Djief’s Blog

When I started university a couple of years ago, getting an MBA after finishing my degree was something I was considering quite seriously. My mind has since changed and this blog post by Bob Sutton (who wrote “The No Asshole Rule“), Why Management is Not a Profession, gives food for thought about the real value of an MBA:

The discussion about the “value” of the MBA always seems to end — no matter where it starts and no matter what nuances are discussed by Pfeffer and others — with a focus on how much money it puts (or doesn’t put) in the recipient’s pocket.

The End of Business Schools? Less Success Than Meets the Eye has two interresting findings:

1. Don’t bother if you’re not going to one of the top 10 business schools. You won’t make more money and you will actually lose two years of salary.
2. There is no relationship between grades and salary at the top 10 schools. Only the networking that happens there is important.
   

   Business school professors really hate this one, as it means that those students who do as little work in classes as possible, and devote all their time to networking, are acting in economically rational ways.

So that’s the money perspective about an MBA. What about what you learn from getting an MBA:

There is remarkably little conversation about whether it teaches people to do a better job of helping and serving clients, employees, or anyone else. (…) the societal message — and it is often quite explicit — is that the most effective managers take as much money as possible for themselves from their clients.

Getting an MBA is far from my mind right now. I really believe you can make a more than decent living without it happening to the detriment of people around you.

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Coming soon…

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Hello, my name is Jean-Francois Couture. I’m a 25 years old software developer from Montreal, Canada. I currently work for Code Genome, a small company developing custom web applications using Ruby on Rails.

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I was reading a sample chapter of TextMate Power Editing for the Mac about all the bundles in TextMate. Of course, the one for html is really nice and solves almost everything that I hate about writing a blog post. Looking through the rest of the bundles, what do I see? One for blogging. I’m pretty you know by now what happened next.

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My last post got a trackback, which is really cool, especially considering my posting frequency . It also happens to be an awesome post jam-packed with juicy stuff, titled Canada’s Mojo Rising. It’s from Austin Hill, which I talked a bit about in my last post, and it’s about the emerging tech entrepreneurship in Montreal. Reading his post made me realize that I really need to start networking and it also provides a great list of starting points with upcoming events. I’m a bit ashamed that I didn’t attend the DemoCamp at CUSEC. Fortunately, it’s not too late to start!

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Extreme Programming (XP) is a revolutionary software development methodology in which programmers write code whilst skiing down mountains, parachuting out of airplanes, being chased by rapacious sharks, or participating in any of a wide variety of other extreme sports.

Extreme Programming – Uncyclopedia

There’s a lot of fun stuff at the uncyclopedia. Check it out. Also check this most excellent conference, Waterfall 2006.

After years of being disparaged by some in the software development community, the waterfall process is back with a vengeance. You’ve always known a good waterfall-based process is the right way to develop software projects. Come to the Waterfall 2006 conference and see how a sequential development process can benefit your next project. Learn how slow, deliberate handoffs (with signatures!) between groups can slow the rate of change on any project so that development teams have more time to spend on anticipating user needs through big, upfront design.

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In the last few months, I have accumulated quite a lot of blogging material. I will get on a weekly posting schedule.

My first post next week will be a retrospective of CUSEC 2006, a conference on software engineering here in Montreal. We have mr. Rails himself, David Heinemeier Hansson, talking and also my favorite blogger, Kathy Sierra, of Creating Passionate Users fame. I can’t wait!

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I just bought an iMac. Seriously. About one hour ago. I think I was possessed by some kind of demon at the time. I mean, there is no way I can rationally justify this purchase. So I bought an iPod to go with it. There is a deal this summer for student (free ipod mini or 225$ off). Don’t tell anybody.

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