> Strategy 6 Become Invaluable

> None of these strategies work if you're not really an excellent contributor. If you don't write good code, and lots of it, you're just going to be resented for messing around with bug databases when you "should be" writing code. There's nothing more deadly to your career than having a reputation of being so concerned with process that you don't accomplish anything.

It took me a few years to learn this lesson. Every so often I have to re-learn it, when starting in a new environment.

At a government contractor this boosts your career more than anything else can.

Granted, Joel's flagship product is a bug tracker, so maybe that's part of it. It's hardly a flattering plug, though -- like the time I saw a pulp paperback in a used book store that had some sort of endorsement deal with HeftyTM trash bags.

Oh for God's sake, stop! Create a git repository, a subversion resository, a darcs repository, but not a CVS repository.

[Edit] Also, I don't get this thing Americans seem to have for private offices. I guess cubicle farms are ugly, and if your co-workers are all annoying nerds being able to shut a door might be nice, but I've always preferred open, multi-desk offices where you can discuss things with the people around you.

I think it's related to that thing they have for productivity.

Joel has written at length about the need for programmers to have spaces where they cannot be interrupted, and from personal experience I agree wholeheartedly.

From http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000068.html:

Here's the simple algebra. Let's say (as the evidence seems to suggest) that if we interrupt a programmer, even for a minute, we're really blowing away 15 minutes of productivity. For this example, lets put two programmers, Jeff and Mutt, in open cubicles next to each other in a standard Dilbert veal-fattening farm. Mutt can't remember the name of the Unicode version of the strcpy function. He could look it up, which takes 30 seconds, or he could ask Jeff, which takes 15 seconds. Since he's sitting right next to Jeff, he asks Jeff. Jeff gets distracted and loses 15 minutes of productivity (to save Mutt 15 seconds).

Now let's move them into separate offices with walls and doors. Now when Mutt can't remember the name of that function, he could look it up, which still takes 30 seconds, or he could ask Jeff, which now takes 45 seconds and involves standing up (not an easy task given the average physical fitness of programmers!). So he looks it up. So now Mutt loses 30 seconds of productivity, but we save 15 minutes for Jeff.

We've got developers, artists, and some loud phone-users in the same room. Some of the developers yell at artists across the room to make requests.

Anytime anyone in the room looks at a cool video, or something, a crowd congregates around their desk, and the noise level goes even higher.

To a manager, it looks like the room is abuzz with activity. To the creators whose jobs require concentration, it's hellacious.

Spolsky is a fan of the book Peopleware, which I believe advocates for private offices, even for non-Americans.