Tag Archives: Talis

ea_spouse : profit at the cost of human dignity

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My copy of The Best Software Writing I – selected and introduced by Joel Spolsky arrived the day before yesterday. I finally managed to start reading it last night after getting back from a truly magical evening at the Chinese State Circus. The book is a collection of essays/posts on online blogs that Spolsky has brought together as examples of simple goodle writing that engages the reader and captivates them. Spolsky introduces each essay with his own take on the subject matter. The essay I chose to read first was entitled EA – The Human Story. Anyone who knows me, knows I play several online games (most FPS ones), and I have a great interest in the gaming industry in terms of the products and technologies that they produce.

It’s safe to say that I was not expecting to be moved quite as much as I was by this account, which you can read online in its entirety over at http://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/. Before I go any further I will say this, I believe that ANYONE working in the software industry or in human resources, in fact everyone should read the essay.

It’s written by the spouse of an Electronic Arts employee who wrote this under the anonymous moniker ea_spouse, she chose to remain anonymous because in her own words she has “no illusions about what the consequences would be for my family if I was explicit“. Her account dramatically made the world aware of the shocking sweatshop-like labor practises at EA. It’s important to point out that this account was originally written in 2004 and since it was first published the controversy it generated has led to class action law suits against EA, as well a shedding light on what appears to be a commen trend within the gaming industry.

She describes what her family has to endure as her spouse is forced to work in excess of 85 hours a week for months on end, or in her own words:

Every step of the way, the project remained on schedule. Crunching neither accelerated this nor slowed it down; its effect on the actual product was not measurable. The extended hours were deliberate and planned; the management knew what they were doing as they did it. The love of my life comes home late at night complaining of a headache that will not go away and a chronically upset stomach, and my happy supportive smile is running out

It’s a heart wrenching expose that both captivates and evokes an extremely emotional response in you as you read it. As she laments the forced hours without any overtime or compensation, or even time off for employees you cant help but feel sickened. I had to put the book down and walk away for a moment when she wrote:

“If they don’t like it, they can work someplace else.” Put up or shut up and leave: this is the core of EA’s Human Resources policy. The concept of ethics or compassion or even intelligence with regard to getting the most out of one’s workforce never enters the equation:

Like anyone in the software industry you accept that you do have to work long hours sometimes as deadlines begin to loom, most of the developers that I have known dont mind this, but commonsense alone should tell us that this should always be the exception – never the norm. Ultimately it’s un-sustainable. We’re all human beings, we have lives outside of our work, other interests to persue, other dreams to achieve. ea_spouse ends her account with this …

…when you keep our husbands and wives and children in the office for ninety hours a week, sending them home exhausted and numb and frustrated with their lives, it’s not just them you’re hurting, but everyone around them, everyone who loves them? When you make your profit calculations and your cost analyses, you know that a great measure of that cost is being paid in raw human dignity, right?

Before joining Talis I used to work for an organisation, where I did clock up close to 70 hours a week for sustained periods. Of course no-one actually forces you, your just left to wander if you want the stigma of being labelled not a team player. I can only comment from my own perspective but I have no doubt that much of the apathy, cynicism and even contempt I had for the industry was a product of just how soul destroying it is to wake up, go to work, come home, sleep for a little and then wake up and go to work again. Your depressed, your constantly tired, your irratable, you become less and less attentive … to the point where you dont even sense someone running up behind you with a lead bar!

But what doesnt kill you, generally makes you stronger … at least thats something I try to believe. As I Read ea_spouse’s account, and thought about my own experiences as a developer working extended hours for sustained periods, I was immediatly able to contrast that with what things are like now.

For me Talis is a very different kind of environment to work in as a developer. I dont know whether its because we’ve embraced agile methodologies that are based around the principle of sustainable iterations of work, or whether its because the people I work with and work for genuinley care about the wellbeing of every member of the team. Or as I suspect its probably a combination of both. Our iterations in Skywalk are weekly, the small team on average completes around 15 units of work per week (our velocity – dont ask me to define what our units represent … I always quote my estimates in donuts! 😉 ), but I recall how our programme lead reacted a few months ago when the team over a couple of iterations averaged twice to three times that figure.

