocking crew can make a single uberMachine run 12.6% faster than a machine off the shelf, a tightly focused coder can write small blocks of code that are quite a bit faster than something written by an old school coder. From a business perspective, however, neither is particularly attractive when considering a large scale rollout of a massive business initiative. You simply can't have users running computers that sound like jet engines to keep their overclocked CPUs cool, and you can't have coders winging it to shave CPU cycles at the expense of long term stability, usability, and interoperability. Sure, you can read your in-line assembly and make it work - but can the guy over in maintenance keep it working without screwing it up or needing to rewrite it from scratch because he doesn't understand what it does?

When (if) you stop to think through all of these things you will take longer to write your individual lines of code than the next generation of hot coders. For every five days on a project, a full day needs to be dedicated to understanding what the customer (internal or external) needs and envisioning how you will design it. A full day needs to be spent doing documentation (documenting the code, user dox, developer design and intent, interaction conventions, installation, maintenance routines, etc.) and delivering the product. A day designing the system architecure, and two days actually doing the work come between the envision and delivery. In theory you could sit down and do the actual 'work' in two days, but someone has to be responsible for the other stuff - not doing the other stuff is why projects fail.

A day will come that you decide that hand building your own machine and getting an extra 7 fps isn't worth the hassle and you will just order a Dell. There will also come a day that you spend time documenting how you understand the customer's expectations and go over that document with the customer before you start designing how the system will work, and you will do that design before you start to write the code. And there will come a day that you write an official separate document describing the code you just wrote. Look forward to that day, consider it your next Graduation Day, and celebrate that day. Because the day after that is the day the youngsters start hassling you because they code faster than you do /grin.

Re:Slightly O/T, but...

[grassy_knoll (412409)]

This meant that janitors, cafeteria staff, etc. had to have university degrees to mop floors or serve burgers.

So the telecom was hiring english majors?

Badum-ching