[TOS] Developer-in-Residence Model

Chris Tyler chris at tylers.info
Tue Mar 30 15:07:30 UTC 2010


On Tue, 2010-03-30 at 10:30 -0400, Matthew Jadud wrote:
> I'm going to offer a few suggestions, even though this is unlikely to
> affect me in any direct way.
> 
> On Mon, Mar 29, 2010 at 23:24, Chris Tyler <chris at tylers.info> wrote:
> > *# Guest lecturing
> 
> I would encourage you to use something like this as an opportunity to
> do *anything* other than lecture. Live coding sessions, where students
> can come and join in using collaborative editors (riding co-pilot in a
> giant "group programming" session), or focusing entirely on code
> review and discussion about artifacts that are part of a project, and
> so on... this strikes me as far higher value than having a developer
> come and give lectures.
> 
> Unless that is a particular strength of theirs, it seems like the
> wrong way to use their expertise.

Agreed - I'm using "Guest Lecturer" very loosely here. "Person that
meets with the class in some form" is perhaps better -- whether giving a
demo, running a lab, doing reviews, or whatever.

>  * A dev needs to move, unless the idea is to only use local talent.
> This is at least $1000+ per direction (minimum---a one-way UHaul costs
> at least that much).
>  * They need to redirect all their mail and bills for a year.
>  * Their tax situation changes.
>  * They loose their existing social life/structures for a year.
>  * ...
> 
> Moving for a year is hard.

I assumed a local developer. That doesn't necessarily mean there's a
local OS Co. office -- there are lots of full-time devs that work
remotely from surprising places (Sault Ste. Marie, for goodness sake!)
and I suspect that most .edus will have some local candidates. However,
$edu_in_nice_place_to_live and $edu_in_high_tech_region do have an edge
here.

-Chris




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