August 9, 2000
Joel Spolsky publishes the Joel Test
Joel Spolsky's blog post The Joel Test lists twelve yes-or-no questions that separate great software teams from dysfunctional ones.
Quote
“Do you use source control? Can you make a build in one step? Do you make daily builds? Do you have a bug database?”
What it was for
The Joel Test was never scientific — Joel admitted as much — but it spread because it was memorable and actionable. TeamsMicrosoft Teams — chat, video calls, and Office integration for workplace collaboration. still score themselves out of 12 in onboarding docs and engineering blog posts.
People
- Joel Spolsky — author
Why it's here
The most shared team-health checklist of the blog era.
Why it mattered
It gave non-engineers a simple rubric for software organization quality.
What it solved
Startups had no quick way to audit whether their dev process was broken.
Media
ImageJoel SpolskyKatie Chan, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons