Friday, October 06, 2006

seven years progressive experience with Whompfoozle 3.9

If you've ever looked for a job in the technical field you've seen help wanted ads that read
... candiate must have seven years progressive experience with Whompfoozle Version 3.9 ...
when Whompfoozle 3.9 was released six months ago, and didn't exist two years before that.


Reading Dr. Bradley Edwards criticism of Liftport's Roadmap reminded me of that.

The team that compiled this roadmap consisted of: Michael Laine who has no technical background, Tom Nugent is a recent graduate with limited experience on the space elevator, and two student interns at Liftport.


Right. Michael is the business guy - you need one of those if you're going to actually build something. But it struck me as unfair to expect Tom to have real-world experience with a system that is so far, really, a bunch of paper studies and thought experiments.

Which leaves aside the inconvenient fact that Tom isn't a recent graduate and negates the work he's done at MIT, JAXA and so on

What - the interns? They're bright, and they work cheap. This is a virtue when you're running a business.

This post is a personal opinion of Brian Dunbar and does not reflect the views or opinions of his employer.
blog comments powered by Disqus