Hackers & Painters

Chapter 13. Revenge of the Nerds

In the software business there is an ongoing struggle between the pointy-headed academics, and another equally formidable force, the pointy-haired bosses. I believe everyone knows who the pointy-haired boss is.¹ I think most people in the technology world not only recognize this cartoon character, but know the actual person in their company that he is modelled upon.

The pointy-haired boss miraculously combines two qualities that are common by themselves, but rarely seen together: (a) he knows nothing whatsoever about technology, and (b) he has very strong opinions about it.

Suppose, for example, you need to write a piece of software. The pointy-haired boss has no idea how this software has to work and can’t tell one programming language from another, and yet he knows what language you should write it in. Exactly. He thinks you should write it in Java.

Why does he think this? Let’s take a look inside the brain of the pointy-haired boss. What he’s thinking is something like this. Java is a standard. I know it must be, because I read about it in the press all the time. Since it is a standard, I won’t get in trouble for using it. And that also means there will always be lots of Java programmers, so if those working for me now quit, as programmers working for me mysteriously always do, I can easily replace them.

Well, this doesn’t sound that unreasonable. But it’s all based on one unspoken assumption, and that assumption turns out to be false. The pointy-haired ...