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A boss that writes codes with a dev team is a good idea,it protects us from clients changing their mind asking for features that was never there also keeps the team more focused on the product. But it also makes him more aware of who is catching on sh*it all the team writing bad code ect... well i think thats a badie if u ask me.
J2ME / C# developer South African Developer from cape town
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Yes, it's a good idea if he is a good programmer. My boss writes an awful, unmanaged and unflexible code that I often
understand hard.
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Mad Hot Dog from Russia .. Geeeee. ya not so bad after all!
My neighbor is from Russia.. We drink alot together..
We have fun and enjoy life.. We never think of coding then!
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The boss should have some experiance with coding, but the main concern should be design, usability, testing, etc. A building architect understands how a hammer works, but doesn't need to actually use one regularly.
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Is the byline supposed to read "Others can't stand a micro-managing control freak."?
/ravi
My new year's resolution: 2048 x 1536
Home | Music | Articles | Freeware | Trips
ravib(at)ravib(dot)com
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Yes I noticed that too.
"... This man is obviously a psychotic."
"We-he-ell, uh, I'd like to hold off judgement on a thing like that, sir, until all the facts are in."
(Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb)
~ ScrollingGrid (cross-browser freeze-header control)
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Looks like the survey gurus have since fixed it.
/ravi
My new year's resolution: 2048 x 1536
Home | Music | Articles | Freeware | Trips
ravib(at)ravib(dot)com
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If you want productivity to go up, then yes its a good idea. However if you want an easy time to make up excuses for why work is not done (IE you were spinning around in your chair for an hour) then its awesome to have a boss who doesn't know.
Take me for example, I was working on a PHP script once, but i decided to take a few hour break to do ummm.... things. When my boss asked why my progress was slowed i just quoted a line from the Star Trek TNG episode i just happened to watched an hour earlier. Something about a recursive algorithm..... She never could tell if i was telling her the truth or making up technal babble 
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I can see many good things happen if your boss was a coder: Better communication, better design descisions, better coding practices, better understanding of your difficulties, more realistic with deadlines, guaranteed code reviews. And the list goes on. The problem is that it is extremely hard to code and manage at the same time, in the same way that it is difficult to drive and code at the same time. Time management can help a little bit here, like code in the morning, do management in the afternoon, or vice versa. If you find someone that can do that properly, consider hiring him 
James Pullicino
bbc
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You are right...
But you never can manage a group of developers if you never had been one. 
Sory for the english 
------------
My Articles[^]
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Hi everybody !
I was working in some projects with a boss that never coding before, He only knows of managment (and not so much ).
I don´t want that the boos sit down at my site and code with my, but he must understand what is:
- Refactoring
- SVN or CVS
- Patterns
- etc ....
And not only about Case of Use and all the analisys results.
Also the boss can code the skeleton of some classes and the developers can finish it and write the unit test.
Anyway, this is what I think.
Cheers
------------
My Articles[^]
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I am surprised to see that many people voting yes, to having the mananger be an active part of the development team, but no-one explaining why. Almost all post are about why this is a bad idea.
-- modified at 3:50 Tuesday 28th March, 2006
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"YES", because most managers are only functional managers, and don't know the coding issues developpers can encounter... and that results in gaps between the specifications and the actual development process...
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I voted yes because my boss both Codes and Manages. He does both well. As a result this is the best environment I have ever worked in. From my experience this leads to better management because the manager will have a good idea of what is involved in the work they ask you to do.
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Answering the question could get me in trouble...
John
-- modified at 15:52 Wednesday 29th March, 2006
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Lets assume you have boss that does code. When he is your boss he does not only manage you but also many other technical experts. I talk here about a boss who manages at least 10 or more coders. He will never be able to understand all these techie things in such great detail to go down to the code level. Nobodies brain can store so much information this is simply not possible. In consequence he has to rely on his team. The coders tell him what they do at a rougher level so they enable him to make directional (e.g. architectural) decisions. As manager he must be able to trust his people and the coders must trust him that he makes the right decisions based on the info of the coders. I am really surprised that so many think that it is a good idea that the a manager can code. The point is that he cannot write good code if he takes his job seriously. A manager has to look after you and asks you if you have enough test PCs the required software licenses, a good chair, .... He (a good one) cares for his people and the people really believe him that the cares about you. This trust is achieved by hard work, management morale, values and dedication to his work. If you see stupid managers making the (technically) wrong decisions you as a coder should ask you: Did I provide my boss with the information he needed in an understandable way so he was able to get the idea? Would you as non coder have been able to make from your input to the manager an important decision that makes sense? If your answer is no you (and perhaps your manager) should think about getting a communication training to make the situation better.
-- modified at 17:51 Monday 27th March, 2006
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One of the best project managers I ever worked with split his time between coding and (well) managing. He wasn't the best developer in the world but was good and productive, his dev team respected him, he picked a top notch team of developers and he delegated well.
So all his team members knew exactley what needed to be done, by when, how and so on, leaving him ample time to do some coding.
Phil Harding.
myBlog [^] | mySite [^]
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I want to build an application that do something like this:
- give to an ordinary user more rights over a directory or a registry key that is not intend to have normally
- when the application ends the rights are retiered
The need is to hide certain information from the user
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You are clearly in the wrong spot to ask these questions.
I suggest you use the messageboards for a question like this.
WM.
What about weapons of mass-construction?
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Well, they were going to use atomic weapons to carve tunnels through mountains, but there was this slight problem with radiation you see ... 
People that start writing code immediately are programmers (or hackers), people that ask questions first are Software Engineers - Graham Shanks
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A boss is supposed to manage, not produce. I agree that a manager can maintain an Architect/Designer role, but NOT as a straight-up coder. It may work in small groups or for a period of time. But, once the workload increases, the manager will quickly find himself scrambling for resources and begin to mismanage based on conflicting responsibilities.
Let the manager manage and then move on. The coder will finish the job.
---
Shawn Poulson
spoulson@explodingcoder.com
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I've had a good experience and a bad experience with a boss who codes. I've also had the same with bosses who didn't code.
The 'bad boss who coded' was Always Right. Even the time he changed my code behind my back, and then bitched at me when it didn't work. The only reason I didn't quit right then and there was that we were at a customer site and I didn't have the cash to pay my transportation home (I was in college at the time).
My current boss is ideal. He used to code a lot, but has been managing for the last several years. He has the background to understand what is going on, and the character to not micro-manage.
Software Zen: delete this;
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I agree. It would depend on the boss. Ideally, I think a boss should code and manage at the same time. Now the coding he does shouldn't necessarily have to be on the project he's managing. But understanding both (1) the challenges of developers and (2) the current technologies and practices helps a lot.
My current boss does code on our current project, but only seldom. When resources are stretched, he jumps in:
* to fix bugs when we are approaching a deadline
* to help reproduce bugs reported by customers
* produce sample code
I appreciate that he tries to stay away from coding and focus on managament. But I'm also grateful that he's willing to jump in when resources are stretched. It gives him a good balance.
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Sounds like you have the ideal geek-boss! Anyone else agree?
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