Slashdot Mirror
Welcome to the 'Plogging' World
Roland Piquepaille writes "No, it's not a typo. A plog is short for 'project log' like a blog is short for 'web log.' And plogs start to be used as tools to manage projects, especially in the IT world, as discovered Michael Schrage of the MIT. He reports his findings in an article published by CIO Magazine, "The Virtues of Chitchat." Schrage found that if plogs are not really commonplace, they're not exactly rare. And they are even used to manage large IT projects, such as ERP rollouts. I totally agree with him that a plog is of great value to integrate people in a team or to keep track of the advancement of a project. And you, what's your view? If you're a project manager, do you use a plog for better control? And if not today, will you use one in the future? This overview contains selected excerpts from Schage's article which will help you to answer the above questions."
See this interesting short piece in FP about how military contractors, the Office of Naval Research and Law enforcement agencies are testing plogs on their projects and networks.
Tcd004
I recently started using Basecamp from 37Signals for tracking projects. It's basically a "plogging" system with to-do lists, milestones, file uploading, and one of the most intuitive interfaces I've ever used on the web. I've been tracking internal projects in the way described in the article--I think it's great.
It also makes it really easy to make client-extranet plogs where clients can comment on your entries. Really slick.
I'm much funnier now that I'm a subscriber.
I can't wait to blog in my moblog about plogging. Oh, and kill myself.
We already have blogs, flogs, photologs, moblogs and now these plogs? Someone needs to stop making new terms up and just call them all logs.
EVERYDAY IS CATURDAY
shameless plog.
har, har.
Karma: -2147483648 (Mostly affected by integer overflow)
Brings back memories, when we would check out each others' .project files... Hopefully this tool will be a little easier to manage.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
pwiki.
They make for excellent documentation both for old and for new developers/users
Richard Stallman's page would be a Freedom Log, one of many in the new flogging scene.
Worst. Fake word. Evar.
Could you consider SourceForge a 'plog'?
Palm Plog, pLog
I'm not sure that this site is working under the same definition of "plog", but then again, I had never heard of a "project log" before this article.
Never heard James T. Kirk put an entry in the clog.
Omnis amans amens
O.K. it's time to shut off the internet. Thanks for your participation everybody.
If a web log is a blog, then shouldn't project log be a tlog?
-m
#
# Modus Ponens
#
also known as a Diary !
also known as human literay static
Web log
Project log.
People have been project blogging for a while. So someone comes up with the term PLOG and gets on slashdot? sigh.
-Imidazole2
I've found that WIKIs can be useful as a collaboration tool in the workplace.
It can be a free form tool to coordinate various teams and projects. Its important to bear in mind though that even the best tool is no replacement for good management.
The WIKI I'm currently using is TWIKI which is GPL'd.
all make me think of Barf's (John Candy) line in Spaceballs:
"I'm a mog. Half-man, half-dog. I'm my own best friend."
Jason Lotito
Where I work (major corp), engineers just spend all day logged into chatrooms via jabber to keep in touch and discuss things.
For small projects, a "Wiki" system is nice because it is informal. It is kind of like a bunch of named note-pads where anyone (given access) can edit content. It has simplified editing conventions to avoid having to type HTML. For example, a bullet point can be created (upon rendering) simply by including an asterisk at the begginning of a paragraph. (Different wikis have different conventions.)
But for larger groups a more formal "discussion group" may be more appropriate to keep track of who wrote what. These are generally hierarchical, AKA "threaded". The problem many of them have is that it is difficult to reference stuff outside of the hierarchy. They should use some kind of message numbering system so that one can easily make cross-branch references by typing in message numbers.
However, many managers are not used to such systems and are sometimes intimidated by them. Some tend to be "verbal-oriented".
Table-ized A.I.
Do we really need 42 different names for what is basicly the samething?
Too many Slashdot stories are coming from other blogs. Quote from original content, please.
