[MortenK]

You seem to be infatuated with the notion that "video games people" are some sort of genius level software mavens, who can breathe fire and walk on water. The boring reality is that the majority of game developers, excluding outliers like Carmack etc, are young, novice programmers.

Games development is not some arcane area of software where only the "shit-hot" developers may walk. It's simply a very special branch of software development. You can of course find highly complex stuff in games (graphics, AI etc), but if you look at enterprise, you'll find equal complexity just in different, non-sexy areas like sheer code base scope, integrations, performance requirements on transactions etc.

And if you look at "mainstream" SaaS apps you have yet again a whole different type of complexity with the typically huge amounts of concurrent users, advanced UI etc.

To argue about whatever types of developers are the best, is just silly and frankly reminiscent of school yard discussions of which action hero could kick who's ass.

[josephkern]

I believe the comment about video game developers concerns useability and not fitness. I've been playing video games for many years, and from a useability standpoint, game manuals have dwindled to nothing. If the game does not teach me how to use the functionality during game play I really have no patience for the game anymore.

Enterprise software should take a similar approach. Have something of a tutorial mode, and an easily searchable text based document. Most of the cost in the software comes not from the actual price, but in employee productivity and training.

[ucee054]

To argue about whatever types of developers are the best, is just silly

Which is why rjempson shouldn't have started it. He was using "SAAS programmers are rubbish" as a way of dodging the crappy state of entreprise software.

if you look at enterprise, you'll find equal complexity just in different, non-sexy areas

Like the Wall Street system I heard about that ETLs its data continuously between three different databases because its developers had no idea what they were doing?

A lot of the stuff that happens under the label "entreprise" is just crap.