The Development Abstraction Layer

I just heard my manager talk about some "business stuff" I usually don't hear about. It reminded me of this story in a Joel Spolsky article.

Programmers need a Subversion repository. Getting a Subversion repository means you need a network, and a server, which has to be bought, installed, backed up, and provisioned with uninterruptible power, and that server generates a lot of heat, which means it need to be in a room with an extra air conditioner, and that air conditioner needs access to the outside of the building, which means installing an 80 pound fan unit on the wall outside the building, which makes the building owners nervous, so they need to bring their engineer around, to negotiate where the air conditioner unit will go (decision: on the outside wall, up here on the 18th floor, at the most inconvenient place possible), and the building gets their lawyers involved, because we're going to have to sign away our firstborn to be allowed to do this, and then the air conditioning installer guys show up with rigging gear that wouldn't be out of place in a Barbie play-set, which makes our construction foreman nervous, and he doesn't allow them to climb out of the 18th floor window in a Mattel harness made out of 1/2" pink plastic, I [swear] it could be Disco Barbie's belt, and somebody has to call the building agent again and see [why] they suddenly realized, 12 weeks into a construction project, that another contract amendment is going to be needed for [this] air conditioner that they knew about before Christmas and they only just figured it out, and if your programmers even spend one minute thinking about this that's one minute too many.

To the software developers on your team, this all needs to be abstracted away as typing svn commit on the command line.

That's why you have management.

I am thankful for the development abstraction layer I have at work.