A few months back i setup a blog to help out our team to help manage the knowledge we acquire throughtout the projects duration. My managers fourtunately approved it. Though it was well recieved throught the team, very few knew what a blog actually is and very few have actually used it. It is rather unfortunate that some employees do not do anything other than things which are manadatory. I'm sure people would have used it much more if it was made mandatory to record all their experiences but we know that it's not possible. An oft quoted excuse is time. Blogging does take time and i totally agree with that but what is not being considered is the time that would be saved by someone else who would come across the same problems after a month or two.
I've worked with Thoughtworks on a few projects and they looove XP. They also love the idea of refactoring and used to keep a project wiki for each project - similar to what is being described here, except without the historical info.
Martin Fowler, owner of Thoughtworks and XP evangelist, keeps a Bliki (his name for a cross between a Blog & a Wiki)
Whats the point of linking to another blog? you still have to click on all the links in that blog to get to the article. Does Roland pay slashdot for the traffic slashdot sends his way? I guess this would explain why theres about so many articles which are really summaries of mr piquepailles articles.
also, the other thing that is fishy is that its always mr piquepaille himself who submits the articles, its never an interested websurfer who thought they might be of interest to the slashdot audience...
SURELY NOT!!!!!
About the only thing proven here is that when e-mail is shown to be sufficient, it's sufficient, and developers won't be quick to jump to other technologies, even when they are more useful.
-Rob
Marriage doesn't have to suck!
they're all flogs. Sorry, unlike wikis, I dislike blogs. I don't dislike bloggers. Unfortunately there are a lot of annoying blogs out there. As usual, it's the few bad ones that makes it all look bad.
This is totally insecure, but very convenient.
Another buzzword for people to throw about like mad. Just what we need.
.plan files some used to the same purpose? Sure, you don't have to finger for the info as it's all on the web now, but it's the same concept, isn't it?
Seriously though, my head may be up my ass on this, but could someone tell me just what the difference between all these *logs and the now long-dead
I manage the creation and customization of project management and other type of web-based software.
One of the core features of every program is the 'logging' function -- every time a change is made to a record - whether it be a product, project, customer, or ticket status, it's logged and/or diff'ed, timestamped, and recorded. Logs are available below the main information area. Email messages that are passed through the system's mail relay are also recorded and timestamped, and a user can provide a comment at any point (i.e. recording the results or minutes of a meeting that was held earlier.) Users also are required to provide information on what was completed whenever they clock time towards a task or item. So basically, it's mandatory blogging ... or plogging, but that's such an unfortunate term...
What will be the next concatenated word to take the blogging world by storm? I know! Blogging about snails, snakes, snow, or snarkiness will be referred to as "snogging"...
--
Vote for your hopes, not for your fears - Vote Third Party
My personal choice is to publish hardware designs, but to force visitors of the research projects to write their own code (aka
How is this different than tools we've been using for years like Lotus Notes, eRoom, etc.
A blog is created for or by a person. A plog is for an event or project.
Given that most people have more than one project going at a time, and are interested in multiple projects.
With the spring festivals and such in full swing, I can see where a plog would be terrrific for putting together such a community event.
i call my poop log a plog hence the name plogger.insert_my_domain_that_doesnt_want_to_be_sl ashdotted.org
and yes it is used to keep track of s%!t
The Mozilla team [PDF] has been using open forums before a lot of people did.
Where are files stored in this system? The description says that only links are on the extranet, but it also talks about file uploading. How are project documents shared with people outside the corporate firewall?
Just export the CVS checkin log and get on with your day!
for my corp IT group. Its more wiki-centric but the idea is the same. Its used to help document and communicate.
I released the first hack on freshmeat a while ago and have been using it in its current ugly form and need to keep refining it, but the ideas are there.
This reminds me of what we use to call the Live Observations list, which was supposed to have a carefully documented list of software failures or faults along with related actions and change proposals, but tended to turn into a to-do list/comments/information/oh-shit-its-broken-damn- you repository. Based on a beautifully crafted (hmm) excel spreadsheet, theres no doubt this was a PLog in disguise. I think we all agree that such information exchanges have existed since before computers, and the only value added by any of these systems is to overcome physical limitations in terms of access, and to enable better organisation of large amounts of information through automation. So that begs the question, whats the next revolutionary improvement over a whiteboard?
Not too surprising. We used this all the time for the MER rovers at JPL. We used aim chat groups with a logging robot (easy enough to write one using say Net::AIM). Lots of design discussions and training sessions were done through IM and then became a part of the project documentation. Then grep and search when you forget something. Just don't say anything too obnoxious while chatting...
The name may be stupid, but if that's the price to pay for not having to use Microsoft Project any more, then I'm all for it!
Quote: A plog is short for 'project log' like a blog is short for 'web log.'
If "web log" is to "blog", shouldn't this be a "tlog" ? ("project log")
-AC
I've been looking for something like this for a long time. Unfortunately, plogging doesn't satisfy my every need. So - let me ask the project managers of slashdot (I know you're out there) - what do you use as project collaboration/management tool? Someone posted a link to "Basecamp" which seemed ok (unfortunately it require credit information just to try a free demo). Are there other tools like that? How do they measure up?
I've been thinking about wiki, but it's a tad to difficult to be useful - my teams usually consists of developers, DB people, graphic designers, customers etc. They'd never learn the simple wiki markup.
If you're a project manager, do you use a plog for better control?
I've always found flogging to work best for control.
As an aside: who is Roland Piquepaille, and how does he manage to get an article in /. every other day?
We would timestamp our .project files and each of us would have their login script finger the other group members, compare the timestamp to the one stored in a flat database (ASCII file) and then, if there were any changes, display the output of the finger command.
Simple, yet effective (plus, it was geeky enough to make sure that nobody outside of R&D or Coding ever bothered to check the status of projects).
These days, unfortunately, hardly anyone seems to be running fingerd and it's virtually always firewalled off to the outside world.
This sort of thing might invite comments from unqualified people. The classic case is the engineering manager telling a graphic designer how to design a logo. I prefer to read the CVS comments I get in my email from people that are working on the same code as myself. Some people are very good at it, it's very entertaining!
Drill baby drill - on Mars
We call it "flog".
Because that's the point where the people who are tired of these silly logs clogging up web searches form up into groups, hunt down the "loggers" and, well, flog them.
These are the things I amuse myself with while falling asleep at night.
THIS HAS TO BE STOPPED!!!
is it REALLY that hard to just say Mobile Log, or Web Log that we need to shorten it?
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
An interesting and pretty damned apt analogy. I've truly never understood the appeal of weblogging. Most people have absolutely nothing insightful to say, and as oft observed, their weblogs are barely more than poorly concealed plagiarism and linkfarms. I also have no idea what gives people the idea that other people give a shit what they think. Getting a few "+5"'s past the typically braindead /. mods does not qualify. These are the same people who don't check links and end up giving tubgirl a "+5."
I'd put RP in with that unless he actually is doing what g'parent is implying, just submitting his shit to /. so he can profit from his sidebar ads. And yes, they are his ads- other people doing weblogs on the same service (radio.weblogs.com) don't have them.
Talk about the ultimate in karmawhoring.
I used to keep all my Project Logging in my .plan file, so that when people used the php-based finger on my team member profile, it would list what I was working on. Older updates got appended to a .plan.old file after at the beginning of each month, so that my thoughts/ideas/plans/etc. never got deleted.
I have a ton of neat ideas and thoughts on improving development, but in that same respect, I'm extremely forgetful. If I can keep from re-inventing the wheel, so much the better. Plus, what if I were to die in a horrible shopping cart accident? How would my (now ex-)employer recover from the loss? Well, if they were smart, they would look at my home directory and see my project info in plain sight and pick up the pieces in an instant (which they did when they laid me off in 2001), just as I would if I were to take a vacation for a week and come back to work I had left idling.
There are so many details to track, and so many nuanced changes that can creep into the process. Rather than sit and wonder how in hell things ended up the way they are, and even more importantly, why specific courses of action where chosen over others, a project log is an invaluable tool. This is unfortunately, an area where almost every PIM falters miserably, since they all make the same limited assumptions: every event will have a start/end date, a start/end time, and will involve one or more participants. Project logging requires some very basic information: date, time, summary, category, and a text field that can accommodate a lengthy (up to 32K) description. All fields should be searchable. I will be very happy when I see KOrganizer or any of the other common Linux-based PIMs with this feature.
they are good in theory but people are very resistance to use them.
I am currently working on a project with about 10 other people and implemented a log to centralize all the notes and stuff. The log worked perfectly, the managers loved it, but the workers hated it. I couldn't hardley get anyone to actually use it. The common reaction I got was when should I blog? And another responce was that they didn't want people to know what they were doing.... blogs.. plogs whatever you call them will only be useful if the people actually want to use them... and in my case they didn't. so we no longer have/use it.
He posts (at most) one minute later than some other guy with the same idea, and some CSM (Crack Smoking Moderators) jumps on him like he was 10 minutes late. Chances are this guy was in the "first jump" of posters who saw the story because of his subscription. Slashdot shouldn't be only a race, but based on the quality of the posts. This post much clearly identified the idea by cleaver formating. Perhaps "losing the race" (really coming in a close second) should disqualify him for any points, but it should affect him negitively.
Prolog... a Professional Log :-)
"If anything can go wrong, it will." - Murphy
Blog... what a stupid name. People who apparently have enough time to read the stupid things can't find the time to pronounce or type two words?
- a) tlog
My logic would tell me a project log was a tlog (+ it sounds way cooler =)b) plog
c) clog
We need at least one more. We need a slog. That way we can log al the time we waste on slashdot.
My team has a number of large projects going at any time. If everybody project reported it's progress regularly to the "all" mailing list we would quadruple our traffic, and nobody would read anything. So instead I plan to set myself up a blog, tell people that it exists, and maintain it. If people want to read it, super. If they want to get into conversation, even better. I was gonna say "If it flops..." but I dont think it will, because at the very least it'll be a place where I can keep all my own thoughts on things and be my own braindumping ground.
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
Shouldn't it be "tlog" as opposed to "plog"?
The users that I develop for are too lazy to read the weekly updates I e-mail them, much less actually go through the effort of reading a web page.
Maybe if I embedded it in an eBay auction tho...
4/14: This project sucks. I hate you all.
4/13: This project sucks. I hate you all.
4/12: This project sucks. I hate you all.
4/11: Hot chick from Marketing was at meeting. Woohoo!
4/10: This project sucks. I hate you all.
======================================
Writers get in shape by pumping irony.
In our case, I wrote a little VB applet that reads an authenticated user's name, formats a header, and so forth. The app simply appends the contents of a file to the newest entry and writes the file out again -- to the share the team uses for other stuff. The file is parked on Active Desktop, and includes a refresh tag in it. Every five minutes the user gets a refresh. This has been wildly popular -- the idea being that a lot of quotidian factoids whose relevance is brief is nevertheless at least very relevant while it is, and may be relevant to some, or all of the team. They can glance at the "tickler" as we call it, and decide for themselves. It took me a while, once blogs became commonplace, to realize that we'd been doing it for some time -- without a web server.
Oh look. nntp has been reinvented, only without the standardisation.
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
Slashdot: The one true glog (*log log)
I used to be able to tell when someone was fingering me. My .plan was a named pipe fed by a shell script. The script would netstat looking for fingerd connections, rsh to the source host, "ps -aux" for finger processes, and send me the results. I'd then send email to the person, asking "why are you fingering me?".
...I've been wanting something like this at the office for a long time now. I'm a project manager, I have ~60 accounts that I am working on simultaneously and with that, it becomes more and more difficult to keep on top of where each project is. If I had something like this where I had all my information and conversation threads under one roof, I'd be sitting pretty. In the end, the one thing that holds up a project -- more than anything else -- is dropped information.
Time to go write a specification for a new intranet tool. 'Scuse me.
blog |
CHLOG: I have a great new idea to use blogging technology to assist software development. This is especially useful when you have a large team of developers working on a single project. Everytime a developer modifies some code, he or she will "blog" that change on a special blog called "Chlog" -- for "change log"
SLOG: Here is another cool idea. What's really unique about this idea is that it is not a blog written by a human but rather a blog written by a computer. Anytime an operating system takes an action, it is "blogged" to a blog called "slog" -- for "system log."
