The Cathedral & The Bazaar - over 15 years later

I recently finished The Cathedral & The Bazaar, a relatively famous collection of essays from Eric S. Raymond.

I think it's pretty interesting reading the book in 2016, about 17 years after it was first published (and probably closer to 20 years after it was first written online).  A few thoughts as I was reading through it.

Open Source vs Closed Source - Do most end customers even care?

Since the book was written, many more open source vendors now exist.  Some that come to mind are Redhat, Suse, Cloudera, and Hortonworks.  Some of these vendors distribute software that is only based on open source.  Other vendors distribute software that is a mixture of open source and closed source software.  The same can be said of several large vendors, such as IBM and Oracle.

I actually wonder if most end customers can even tell what is open source and what is closed source from a vendor without looking into it a bit.  Most may know the Linux kernel itself is open source, but do they know which kernel drivers are open vs closed source?

Ultimately, if it's not 100% clear what is open vs closed, I wonder if most customers even care.  At the end of the day, it's just a software offering from a vendor, the fact it may be "open source" may not matter to most.

Open Source - No Longer about Gift Culture and Reputation?

In the book the "gift culture" of open source and the desire for "reputation" in the open source world are discussed a lot.

However, over the last 15-20 years open source has become pervasive and the technology world has changed enough that IMO there are other reasons people now to open source.

With the emergence of more free code repository sites (most notably Github in recent years, sourceforge in the past), I believe a number of people open source just because they get a free code repository for their needs.  It's much easier than setting one up for yourself.  In addition you get some issue tracking software and documentation/wiki software along with it for free.  The huge number of "scratch" project repos on Github are probably a testament to this.

For many companies that support open source as part of their product offerings, it's simply a part of their business now.  Software engineers do open source as just part of their jobs, not necessarily for reputation or "gift" culture.

For many companies, it's a recruiting tool.  I doubt that many companies with a corporate presence actually "care" about open source more than just an ends to a mean (i.e. hiring people).

How to become a hacker - same languages?

In the Appendix, Raymond speaks of the programming languages that people should learn to be successful "hackers" in the open source world.  The languages he recommends are Python, Java, C/C++, Perl, and Lisp.

I was a little surprised to see Python in that list given this was written in 1999.  I didn't think Python was as popular back then as it apparently was.  I didn't think Python began to take off until some time in the 2000s.

But other than that, I find it interesting that the list is still quite accurate.  These are probably still the right languages to learn.

The Innovator's Dilemma ~ Employee Retention

Not so long ago I read The Innovator's Dilemma by Clayton M. Christensen.  It's a classic book on engineering and tech management.

The book basically discusses the dilemma that many tech and engineering companies go through.  Do you continue to work on your super profitable money maker when cheaper & less profitable challengers emerge?  Or should you move resources into the cheaper & less profitable space in case it becomes a hit?  If you move resources to the cheaper challenger, you could lose revenue/profit on your present big money maker or lose market share.  If the challenger becomes very successful and you're too late to the show, your company may lose out and go out of business.

The most recent tech example I could think of was Sun Microsystems.  In the 1990s Solaris was a giant and huge money maker.  When Linux emerged, it was a far cheaper and less profitable solution (and arguably a less feature rich and less useful solution).  So Sun had little incentive to invest resources into Linux.  Slowly but surely, Linux got better, took a hold of the market, began stealing market share, and Solaris profits went down.  Well ... the end of the story is well known.  At some point, Solaris wasn't really profitable and it was too late for Sun to catch up.

This is a dilemma that has tested tech and engineering management for decades.  The book highlights that many of the companies lose this battle due to internal management priorities.  It is natural that managers will desire to allocate resources (money, people, capital, etc.) towards their most profitable use.  When a "disruptive technology" emerges, that is often cheaper, less profitable, and less feature rich, it initially has much less market share and a much lower profit margin.  Managers are not likely to move resources in that direction ... until it is too late.

In the book, the authors say the corporate strategy solution to the Innovator's Dilemma is to create separate organizations to deal with the challenger technology.  May it be through an acquisition or a spin-out company or possibly investing in a startup competitor, let a separate organization deal with it and ensure that your primary money making division is left alone.   By creating a separate management hierarchy with different goals and different profit models and different everything, that separate entity can succeed or fail on its own.  If mixed into the current organization, it's simply too difficult to manage.  Managers will always want to prioritize resources back to the primary profit maker and new technology just isn't given the attention that's needed.