Our programme lead on skywalk, Ian Davis, is probably one of the finest programme mangers I have ever worked with. Probably because he doesnt think of himself as a programme manager. He’s extremely goal driven and yet a humanist who puts the well being of his team before anything else. As a team leader he’s a pragmatist, but it’s his charm and his passion that has helped bring together bunch of talented geeks and focused them into a team in every sense of the word. Anyway a few months back our velocity shot up, we were coming to the end of the development on a research prototype we call, Cenote, we wanted to have the piece up and running so Paul could show off some of our achievements at a conference in Canada. There wasnt a real requirement for the prototype to be made available, it was always a nice to have. But the team wanted to showcase its work, we take a great deal of pride in what we do. Ian was on vacation and in his absence we simply plowed on got it all done and delivered. When he came back and checked our velocity, he was appreciative yet told us that he didnt want us to make a habit of that because it wasnt sustainable. He then planned our next iteration to be around half our normal average velocity on the grounds that he wanted to make sure we all got a bit of rest. I’d never known a programme manager to react like that … or for a company to let him.

The problem with Second-Life is … it just sucks!

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Ok, here’s my take on it. If I had to sum second-life up in a sentence it would be “Its just IRC with crappy avatars”. Far too many people think that its a game that you “play”. But it isn’t, its a virtual world that tries to provide real world metaphors so that users can be part of virtual communities, set up virtual businesses, make money, or simply lounge around try to look cool. There’s nothing wrong with that … but it just isnt compelling. Please spare me all that disingenuous crap that there’s 2 million registered users so that means it must be really popular! Hell … I registered for a free hotmail account once … I cant remember the last time I actually used it … 😉

For ages I’ve been refusing to sign up for an account on the grounds, rather facetiously, that I have a real-life, and I dont want to waste it away in an environment I knew I would loose interest in. But the other day I decided I’d give it a try. It took me about two hours to realise I didn’t like the clunky interface and crappy graphics, and further two hours to realise I actually hated the fact that it wasnt really a game.

My ulterior motive for signing up was to see how I could use the scripting engine to create some real world physics simulations, and i’m not sure what engine they are using its supposed to Havok2, but it doesnt feel like Havok at all.

As for the real world metaphor …. it still sucks, and I think its given far more credit than it deserves.

To understand my take on this this check this out: The current stats on www.secondlife.com are:

Total Residents: 1.9250,245
Logged In the Last 60 Days: 789,400
Online Now: 8,661
US$ Spent Last 24h : $652,969
LindeX Activity Last 24h: $135,163

Here’s goes – To begin with 2 Million registered users doesnt equate to 2 million active users. I’ve been trying to find out if the 789,400 users logged in the last 60 days, is the number of unique residents who have been active, or is it, as I suspect, the number of times anyone has logged in. Why do I suspect that? Well for arguments sake lets say each person logs in maybe twice a day ( assuming they have a real life ) that means in 60 days an individual would log in 120 times therefore 789,400 / 120 = 6579 (which I’ve rounded up). This isnt too far off the number of users currently online. Is that because like any game you tend to have a hard core group of users plus a bunch of casual users? Lets be generous lets say that the ballpark is really more like 12,000 active users. Even with that its not an enormous community. You can contrast this with other MMORPG like World of Warcraft which surpassed 5 Million registered users in December 2005! And theres a hell of a lot more than 12,000 people online in that virtual world at any one point in time than your ever likely to see in Second Life. Yes I know the press are raving that Second Life might actually exceed WoW’s number of registerd users … but trust me SL has a long way to catch up!