These 'logs are an exciting emerging model of social communications. While they're complimentary to traditional email, and (in their structure) often superior, they do conflict with email, especially regarding searching, archiving and crossreferencing. The best 'logs offer in/out gateways with email, at least for referential notices. How would you prefer to keep your fragmenting collection of inboxes from multiplying by a growing system of exclusive 'logs?
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make install -not war
The narrative is the oldest form of communication, pre-dating written language as the medium of choice for passing information down through generations of people. Any wonder that it still works pretty darn well to this day?
I mean sheesh, am I the only one who feels like a caveman whenever I say 'blog' or 'plog' in public.
The meek shall inherit the earth, in 3 by 6 plots. - Lazerus Long
It looks good at first glance (must be the colors :). But no GANTT (or other) charts - just an illustrated calendar view of milestones. How can schedule data be imported to a GANTT chart? They're a brand of "professionalism": clients love them so much that they overlook all kinds of project problems, and complain about good projects when they don't get the charts?
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make install -not war
Evan Williams and his team, of Blogger fame (bought by Google last year), developed a 'Plogging' app called Pyra back in 2000. Work on it got halted when Blogger started to take off, but I remember trying out a beta version and it rocked. There's a little info still around on Pyra, but not much, and people seem to miss it; the Pyra.com site is now just a brochure for their company, which was also called Pyra.
I guess the market just wasn't ready for this app in 2000. Credit to Williams and his team for their vision, I guess!
---- scrm
I have been using a one-man bugzilla installation for this very purpose for close to two years now.
The last thing we need is a slog - especially a long, hard one (deluge of innuendo intended ;).
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make install -not war
Had worked on a (closed) project where several developer groups from around the globe were contributing. Pwiki, already mentioned above, BugZilla and a couple of small homebrewn scripts made the project much, much easier.
I would recommend implementing plogs wherever you think they would fit, since they give the developers and even management the idea of who they are working with and let people produce better results.
___
On Slashdot, Russians comment on YOU!
I have been writing a "development journal" in all my projects for the last 10 years!
The important thing is to not only write accomplishments and decisions, but why they happened, a short description of the tough process. When a new developer shows up or a co-worker inherits your old project, the journal brings great respect. It often cuts the learning curve in half, and avoid the newby to rush into this 'great featire' tried beffore and found unusefull.
In my experience, the non-technical manager is the one that hates the plog the most! Too often when he say "why is that feature like this? It's stupid!", I get the journal out, "meting March 18, manager Damien said, "We don't need a save option, if Window crashes it's not our problem. Remove from the feature list". [long silence, followed by a denial comment]
Or worst in the yearly reviews where some bland managers that never suggest anything suddenly get spurs of imagination creating a long list of problems from the past year, all good reasons that "you are not worth any big pay increase", even after high praises in the first 10 months of the year. I get out the journal and remind him of what actually happened! But that's really bad in the long run, more than once and time to move on.
Even when not asked to do so I do my own journal, my own weekly or monthly work description, and project post mortem (in 10 years, none of my bosses ever did one). Funny how project history get changed in just a few weeks!
I've been actively involved in the Internet for the past 11 years, and when I first, recently heard of the idea of blog being an actual word I nearly lost my lunch. Still, when I hear someone utter "web log," to me it means the access/logs on a server. Additionally, the idea of PLOG being a word is even more proposterous. Who are these asshats making up words thinking they're Dr. Seuss?
I use wiki with my teams for the same purpose.
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
Blog = Web Log
Plog = Project Log
I have a new one:
Flog = $%&# Log - for all you aspiring mackdaddies out there.
Blog,Twitter
Yeah I've been (inadvertently it seems) 'plogging' for several years now, all started from wanting to 'blog' but in projects. The core of what I do involves some simple macros and tables in MS Word. In about 15 minutes you can construct something that inserts a new entry in a table at the top, inserts a date, and moves the cursor to the right place. Then assign it to the key 'alt+enter' and you get this wizzy little portable plog. With the Document Map feature, you can even have 'tracking items' constructed in a hierarchy. Absolutely brilliant use of Word. Now where the hell to find Google for word. Sheesh it's crazy that I can search the internet more easily than the file sitting and staring at me on the screen!
http://blog.julianonsoftware.com
I am not a big fan of Autodesk, but they have something similar to the plog in their Buzzsaw program. It is a combination ftp/blog/email/server. I am an architect. Many large projects use this kind of software because the management is insane. You have a 6 year, $2 billion airport or chemical plant project involving consultants from all over the world, 10 thousand people work on the project and organizing the data becomes a problem.
