[lifeisstillgood]

To 500hats:

1. Please take a note from pg. He writes clearly, edits his essays and it is almost always clear what he means. I am afraid I read your note twice and still missed some of it's core message(s) (I mean this kindly and politely)

2. If you are serious about external to USA investments and families, please please stop using US only sporting analogies that need Wikipedia articles to unpick. I am glad you love your sports. Now stop it. Say what you mean. Analogies are for lazy HNers like me, otherwise you are bowling googlies on a sticky wicket.

To pg and 500hats

This may or may not be a spat, but it looks suspiciously like when two tribes who were happily expanding across virgin tundra suddenly find they are jostling each other for space.

As you guys are at the leading edge of us it start ups, is this a warning sign of an imminent contraction ahead - have you guys run out of room?

[bambax]

> 2. If you are serious about external to USA investments and families, please stop using US only sporting analogies

Thanks for pointing this out. Not everyone who reads English understands those. While I have a (very faint) idea what the Yankees are, I have never even heard of the "Oakland A" or any of the players he mentions.

This is a very US-centric post; the line about how their investing team "speaks Mandarin, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Hebrew, Korean, Hindi, Punjabi, French, German, and will probably speak Arabic and Russian sometime next year" sounds forced. Can he explain the rules of baseball in Russian?

[lifeisstillgood]

I only know the Oakland As after watching Moneyball (recommend it for post midnight slumping), but yes I have a couple of rules for mixed culture teams

1. Writing is best first. Skype is great but really unless English your first language communication with words is easier, because you can take your time and point to code

2. Polite is vital

3. Encourage the weakest communicators This is generally true anyway, but the isolation that can accrue from not being able to make yourself understood a thousand miles away can become crippling to a otherwise useful team member

4. Kiss - keep it simple - everything needs to be simple

5. Pair up - no not pair programming although that's useful but have a "liason" for each remote person at the head office. This way there is a good link for catching misunderstandings etc

6. Be wary of jokes

7. On simplicity - this usually gets difficult when the requirements are not clear - if it's hard to feet a good programmer with bad English to understand what you want the fault is probably in the requirements not the programmer

to be fair that last rule has never failed me with any developer who has enough English to hold a conversation about their favourite sports team. Which is not much really.

[IsaacL]

"This may or may not be a spat, but it looks suspiciously like when two tribes who were happily expanding across virgin tundra suddenly find they are jostling each other for space."

Speaking of analogies, that's a great one. I'll have to remember it and use it myself!

[lifeisstillgood]

Yes, avoiding using analogies is like ....

[eranation]

Exactly what I felt, and exactly what I did. now I know a bit more about US sports though.