As I was reading the book, an analogy to this problem emerged in my head.  It related to employee retention at companies.  Employee retention in the tech arena is quite tough, as employees learn new skills or want to work on new projects or just want to move their career in a new direction.  With an ever changing technological landscape, it's natural that employees want to move on to new things to keep up with emerging technologies.

Their managers have to make a tough choice.

If you really need the employee to work on the project they're an expert in b/c it's super profitable or high priority, the employee may eventually decide the best way to try something new or different is to leave the company.

If you move the employee to work on a new project in the company to try and retain them, the current project where their skills/experience are needed suffers.

It's sort of like the Innovator's Dilemma.  Managers will naturally be biased to use their resources (in this case it's people) for their most profitable/important projects and/or goals.  Regardless of an employee's personal goals or interests, managers have their own goals to meet as well.  This action isn't malicious in anyway ... it's just natural.  As much as any manager wants to help an employee with their career goals, there will be natural (likely subconscious) bias involved.

So what's the solution?   How can we apply the Innovator's Dilemma solution to employee retention?  A separate organization or spin-out company certainly doesn't apply here.

However, a separated out internal transfer process is something that could work.

I remember not so long ago reading that Facebook  had an internal "internship" program for their full time employees.  Effectively, any full time employee could get a several month "internship" with another group if the group had an opening.

It was a healthy balance for Facebook's needs and helped with employee needs for retention.  The new group gets an engineer working right away instead of dealing with interviews, the engineer gets to see if they'll like it, the new group gets to see if the engineer works out, and there should be a backfill "internship" ready for the old group that just lost an engineer.  Facebook ends up retaining more employees than they would otherwise.

How did Facebook solve this with the "Innovator's Dilemma" solution?  To some extent they tried to remove management from the internal transfer process.  Because it's an "internship", their current management shouldn't be concerned that they are losing a person.  At worst they lose them for a few months.  In the time they lose them, another backfill internship may have trained up a replacement anyways.

Even for the Facebook example above, there are likely internal Facebook details that the article did not mention.  I don't want to suggest that their system is perfect.  However, there are steps that probably any organization can take to try and make things better and try to remove management from the process.  The idea that immediately came to mind is that every company can have a internal job posting site for potential internal transfers.  This is pretty common, but what this internal job posting site could do is list the contact information for the hiring manager.  Any employee with interest should be able to contact and talk to that hiring manager directly about the position and potential interview.  Any contact through their current management chain should just be skipped.

3 Nights in August

After going through the thrilling St. Louis Cardinals World Series ride and sadly seeing Tony Larussa retire, I was compelled to read this book. I needed something to feed my Cardinals high. I remember hearing about the book after the Cardinals won the World Series in 2006, so it's sort of fitting I read it now.

WARNING: THERE WILL BE SPOILERS IN THE BOOK HERE

For anyone who loves Moneyball, it's a great follow up. Tony Larussa is famed for his deep use of statistics for managing situations and creating matchups. However, unlike (as Buzz Bissinger calls them) Moneyballistas, Larussa feels that the statistics can only take you so far. He believes that there is a deeper component beyond it that can't be measured, things like confidence, focus, or stubbornness.

As an example, most sabermetrics fans believe that saves and the use of a specific 9th inning closers is completely overrated. It would be no less effective to have a rotating group of relievers pitch the 9th inning. However, Larussa feels that the a 9th inning closer is necessary for a confident bullpen and morale. Nothing can demoralize a team or bullpen more than losing in the ninth.

I love the individual tales of baseball plays and players told in the book. While the managerial problems are discussed in the context of baseball, they are good examples of how to manage (or not manage) in any profession.

My favorite tale is how Tony Larussa once yelled and took out his frustrations for a loss on Cardinals utility man John Mabry. While Tony later apologized to Mabry, he believes Mabry lost confidence in him, leading him to perform poorly. It's a parable that could mapped to virtually any environment. How many times does an employee become scared or bothered by a superior? So much so that the employee begins to watch their back or just wish to avoid trouble, rather then doing what is best?

There are tons of parables in the book that could mapped to regular jobs: building up the confidence of younger players, getting players on board with a plan, making your players trust you, defending your players, motivating players, etc. There are tales of jealousy between players, players being stubborn, and emotion or lack of focus that everyone can relate to.

Unlike Moneyball, I'm unsure how much non-baseball fans would like this book. It is clearly a baseball book. As a Cardinals fan, there is also a soft spot in this book for me that non-Cardinals fans may not appreciate. I know most of the players described in this book from articles and TV. I knew most of the stories in it at a high level (death of Darryl Kile, issues of Rick Ankiel), so it was very interesting for me to learn the subplots and details.

"Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother"

I just finished this book, which is the full book version of the "Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior" article in the WSJ.

The book by itself is quite entertaining, with a lot of humorous stories of Amy Chua's struggles to balance the Eastern vs. Western styles of raising children in America.  She does bring up several good points in the book about how it's a good idea to be tough on kids (I won't elaborate on them, the main points are in the original article and a previous blog post).  There are also some fun interjections on the issues of raising children in a mixed-cultural environment (as Amy's husband is Jewish) and combating the temptations of TV and Facebook.

I came upon an article that Larry Summers (President of Harvard) began debating Amy Chua on this issue at the World Economic Forum.  I liked this quote in particular:

“It is not entirely clear that your veneration of traditional academic achievement is exactly well placed,” he said to Ms. Chua. “Which two freshmen at Harvard have arguably been most transformative of the world in the last 25 years?” he asked. “You can make a reasonable case for Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, neither of whom graduated.” Demanding tiger moms, he said, might not be very supportive of their kids dropping out of school.

It's a good point. Personally, I've always viewed the upbringing more as a question of risk vs. reward. If you raise children more carefree, you'll sometimes get a Bill Gates, Ernest Hemingway, or John Lennon. That's really good. If you raise children the tough and strict academic way, you may not get as many Mark Zuckerbergs, Paul Simons, or Steven Chus, but you'll have a lot more good accountants and scientists. In other words, the Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerbergs of the world are the exception. Statistically, dropping out of college is not a good idea.

As a person who's done a lot of CS recruiting during his career, I can say that there are definitely not enough good computer scientists to go around. Every CS recruiter at virtually every tech company I know of has had trouble finding good candidates.

As a non-parent, I'm not sure what the best thing to do is. Some balanced approach is probably best.

Update (2/1/11)

Saw this editorial from one of Amy Chua's daughters in the NYpost. An interesting read.

Update (2/13/11)

This topic just want die in the blogosphere. A comment ...

I can't remember who said it or where I read it (I'm sure it's been quoted many times), but there was a quote that goes something like "The reason this has generated so much press is that many people consider this an attack on the way "Western Mothers" have raised their children. They subsequently feel the need to defend themselves and their parenting methods. However, deep down inside, many of those parents know Amy Chua is right."

I think it's a great point. I think many people are taken aback from the comment that we might be "doing something wrong." We want to believe we've been doing things the "right way" for a long time and naturally wish to defend that idea. However, when we see other countries education test scores go up or the economies of other countries growing faster than ours, deep down we probably are a little scared that maybe we have been "doing something wrong" for awhile.

Add in the fact that Amy Chua regular calls her parenting a "Chinese Mother" style is another factor. If Amy Chua had been a "Korean Mother" or "Thai Mother", most probably wouldn't have cared. By calling herself a "Chinese Mother", Amy Chua is (in)directly commenting on the reasons for China's rise in economic might, and many people are scared of it.

I've been thinking about how I might eventually raise my child someday, wanting to give my child creative freedom (e.g. be a "Western Mother") but not go "Tiger Mother" on them. I don't think eliminating TV is a good idea for a child (pop culture by itself is interesting). But perhaps, I could make my child write a "TV report" (like a book report) after watching a TV show. Or perhaps make my child write an episode of the TV show. In other words, you can watch TV, but you can't watch TV just to be lazy.

"Who Moved My Cheese"

I picked up this book at a book sale for a buck. I had seen it on enough bookshelves to warrant interest.

I'm glad I found it for only a buck. This isn't to say that it's bad. The book tells a small parable featuring anthropomorphic mice, and how the mice deal with challenges and change in their lives. Surrounding the parable is a fake dialogue amongst old highschool friends, how the parable reflects changes in real life, and how to handle those changes. The fake dialogue between friends is absolutely awful. However, the overall point of the story and book isn't too bad. It didn't particularly move me, but I can see some people liking it. It's certainly not worth the $19.95 cover price or ~$12 on Amazon.

I like to compare the book to Fish!. Fish! is a similarly short book featuring a fiction story about finding happiness (Who Moved My Cheese ~ 90 pages, Fish! ~ 100 pages). Fish! is far better written and more entertaining. While it is fiction, Fish! involves people and real jobs, so the story was more meaningful (and at a minimum I could relate to).