Excellent node.

I started in small shops where management wanted nothing to do with the coding except to ask when it would be done. Now I find myself in a larger corporation where management imposes a slew of processes ( and endless meetings ) that impede development. Therefore my heart totally agree's with the premise of developers managing developers, but my mind accepts the need and rational for managers in management.

At the pure development level the developer-manager makes complete sense and a good management-manager would keep arms distance from that process, spending there time fending off the distractions from above and insuring that the product gets through the barriers in the the rest of the life cycle.

From everything I've observed a developer-manager would be a waste of a good developer. That being said the cash value of each of these positions and departments needs to be better understood by executive management.

. . .the operations wing dominates the software development wing by an overpowering margin (at least in numbers of people and in budget and so on)

This would seem to me to be more the crux of the issue than who is managing a given project. I too am in a similar enviornment. I cannot for the life of me understand how a truly forward looking company can spend more on the the proceses of producing and maintaining that which already exists than it does on new infrastructure and development.

IMHO Good developers shun management and I think Paul Graham's article reflects that.