September 27, 2003

Architecture for Programming

Joel Spolsky's weblog has a description of Fog Creek Software's new offices, which were designed to support programmers' ways of working:
  1. Private offices with doors that close were absolutely required and not open to negotiation.
  2. Programmers need lots of power outlets. They should be able to plug new gizmos in at desk height without crawling on the floor.
  3. We need to be able to rewire any data lines (phone, LAN, cable TV, alarms, etc.) easily without opening any walls, ever.
  4. It should be possible to do pair programming.
  5. When you're working with a monitor all day, you need to rest your eyes by looking at something far away, so monitors should not be up against walls.
  6. The office should be a hang out: a pleasant place to spend time.
And so on. I'm amazed that people don't spend more time structuring their workspaces to make the workspaces allow--and even encourage--effective structures and processes for their work. Well, maybe I'm not surprised. As Joel points out, the people making the decisions about how a workspace is laid out are not the people actually using the space. Posted by johndan at September 27, 2003 05:09 PM | TrackBack