Comments on: Trying to Find Coder’s Heaven

By: Cyril Gupta

Cyril Gupta — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 11:12:42 +0000

An interesting post you have here. I am as struck by Beck’s statement as you. I’ve always believed that someone who’s really loves his job and is good at it shouldn’t have trouble finding someone who will pay him for it.

I’ve worked as a developer for 10 years now in an independent company and the growth has been slow, but we haven’t shut down yet.

Jayasekara is correct… To survive is not just about good skills and brains, but also a striking upon a good product and some plain old good luck.

By: Avihu Turzion

Avihu Turzion — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 10:17:39 +0000

I think that just being good at what you do, or spreading the new word that will revolutionize the world is definitely not enough to be financially secure. Great minds through the ages had a very hard time making ends meet, and not only those that could not be acknowledged in their own time like Carl Marks, but even Einstein had a hard time at that until he came to the USA and was fully sponsored by the US government. And I mean, if Einstein can’t make it without a patron, who can?

In my opinion, if you want to be financially secure, there are skills for that, and they’re not related to your genius. Being a genius can make it easier for you to earn money, and it can also inhibit it – by thinking that just professionalizing the money will come.

It takes a combination of being good at what you do, and knowing how to make money from it that can create successful and fun places to be in like Fog Creek, in my opinion.

By: Rohan Jayasekera

Rohan Jayasekera — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 22:42:18 +0000

ArsDigita was a dotcom bubble company; Fog Creek wasn’t. Fog Creek is successful because it creates a great product that people/companies are willing to spend money for. And a great software-based product is always a lot more than a pile of really good software; it’s a *product*, and a great one at that.

Kent Beck says in his post that he’d “still love to make a go of a product, but it seems a long shot”, and there’s the nub of the problem. Creating a successful product is hard and is always something of a crapshoot, quite unlike programming which can be done pretty reliably if you’re good at it. If he’s not going to create a product himself, he can join the team of someone who is. But he doesn’t live in the Valley, and neither do you nor I, and that’s crucial. He’s in Oregon; you’re in Israel; I’m in Canada. Unless we’re lucky enough to find the right type of company locally, we’ll need to find one that, to maximize its chances of success by using a top programmer, is willing to use someone who not only works remotely but charges developed-world (i.e. not “offshore”) rates.

By: Nicholas Francis

Nicholas Francis — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 21:33:29 +0000

As one of the founders of Unity Technologies (we make a game development environment), we’re some of the ones that have somehow survived (and are now 55 people) on doing “great software” (and yeah, we use FogBugz as well

I think one of the differences between those that make it and those who don’t is are whether they solve a problem that someone will pay them money to solve. I can make the most beautiful piece of code for doing a toilet-themed screensaver but it’s going to be hard to find customers for that.

In our case, that was basically luck – we just coded what we wanted to do and as we evolved we found our place in the (business) world. If I had to start over I would look for a problem to solve (we made an engine in order to make our own game), and then ask how many people also have this problem.

There’s a key point that Sequoia told us when investing: You don’t want to be a vitamin, you want to be a painkiller – so find something that bugs you and fix it. If it’s something that is annoying a lot of people there’s a fair chance you can make a living from it