the ‘bee log

The most important part of Martin Fowler’s recent post on the “is Microsoft losing their Alpha Geeks” thread is:

My colleague John Kordyback pointed out that at the heart of all this is realizing that Ruby is not Yet Another .NET Language but a whole community and attitude to software development. Ruby is a community where open source, agile thinking, and lightweight solutions are deeply ingrained values. He says a common problem in Redmond is that “They ask me ‘Why is this language important’ rather than ‘Why is this thinking important?’”

Can anyone argue that Rails, not Ruby, is the real success? It’s a community runtime; it supports the value system of the people. It is not for love of the language. It’s for love of the productive elegance: coding to live over living to code. Jean-Paul Boodhoo’s Building a Solid Core post sums it up A-OK so I won’t harp on when I can just invoke the JP macro (CTRL+J, jp, TAB).

One more thing. I see this notion of “Alpha Geek” as an anathema to the Agile way of life. Can we please drop the Alpha from Alpha Geek?!

In the Canis Lupis social structure there’s always a top dog (actually two, one per sex, but you get my drift). A given gray wolf community has a process in place for enforcing its social contract aimed at increasing survivability or, put in Agile terms, sustainability:

Rank order within a pack is established and maintained through a series of ritualized fights and posturing best described as “ritual bluffing”. Wolves prefer psychological warfare to physical confrontations, meaning that high-ranking status is based more on personality or attitude than on size or physical strength. Rank, who holds it, and how it is enforced varies widely between packs and between individual animals. In large packs full of easygoing wolves, or in a group of juvenile wolves, rank order may shift almost constantly, or even be circular (for instance, animal A dominates animal B, who dominates animal C, who dominates animal A). [Wikipedia]

We, attempting to be civilized creatures, can get our eats at Whole Foods (or the bodega on Loisaida as the case may be) and any competition for genetic dominance can reasonably take place outside of the software development sphere. What works for for the wolf isn’t necessarily what’s good for the cross pollination of ideas, innovations, and view points. I’d argue that the “Alpha” part puts it spot on; people of this ilk often self-identify with the wolf model and it’s really not all that necessary or wanted. See Evan’s recent annoyance with the alpha baditude:

That is, unless you are one of those “jumping ship” to leave MS and all us “Morts” behind.  I won’t be following you.  The .NET jobs are paying really well right now, and most of the self-described “alpha geeks” I’ve met in the wild are a pain-in-the-ass to talk with, let alone work on a team with.  It’s typically either their way or the highway.  They know everything and you suck.  Screw that mentality.  I do hope all the alpha geeks migrate to RoR.  I won’t miss the attitude.

Let’s not forget that Courage and Respect are two of the core values in eXtreme Programming. Have the courage to stand up to the ego-driven alphas. Better yet, demonstrate leadership yourself through respecting and listening to other people around you; you’ll grow yourself that way. Don’t get me wrong, I love a passionate argument, but we can check the Simpsons-Comic-Book-Guy personality disorder at the door!

Dialectics, baby. Dialectics…