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by caoilte 4120 days ago
I don't disagree, but I thought this was an interesting tweet on the subject

"The more talent density u have the less process you need. The more process u create the less talent you retain.

-- Reed Hastings (@netflix)"

https://twitter.com/billwscott/status/571761964839505920

1 comments

The second sentence I agree with, but not the first.

An 'untalented' developer is one who is perhaps slow to complete features, needs work on their design patterns, produces buggy code, etc.

Process isn't needed for these people, rather it is for people who do or try to get away with things like: expense excessive purchases, frequently lie about being sick to get out of working, speak or act in a lewd or unprofessional manner, etc.

Nobody is under the impression that mandating wearing a business suit (process) makes one suddenly better at programming (talent), the converse is equally absurd.

edit: punctuation

Process isn't wearing a suit to work. Process is having to fill out paperwork and present to a change review board to do things like modify a DNS record or install a service. Process is to keep morons from breaking what everyone else is doing correctly. If you have a team of people who know how to manage DNS in a way that won't explode, the request process be pared down to an email asking them to do it and trusting they will, them trusting you're not asking for no reason, and management trusting it won't jeopardize the system.
Similar to Scotsmen, a true process(tm) is whatever successful people do to get work done.