IT Story
by Steve Shuba
There once was a programmer who did everything his customer wanted, without thinking or planning or designing or contemplating the effects on other systems. And this programmer would add these new features to his system as fast as he could, not thinking about how difficult it will be to maintain or troubleshoot or make future enhancements.
Well, one day this programmer read that he could make more money if he changed companies, and so he did. The manager of the employee held many interviews looking for the right candidate to fill the empty post. He spoke with many candidates who didn't have the right qualifications until he was quite surprised by this next one. Let's listen in...
Manager: The last employee we had in this position was great! He would respond quickly to the user's requests and put things in fast. Whenever there was a problem he dug in, found it and fixed it. There wasn't any 'red-tape' involved in his projects either, programs didn't linger in the test environment forever. We're looking for somebody who is willing to work long hours, do what the customer wants as quickly as possible.
Candidate: It sounds like you're looking for someone who's more dedicated to short-term gains at the expense of long-term costs and manageability. Someone to spend a lot of time fixing code that was thrown in, and not thoroughly tested. I prefer to do things right the first time, it may take more time from development to production initially, but maintenance costs or bug-fixing will be nearly zero. Yes, I admit that there are exceptions to the rule, but I will not be ruled by the exceptions.
Manager: Great! You're hired!
The moral of the story is: Whether you're a good or a bad programmer, you'll still be able to get a job.
The End.