With these plog kinds of tools, the situation is much less hierarchical, everyone can upload information to the entire team at the request of any single individual on the team. If you need whatever specification to whatever widget integrated into the design you can get it in the design fast. You always have access to the most current information.
Where the system breaks is when people get lazy, and stop uploading. You also have consultants who are only tangentially involved and never take the time to learn the system, so upload rarely.
The other problem is idiocy. If a consultant gives you crap, you are only integrating crappy info quickly, you then have to spend two weekends figuring out where exactly did the crap come from that hit the fan.
The other problem is standards. What specs do you use, who is incharge of the spec, how do you test things, quality control, regulation compliance et cetera.
Another problem is who pays for what. When you have 10 consultants, with any 3 of them fighting over $1 million in billable hours you have to create a firm project structure or it all turns to a vicious mush.
My 2 cents on plogs, as I view this world from my peon cubicle.
Having said that, this software lends itself to habitual plogging in the workspace, and the html output is some of the best auto-generated stuff I've seen.
In contrast, our internal Wiki (a JSPWiki instance) grows by leaps and bounds, currently at the rate of 400 new pages a month, and typically 50+ edits a day. There was never any official pronouncement to make it so; I actually started it here just for myself.
I think it took off because it was adopted by some high-profile and prolific people, and thus "It's in the Wiki" and "put it in the Wiki" became common phrases. I think that these combined to make it the "official" place to keep vital information. Quite a few developers have personal blogs and todo lists on the Wiki. The ease of corrections and low barrier to entry have really helped people get into it, though adoption is certainly far from universal. But I've seen meetings where the principal focus seems to be editing a Wiki page until it's correct, which is a great way to arrive at consensus and publish the consensus at the same time.
mahlen
Wow you are so insightful and like, totally zen to voluntarily erase obvious distinctions in your head. Not to mention how brave you are to speak such thoughts when the worst consequence imaginable is that someone will disagree with you.
taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
The main difference having the Net makes is that we can log onto local ISPs instead of having to dial up.
Tech Public Policy stuff
When I read this article, I was thinking to myself, "Plogging? How quaint. We already do that where I work and we didn't even need a cool catchphrase and Slashdot submission."
At the small company I work for part-time, our project and task-tracking is done via Bugzilla. Bugzilla, though designed and almost exclusively used for tracking software bugs, turns out to be one heck of an issue tracker. All you need to do is substitute the word "task" for "bug" and everything works grand. My boss enters a "bug" that says "Upgrade Apache on so-and-so FreeBSD jail" and I go to town, using the comment feature to "plog" my progress on the "bug" until it's "fixed".
I've often thought it would be an entertaining bit of humor and ego-flaunting to release a fork of Bugzilla called Taskzilla that's really just a single patch replacing all instances of "bug" in the tarball with "task". The sad thing is that a lot of pointy-hair types would probably not notice this at first and go "wow, this free software works better than $commercial_solution!"
We're also using an internal wiki, not as project management, but to document our experiences with systems and software that we work with on a daily basis. It's working okay right now since it only has a few dozen pages, but will quickly careen out of control if someone doesn't step in and do some extreme reorganization. I've half-volunteered to do it, much to my chagrin, but thankfully I'm being kept gainfully employed on other projects for now.
According to international law, the US had no right to invade Iraq. There had been no UN resolution authorizing this, and Iraq did not pose a threat to the US. Thus, the invasion and subsequent occupation are illegal. Now look at contractors of the military that take over so-called security tasks, either as police, military or prison guards. These contractors do not work for a legal authority. Thus, it is quite appropriate to call them mercenaries. Yet you prefer the term contractor.
