re: holidays -- yep, but I have break times while I wait for other events.
re: small bricks -- we have been working on that for several years...
re: local autonomy -- sure, we have been working on that for many years.
Sun has had strong investments in India at least since mid 90s. We have
local managers, local directors, etc, etc.
I think we understand how all this works in theory, but in the practice,
and in a large organization, there are limits. And the larger and more
complex, and faster moving, the artifact, the harder it is to make these
things work.
- eduard/o
Markus Karg wrote:
> Eduardo,
>
> I thought you are in holidays, is the weather so bad that you prefere
> discussions with me? ;-)
>
>> Two large concentrations of GF developers are in the West Coast of the
>> US and in India. Asynchronous mail-based coordination between those
>> two
>> sites is very hard. A common symptom is the "nothing happens while
> I'm
>> awake; I went to sleep and whole conversations started, flamed and
>> ended". Or the "two-email exchanges, 10hrs pause, two email
>> exchanges...".
>
> This is just a symptom of an architectural design of the overall system.
> If the line has a long delay (like internet to the moon), the solution
> is to put more power in the nodes and reduce the communication
> roundtrips by increasing the semantic information per package. Isn't it
> what we all tell our students? :-)
>
> What I like to say is: If you split the system into small bricks, an
> have one elected chief for each brick, then there shouldn't be a need
> for speedy discussions. If you want to change the brick, develop a
> patch, send it to the chief, and wait for his detailed answer. No need
> for lots of emails going back and forth. The patch will be containing
> work for several days, and the answer will contain details that last for
> several days.
>
> Heavy discussions with lots of small emails going back and forth is the
> symptom of a hierarchical system where lots of idiots work for a
> stressed manager. This is NOT what the community shall be like. If the
> chief and the contributor both know their area of work very well (what
> is given if the brick is small enough) then they do not need to send
> lots of emails.
>
> At least this is my experience with both company architectures. We tried
> both of them and recognized that it makes no sense to have masses of
> unexperienced hackers far away and try to manage them centrally.
> Instead, have few highly experienced architects working in a losely
> coupled way. The communicate less mails, but more facts per email.
>
> For example, in our company, we just exchange information about once a
> week by email. Each engineer can work when and where he wants, since he
> knows his brick so well. I just have to publish a tasks lists and people
> pick their jobs. No need for more communication or daily scrum meetings
> etc. It's just about knowledge and responsibility. Not about time zones
> and reply delays.
>
> Regards
> Markus
>
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