The Effects of Geography on Software Engineers
The movie “French Kiss” with Kevin Kline and that one chick is one of me and Amber’s favorite VHS movies. (In our house, there are three time periods to movies – DVD movies, VHS movies, and pre-VHS movies. No Blu-Ray yet.) I like it, but the reason is not because it is a romantic comedy with that one chick in it. And the reason is not because it says “French” in the title and I’m trying to suck up to my boss, Luis, who lives in France. No, I like it because it has some really, really funny Canadians in it. Like Strange Brew!
No. Actually, not. But it is a pretty funny movie. And there is this part, which is not funny, where Luc is explaining to that one chick about what makes wines different from each other – that they take in elements from their environment that contribute to their unique flavor and texture. For example, if you spill some wine in the dirt, and then scoop it up with your cup and drink it anyway, you will probably get some dirt crumbs in there, which changes the texture from “smooth” to “gritty” and just tends to get you even more drunk than you were before. And that’s why I don’t drink.
Anyway, I was thinking about that today, and how similar that is to software engineers. See, software engineers, also, take in elements from their environment that make them unique. In fact, an easy way to say this is that software engineers who live in one part of the world are better than software engineers who live in another part of the world because of their superior geography.
For example, you might have one software engineer, let’s call him Steve. He might live in an peninsula that is called a valley, surrounded on three sides by ocean, with real estate that is unreasonably expensive. Or you might have another software engineer, let’s call him Bill, who lives in a place where it rains all the time, in the land of Nirvana and Alice In Chains and Soundgarden and Pearl Jam and Starbucks. Or another guy, named Nathan, who lives in an area with tight roads that wind all over creation, also with expensive real estate, elitist professional sports teams, and where nobody ever pronounces the letter “r”.
Compare these people to someone named Drew, for the sake of argument. This guy, also a software engineer, lives in an area with big mountains, lots of Mormons, and secret sand dunes where someone exactly like myself can go riding motocross bikes.
Anyone can see that there is simply no way Drew will ever be able to measure up to the likes of Steve, Bill, and Nathan. I mean, just take into account the geographic considerations! How can big mountains ever hope to make you the kind of software engineer you could have been if instead you had been surrounded by ocean or Soundgarden? The simple answer is: they can’t. I mean, be serious. This, my friends, is the effect of geography on software engineers – geography can make the difference between you being really excellent and simply mediocre. Secret sand dunes are really amazing, but they obviously cannot make you into the kind of software engineer you could have been if instead you were to replace those dunes with expensive real estate.