Then, look at persons from Iraq or other countries that fight the US occupation in Iraq. For members of the former Iraqi regime, one might even go so far as to argue that they indeed have the formal right to fight the US, since the US is certainly violating laws of the former Iraq. But that aside, most insurgents have different backgrounds and reasons to fight the US. They have no legal basis to do so, and, assuming that that get paid/rewarded/supported in any way, they also meet the definition of a mercenaries. Yet you prefer the term terrorist.
And now tell me why you insist on this distinction...
Just today I started thinking about using some kind of blog software for something like this at my company.
I use Team Elements simply because the higher-ups don't think it's a techie tool. I think this is a great concept. While it's not used for source code, it does allow us to share specifications, jot down ideas, and work though project issues. Everyone seems to be more helpful now that things are online and not stashed away in someone's desk.
can anybody think of a good (derogatory) nickname for Piquepaille?
How about a spammer because what he does qualifies as spam? (Took that little trick from someone else posting AC in the other thread today who had some valid points to make).
Or if you really want to be derogatory, you could call him a ___ whore.
Don't know what would go into the ____ but it's not karma he's after -- at least not the good kind. Maybe good substitutions are plagiarist (reference) or ... that's all I can think of at the moment.
I find these thoughtful insights on Piquepaille just as interesting.
Hey, I did this 2.5 years ago with a 'plog' that I wrote in PHP using PostgreSQL to keep track of water treatment pilot tests that my company does. Should have patented it. Since I'm not a programmer by trade, it's not very elegant, but it does the jobe very well, allowing multiple engineers, salespeople, etc. to keep track of projects and keep others updated on news, etc.
is a wiki.
Now *that* post of yours was really a troll...
This is real plogging, and it's way better.
(Source permalink -- large archive page)
I made a thing called a "Personal Log" (plog) a while back.
I was surprised to see my little program had reached Slashdot!
I work in a web development role in an IT services division at a University in New Zealand and we've been plogging in this very way for around two and half years now. We began using a couple of copies of Radio Userland with one machine syndicating the output of another and pushing the merged content out to our team intranet site, but as more team members got the blog-bug we moved onto MovableType (MT) which we still run now.
Blogging is now an essential part of our team and project management culture. We create seperate blogs for different projects, we setup, host and skin blogs for other teams and projects around campus, and still maintain a core blog for our own webteam which we use as a kind of change-control notification point and issues register.
After a couple of years of use the corpus of blog posts and articles has become a knowledge-base for our teams and projects and a great resource to search against, kind of a common shared Inbox. No more searching through Outlook public-folders or file-systems for some obscure note you made a year ago.
We've recently begun using the XML-RPC interface to MT to make automated remote posts into various blogs from cron jobs or watcher scripts running on web or application servers to let us know when certain events have happened (e.g. performance issues, resource use, change control events/migrations).
Although we dont allow non-authenticated publishing into our blogs we do use category archiving in MT to render certain posts out to locations that are publically available or less restrictive so other interested parties (e.g. pointy-haired types) can get a handle on project progress etc.
It used to take a little evangelising till people saw past a blog as being nothing more than a personal publishing tool, but the culture is now well established and ideas for other uses of the blog facilty pop up regularly.
One feature that's hardly ever used tho (which kinda suprised me) is commenting. I'd say fewer that 5% of posts are ever commented on, the blog tends to be a snapshot in time on a specific subject and further discussion often goes on through email or in project meetings between interested parties following which someone will often make a followup (ie new) post. This sounds a little unstructured but it makes for easier reading than your classic heirachichal threaded discussion which tends to drift out of context.
Despite the articles mention of the issue 'blogorrhea' we've found exactly the opposite in that the volume of pesky emails in the Inbox is now a fraction of what it used to be. We're now disciplined enough to browse blogs of relevance to us for posts by others regarding projects we may be involved with.
I attended the O'Reilly OpenSource convention in 2002 and sat in on a birds-of-a-feather session on blogging while I was there (company included Rael Dornfest and Ben and Mena Trott). At one point during the discussion I asked who else was using their blog for this project management purpose and noone was, pretty much everyone was publishing a personal blog or building a blogging mechanism.
I don't suffer from stress, I'm just a carrier.