Whats is impressive about SL is that approx 12,000 active users somehow managed to spend $652,969 in Second Life in 24 hours. Which roughly equates to $55 per user in a 24 hour period. So what are these people spending their money on? I have a theory about that too. To begin with you can buy real world goods in Second Life, i.e. a Dell PC, boooks through Amazon etc. Which is what drives up the real $US figure, and thats really cool … its like IRC with crappy avatars but you have a shopping interface 😉

The Linden transactions for virtual goods on the other hand are a different matter. Firstly the actual reported Linden figures can be easily influenced if people know how to as reported by Reuters, to date this isnt a defect Linden Labs have managed to resolve, at least not to my knowledge, and they’ve not been commenting on it.

Secondly the types of businesses that are making profits in SL kind of fall into the gold-rush model. Back when Gold Miners used to descend on a midwest town with hopes of striking it rich, generally the only people who made any money where those who were selling Pots, Pans, Shovels, and supplies to the miners. Its much the same with Second Life. Avatar Designer and Virtual Real estate developers are making a profit selling Virtual wares. There is one additional group thats making a lot of money too, and thats the sex industry – and yes it has found its way into Second Life. You can trade you Linden’s for virtual pole dances, the services of a virtual escort or just buy images! I guess the notion that Pornography Drives Technology is still true even today. Personally I dont see the attraction certainly not with the graphics engine SL uses eeek … pixelated porn …*shudder* … maybe I’m just old fashioned but what’s wrong with going out with real women?

Recently Second Life has become a bit of a gimmick for real world companies many of which have set up a Virtual prescence in Second Life in an attempt to make themselves look cool, and its been successful in that it has generated a lot of media attention. Hey even Talis have a Virtual Office in there … (were still trying to convince our CEO that our real offices should have Pool tables and jacuzzi’s too – but hes not buying into it! C’mon Dave you know you want to 😉 )

Unfortunatly these gimmicks have a tendency to backfire Sun was berated recently for holding a developers Q&A session about the release of Open Source Java in Second Life. Dell also fell foul of this, and so have others.

As a game Second Life is just boring after your first twenty minutes flying around like superman dishing out your card to anyone with an avatar that looks like a hot chick – erm … but they might not be. Note to self: Dont put any real details into SL profile!

As metaphor for the real world Second Life isn’t compelling enough, at leasnt not for me. I’m not interested in buying virtual real estate, or setting up shop in there. If I want to buy from Dell or Amazon its a shed load quicker through a browser or using a phone than it is endlessly flying around and teleporting trying to find their virtual outlets, and trying to interact with the clunky UI. Which means you cant be task oriented in there you actually have to want to turn buying goods into an adventure to be attracted to SL as a metaphor for getting real world activities done and I just don’t buy into that. I guess that’s why they only have 12,000 out of 2 million users active?

Anyway I’m off to battle the forces of darkness in World of Warcraft!

Programmers are generally bad at user interface design?

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Was intrigued when I read James O’ Coplien latest blog entry: The interface is the Program, and it ain’t Agile. Coplien discusses, quite correctly I believe, the fact that historically developers have tended to be very bad at building good user interfaces. Coplien discusses this in the context of Agile development groups and how usability is rarely captured as a story because stories in themselves are generally short-term goals that you want to achieve in the space of an iteration or even a sprint. Therefore because Agile teams are rapidly making changes to their application its hard to be able to do the focussed studies and analysis that is required in order to gain an understanding of how useable the application your building is. Fundementally programmers are not User Interface designers – Coplien attributes this to several reasons, which include the fact that university courses on software engineering have often done little more than pay lip service to HCI or User Interface Design, its often a topic that undergraduates are only ever given the most basic of introductions to.

I want to expand a little on what Coplien has covered so well …

I’ve been fortunate enough to have worked closely with Alan Dix and Russell Beale, the authors of Human Computer Interaction. I do class myself as a developer but I have had a strong interest in HCI, and user interface design and its an area I’ve been interested in and reading around for the best part of a decade. In that time I’ve often had to work in teams where its apparent that other developers dont either understand the need for HCI, or even how to begin to think about it.

In my own experience this comes from the fact that programmers tend to focus on the mechanics of building an interface, getting the right framework, and then designing around the limitations of the toolset they have picked. Invariably they tend to spend tonnes of time just focusing on getting the UI to work and this UI is designed from the perspective of satisfying the flows defined in requirements documents or design docs like Use Cases. You can contrast this with people trying to use the user interface, who dont care how it was built, or what the limitations in the underlying technologies were, these people just want something they can use. To me its this emphasis that seperates a working interface from a “good” user interface. Good User Interface are designed around the user, unfortunatly most user interfaces tend to be designed around building something that satisfies a series of discrete requirements.

I dont think it’s fair to simply say that programmers arent capable and can’t do good UI design, the truth is that on most software projects, and in most teams, it just isnt their emphasis.

In order to improve things developers need to be taught the importance of user interface design. Our development group at Talis is a great example of this. As a team we know we need get better at understanding how to build user interfaces. One of the activities we undertook recently was to get everyone to read Spolsky’s User Interface Design for Programmers as part of our geek book club. It’s an excellent text that introduces programmers to key concepts in user interface design.

However as more and more applications are being delivered over the web developers should take the time to read Jakob Nielsen’s seminal text Designing Web Usability – The practice of Simplicity. Bruce Tognazzini’s TOG on Interface, might be a little dated but its still an incredibly good text and has a great section on conceptual models.

Most importantly though: one of the things our group has realised is that User Interface Design and User Interaction Design are specialised skills, and whilst its important that developers should be encouraged to learn more about this area, its vitally important that organisations recruit people with these specialised skills into their teams. To that end Talis is openly recruiting for individuals who specialise in HCI/User Interface Design, so if you think you fit the bill and its an area your passionate about, and you’d like to work for an organisation that takes this very seriously then check out the job spec here and send your CV along with a covering letter to team.talent@talis.com.

Hashing, Searching and Sketching

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We are doing a lot of work at Talis at the moment on refining the indexing and searching capabilities in our platform. To that end I’ve trying to get up to speed on subject; anyway I came across this fascinating tech talk over at google on using Hashing and Sketching to get improved search results. Its a little over an hour long, and does get very technical in parts but nonetheless it gives a really insight into the possible gains that can be achieved through locality sensitive hashing functions and sketching ( the compression of large complex objects into a few bytes and then comparing these representations to determine how similar objects are).

Providing estimates for building software

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James Shore is currently working on his book – The Art of Agile Development. For a while now Shore has been posting up pre-publication review chapters from this upcoming book. The latest section up for review covers the topic of Estimation, and its well worth reading.

This chapter really resonates with me since parts of it pretty much describe the approach to estimation we follow in our development group at Talis. We estimate how much effort it would take to complete indiviual stories. Our iterations last a week. At the beginning of each week we total up our velocity for the previous week, for example 16, and then select 16 units worth of work for the coming iteration. If we repeatedly hit our target over the course of a couple of iterations then as a group we might pick more than our velocity for the following iteration. All the members of the development team take participate in the estimation, this ensures that everyone is “bought-into” the plan. This approach leads to better communication and can help clarify requirements it also engenders greater trust within the team.

Gordon Ramsay could teach software engineers a thing or two?

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Rob and I took a coffee break from refactoring some code yesterday and he asked me if I had watched Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares the night before, which I had! We commented on how formulaic the show is – each episode Ramsay turns up at the door of an ailing restaurant, and helps get them back on track and making money by empowering and motivating the cooks, using fresh ingredients, coming up with a simple less complicated menu, keeping management out of the kitchen and in the front where they belong, and above all putting the customer first!! Rob then said something along the lines of “You know when you think about it its not too different to the problems that many other software engineering firms face“. That’s when the penny dropped …

As a metaphor this should sound familiar to anyone working on a large ( even not so large ) software project. Your coders are the equivalent of your kitchen brigade, guys and girls who have to deliver, without them you cant serve anything to your customers. Your ingredients are API’s, frameworks, and technologies. Your complicated menu’s are over analysed, over designed, and over complicated software architectures; and lets not forget your restaurant managers are the same as your project managers, who generally know sod all about writing code, they promise your customers everything under the sun, generally work their brigade to death to deliver to unrealistic time frames and have a penchant for blaming the coders when it all goes tits up!

