The absence of upper-case letters is disturbing on this website. I am not sure of the purpose, is it a stylistic thing? It does not confer style to me. It is a kind of forced laziness, the kind of laziness that takes an extra effort. Going against the grain for no other good reason than that it is against the grain. It is like living in a foreign country for 10 years and not learning the language at all - it takes a bigger effort to not do it, than to do it.
While everyone might write emails or other messages in all lower-case, this is an article that is meant to be read by lots of people. Upper case letters actually do exist for a pretty good reason, they let you read much faster, by letting your eyes parse sentences more easily.
I never thought i'd be this pedantic but the article really is difficult to read for me due to the lack of proper punctuation, namely upper-case letters. For comments, i don't mind, but for decent length articles that take more than a minute to read, it gets annoying and it removes my focus from what the words are conveying, to how the words are conveyed.
I find it funny that you find the lack of upper-case letters makes it difficult to read, when you missed have the words you should have capitalized in your comment.
The annoying thing to me is that the text itself is all lowercase, while they could have done the same thing, reversibly, in CSS, with text-transform: lowercase.
This was discussed the last time this site came up on HN. It didn't help that the article was basically about how he laughs at users complaints. I'd take everything he says about people with a grain of salt.
It's a bit of a bizarre analogy - I don't think it fits.
The reason why the rudder is at the back rather than the front of a ship is the same as why a pendulum rests straight down, but a pencil won't balance straight up - stability. I can't really see any links between that situation and the one being described in the article.
Not to say there aren't some good points being made - I think though the analogy being used distracts from, rather than adds to, these points.
And yes, the lack of capitalization does make it harder to read.
A front rudder would not need to move before its axis of rotation. It could easily be just like the rudder of a rowing shell (http://www.rumerys.com/Avanti/a3.jpg), but mounted close to the bow.
Also, many ships want/need to have the ability to steer both the front and the back of the boat. As an other reply already says, bow thrusters (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bow_thruster) are common in larger ships nowadays.
And yes, people have tried to build serious sailing boats with two true rudders:
The down-side to a front rudder appears to be that it creates turbulence underneath the hull of the boat, where the bow rudder creates turbulence in the water behind the boat.
A rudder also creates drag. Having drag behind the boat is a lot easier to deal with, it has a damping effect on movement, than drag on the front which would make it more twitchy and erratic.
For a racing boat maybe you're willing to deal with twitchy.
Aha! I knew that these existed, but didn't know they had two rudders/foils, too. Sailing boats that can't really be used if their engine isn't running :-) (they need power, typically hydraulic, to move the keel during sailing)
And lots of boats have "bow thrusters", which is a propeller in a perpendicular tube mounted at the bow of the ship. If you're in a tight spot it's very helpful to have that control at the bow. I don't think the author knows much about boats.
It's more of a metaphor than an analogy, I guess. Metaphors like "he buttressed the argument" or "she was a rock of Gibralter" are especially powerful because they tap into our kinesthetic memories (ht George Lakoff).
There's no meaningful depth to the idea that a bad Project Manager is like a front rudder of a boat, put it paints an image.
"Project management" (I'd probably argue "People management", too) is kind of like playing with cornstarch in water. If you work with a gentle touch, you can get it to do what you want. If you apply too much pressure the whole thing seizes up - turning to stone.
Crises don't happen often but when they do, it's good to remind yourself if the project/team/thing you're working on is cornstarch and not to over-control.
In general, this phenomenon is why I think the "Project Manager" as commonly defined isn't implemented correctly. PM (in large companies) isn't about control (PMs have no real ability to control anything) but about communication and coordination.
In smaller teams/companies, the role is usually distributed amongst others, or centralized in the CTO etc.
The article isn't that interesting except for its example -- the front rudder. It's easy to see why a front rudder would lead to instability -- a small initial change in heading leads to an ever-larger change in heading, and the system isn't self-stabilizing.
The classic example of something like a "front rudder" and its consequences is the Wright Flyer, the pitch control for which was in front of the center of mass (the rudder was aft).
The result of this arrangement is that, ans anyone who has tried to fly a modern version of this craft will tell you, it's very difficult to control in pitch, and constant adjustments are required.
Pretty soon Glenn Curtis and others got the idea to put both the rudder and elevator aft of the center of mass, which greatly increased flight stability. That arrangement quickly became a universal standard.
I'm an engineer who occasionally project manages. At first I felt like I was doing a terrible job because I wasn't in there helping make all the decisions and being the hub for the spokes to communicate through. Every project I'd feel like I wasn't doing enough (luckily laziness won out over my fear of not doing enough) but every time the project would get done.
I still don't particularly like project management but I'm learning to enjoy the feeling of not doing enough, at least on internally facing projects.
As someone who has done work on ferry boats, I can assure you that there are ships with a front rudder -- it's just kept center-locked most of the time.
It's easier to drive, but it is less manoueverable. It is impossible to parallel park forwards without a great deal of room and shunting, whereas when going backwards you can put the rear of the car in position, and then swing the front across.
Being front or rear wheel drive doesn't change this point, it's where the steering happens that matters and is purely a case of geometry.
While everyone might write emails or other messages in all lower-case, this is an article that is meant to be read by lots of people. Upper case letters actually do exist for a pretty good reason, they let you read much faster, by letting your eyes parse sentences more easily.