Wednesday, December 21, 2005

They Biffed My Boss

CMP, publishers of Doctor Dobb's Journal and Software Development as well as the company behind the SD West and SD Best Practices conferences, sacked a bunch of folks last week, including two close friends of mine, who were the editor-in-chief and copy editor of Software Development magazine. For the record, Alexa was a helluva boss to work for. She constantly goaded us all to excellence just by sheer force of example, and I know for a fact that she fought like a tiger for her staff and to insulate the magazine's editorial content from the demands of the vendors advertising in it.


Booting her and Laurie a week before Christmas bodes ill for them (Alexa is five months pregnant) as well as the magazine, IMHO. Business is business, eh? Real classy timing, fellows. I can't really give their side here, because I haven't heard officially from anyone at CMP. Unofficially, I've been told I still have a job, which I like.


Perhaps the management will pull a rabbit out of a hat and find a substitute for these two women's drive, intellectual energy, and brilliant command of the English language. (And if it weren't for Laurie's combination of encouragement and gentle, sure-handed improvement of my writing, I would have given up the trade long ago.)

I sure hope that they manage to keep SD going as a high-quality operation, because I truly think it's the best thing out there for developers. I'm biased now, of course, since I write for it. But I formed that opinion long before I started writing for it in 2000 with the famous pig poop article.

I guess we'll have to wait and see. Regardless, it's the end of a good era.

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