Worst of all the customer rarely gets what he or she actually ordered, because so many software company’s still persist on following dated project management and development methodologies trying to gather requirements up front, do exhaustive analysis and design then coding, and finally delivering a system 12 months later to a customer who’s requirements have now changed.

Did I sound bitter then? It’s probably because I realise that I’ve spent the better part of a decade working for the kinds of software companies where this kind of thing is considered the norm. Sadly for many company’s it still is the norm!

So lets apply the Ramsay formula to this. How do you turn teams that are building software in the manner above around?

Firstly, you have to empower your brigade. In the past I’ve worked in places where the job of most developers is simply to “fill-in-the-blanks”… in other words just implement method stubs that are generated by a design tool that the architects use. This creates hierarchical divisions within teams, and is generally extremely de-motivating. Like a cook who has given up using his imagination, has no passion, and has given up thinking creatively and has been reduced to doing little more than reheating pre-cooked frozen hash.

In order to empower the team, they need to OWN the code collectively. It doesn’t belong to one person, it belongs to everyone. As a team they’re passionate about it. You have to be break people out of the traditional thinking that I wrote this class so people have to check with me if they want to change it!

We need “fresh” ingredients. Yes we should re-use software but only if its appropriate. How many times have you worked on software projects where the architecture isn’t based on whether its the right technology or tool for the job, but is based on other factors like the company you work for has a cool licensing agreement with a vendor and wants to use their technology because they don’t have to fork out for something more appropriate? This, using a square-peg to fill a round hole approach, in variably leads to difficulties.

Have “simpler menus”! We need to get rid of up-front complicated over-architected designs, and over analysing solutions – which are a product of old-style waterfall approaches. Teams need to be moving towards iterative, agile development methodologies. These processes engage the customers who are able to provide feedback on the product at the end of each iteration so this approach to developing software encourages customers to change their requirements if and when they want to which means that when you finally deliver … your actually giving them what they want! And this squarely puts the customer first!

Keep management out of the kitchen. If your the kind of organisation willing to invest in bringing a smart bunch of technical people together, then trust them to do their job. They don’t need project managers standing over their shoulders asking them for an hourly update on their progress. This kind of Orwellian micro-management is culturally ingrained into some large software companies and in my opinion it is very, very damaging. It fosters resentment, encourages bullying and totally de-motivates developers because of the perpetual monkey on their backs!

I am so glad im not working for an organisation that suffers from these problems, and perhaps if you are then maybe you should consider a change?

Beginnings are such delicate times

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So I’m a blogger now! I suppose just having a blog doesn’t make me a blogger its the act of actually blogging on that makes someone a blogger. Which really does make this the most delicate of times; you see I’ve never blogged before so this is all very new to me.

Blog’s though aren’t new to me, I’ve been reading other peoples blogs for a while and have spent a lot of times reflecting on the views of others but never really having a place where I can articulate my own. I guess for the longest time I chose to be one of those deaf mutes, out of convenience or perhaps it was apathy and a certain amount disaffection with the industry I once loved.

What’s changed I guess is that I’ve spent the last six months working in an environment unlike any I’ve been in before. The infectious enthusiasm of a team of incredibly passionate and extremely talented geeks @ Talis has not only helped me rediscover my own passion for developing great software … but helped me find my direction again.

So I guess what this is … is a place where I can share my thoughts, share some of the lessons I’ve learnt, voice my opinions on anything and everything … and its also a place where I can blow off a bit of steam every now and again.