> I wonder if some standardized tests can be, in principle, constructed to measure programming abilities.
This absolutely misses the point of the article. It is definitively not about programming abilities, or speed of these abilities.
Many authors have hit TFA's points from different angles. For example, Tom Demarco's excellent Slack[1] introduces uses of "efficiency" (what speed is the organization moving at?) versus "effectiveness" (is the organization moving in the right direction?). DeMarco uses these to illustrate that many organizations optimize for the wrong parameters: they want to move at breakneck speed ("efficiency", "butts in seats", etc.), but in doing so trade off their vital strategic ability to think, design, to steer the ship!
In an organization without slack (briefly, the ability of knowledge workers in an organization to engage in vital reflective tasks, a key part of TFA's design process), everyone's so focused on Getting There that no one remains to decide if There is the right place to be going. This can and does result in everything from classic technical debt to strategic business failure. DeMarco describes a pile of organizational anti-patterns that stem from this philosophical damage.
I like that TFA's author connects these concepts explicitly to more recent thinking on the importance of design process.
This absolutely misses the point of the article. It is definitively not about programming abilities, or speed of these abilities.
Many authors have hit TFA's points from different angles. For example, Tom Demarco's excellent Slack[1] introduces uses of "efficiency" (what speed is the organization moving at?) versus "effectiveness" (is the organization moving in the right direction?). DeMarco uses these to illustrate that many organizations optimize for the wrong parameters: they want to move at breakneck speed ("efficiency", "butts in seats", etc.), but in doing so trade off their vital strategic ability to think, design, to steer the ship!
In an organization without slack (briefly, the ability of knowledge workers in an organization to engage in vital reflective tasks, a key part of TFA's design process), everyone's so focused on Getting There that no one remains to decide if There is the right place to be going. This can and does result in everything from classic technical debt to strategic business failure. DeMarco describes a pile of organizational anti-patterns that stem from this philosophical damage.
I like that TFA's author connects these concepts explicitly to more recent thinking on the importance of design process.
[1] http://www.amazon.com/Slack-Getting-Burnout-Busywork-Efficie...