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IT Myths
linuxwrangler writes "A special report in this week's InfoWorld tackles the six big myths in IT.
Among the findings: server upgrades
don't matter, 80 percent of corporate data is
not on mainframes, C[IT]Os really
do need technological savvy, most IT projects may be late or over budget but they
don't fail, IT
does scale and nearly all big shops
do run multiple platforms."
So, no need to read the article, then?
Fuck the system? Nah, you might catch something.
IT does scale
I got a big fat 503 Service Error that says you're wrong about this one!
Cretin - a powerful and flexible CD reencoder
Least likely upgrades... Replacing functioning hard drives
Hmm.. unless their most likely upgrade is replacing the F1 key on their keyboard..
Recipes for geeks -- no meatloaf, we promise.
Reality: Chicks don't dig geeks, no matter how much money you make, besides, they know you'll spend it all on computers and techy toys instead of them.
Myth: Computer wizards command respect
Reality: Once the PHB figures you can do things you'll be buried in no time with stupid, menial tasks with the same priority as critical tasks.
Myth: You'll continue learning as your employer sees it critical your skills are kept up to date and foots tuition and conference fees.
Reality: As soon as you can't do something or drop dead from exhaustion, you'll be replaced by another victim fresh out of school (or your job will go offshore for 1/10 what you cost)
Myth: Programming, constructing systems, et al are fun!
Reality: Most of the projects will be as much fun as getting a new filling at the dentist (any fun you actually have will be against company policy.)
Harsh Reality of IT Project Life Cycle
Phase 1: Uncritical acceptance.
Phase 2: Wild enthusiasm.
Phase 3: Dejected disillusionment.
Phase 4: Total confusion.
Phase 5: Search for the guilty.
Phase 6: Punishment of the innocent.
Phase 7: Promotion of nonparticipants.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
... they are usually pusing something on behalf of their advertisers.
Where I work we run ATG Dynamo for our servlet container (Linux on staging, Solaris on production), AS/400 for our core data, SQL Server for presentation tier data, .NET for our Intranet, and until very recently a single Alpha box took care of all of our credit card processing. That little box just sat in a corner and did its job, day in, day out, taking care of thousands of requests per day, and we never had to touch it. I loved that thing.
So back on topic: Yes, large, successful systems do, in fact, use mixed systems. In fact, the only place that I have worked that used the same platform for all systems were typically smaller operations; large companies rarely are able to achieve such synchrony, and I'm not sure it's even worth the effort.
(BTW: To give you a clue who I work for, our CEO is Mr. Burns. No, really.)
Non-babyshit color scheme.
Now, anyone that feels like calling me a karma whore is an idiot. I posted this AC. Eat it.
At least in some cases.
I would never buy a server based on the ease with which I could replace a processor, but for my file servers -- both dedicated NAS boxes and Windows server machines -- upgrading things like storage space is critical. Being able to expand RAID arrays, replace disks (with larger models) individually or a few at a time, etc etc...
In storage, anyway, unless you are running an extremely predictible environment, upgradeability is one of the first things I look at.
--------------------- -me, Crusher of those who are Foolish (don't be foolish)
What about "outsourcing doesn't work", at least when it comes to software development projects.
I've been a developer for close to 10 years now, am an expert in my field (not afraid to admit it), and of course, always have more to learn. I have never, in those 10 years, been involved in a project that was clearly specified enough, such that one could turn that project over to a team situated halfway around the world, and without much interaction on the part of management, expect a final product that even closely resembles the expectations of said managers.
Anybody out there ever been involved in a successful software project, much less outsourced one, where everybody was happy at the end of the day? By happy I mean the project was done, delivered, closed up, move on to the next big thing.
Woah! You typed IT!
No! I typed IT!
Aargh! I typed IT again!
Aaarrrrgghh.. run awaaaay..
Recipes for geeks -- no meatloaf, we promise.
Of course, nearly everywhere I've worked has been a mix of 98, NT and 2000, not to mention 2000 Pro and 2000 Server variety all out the yinyang.
I've even seen msdos and win3.11 once in awhile. This whole antitrust thing was blown out of proportion.
It seems like /. is the place to find out... if so, someone should write 'em and let them know ;)
--------------------- -me, Crusher of those who are Foolish (don't be foolish)
-- RLJ
These don't sound like myths so much as they sound like uneducated things that ignorant, non IT people say.
Look into a SAN device of sorts.
Blar.
most IT projects may be late or over budget but they don't fail
Yes, in my experience most projects don't "fail" in the sense that they have to be abandoned, but they do "grind to a halt" once the first round of requirements are met.
I.e. you build a new invoicing system. It meets the requirements. Your team codes like mad to meet those requirements. Success, everybody has a few beers.
Then 6 months the customer needs modifications. You look at your spaghetti code and realize you have to start over. The customer grudgingly accepts.
I would consider that first project a failure even though it met the first requirements.
(Yes here is where you can make a plug for XP or agile development, but it doesn't work for every shop).
Your opinion matters to the one who authorizes purchases.
IT: I suggest we go with this option because of $x, $y, and $z.
Boss: How much does it cost?
IT: Well, the cost is $X but we we won't have to upgrade for several years, and it will handle all of our needs.
Boss: What can we get for $Y?
IT: We can get a remanufactured system that barely surpasses our current system.
Boss: But it IS better than what we have...right?
IT: Well....technically....
Boss: Great, let's do that!
Mod points are pointless when you browse at -1.
Last week I realized the error of my ways in running all one platform, therefore I took an old PC and installed DOS 6.2 and Windows 1.0 on it. I think the only way I could have gotten weirder looks from cow-irkers would be to find and install a copy of MS BOB.
"With sufficient thrust, pigs fly just fine." -- RFC 1925
Company technicians are not grouchy, they do not put down those idiots in accounting who can't seem to open email attachments, and they're always happy to serve their fellow employees.
Now fucking go away I'm reading slashdot.
---
Those who can, do
Those who can't, teach
Those who don't know how, supervise
New color scheme looks great.
"Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
"Server Upgrades Don't Matter"
sulli
RTFJ.
It's only a prototype - we're not going to deploy it in production.
[Insert pithy quote here]
Actually, it's my second :-)
Fuck the system? Nah, you might catch something.
The article is right. The only thing we've ever upgraded on our servers is the RAM, and that's usually a stop-gap until we replace the thing. We only have one server that needs to have ample expansion room (a telephony server using custom ISA cards), and it's been with us for YEARS without hitting the cieling.
I think the only people that concern themselves with upgrading all the time are the "power users" that want the latest toys.
There is a difference between "insightful" and "inciteful" other than spelling.
Our server can survive a slashdotting...
the boss's hair is not always pointy?
The preceding message was based on actual events. Only the names, locations and events have been changed.
Years ago, Creative Computing magazine published an article entitled "Don't Write That Program If" with a set of either obvious or otherwise lame or irrelevant reasons not to write a computer program (things like, if it already exists, if it's easier to do some other way, etc., I don't remember exactly, they were just too lame). It was clear to me at the time, that they were really reaching for things to fill the few pages that weren't ads.
I responded with an letter to the editor entitled "Don't Write That Article If" which applied similar criteria to magazine articles, all of which applied to the original article (needless to say, the editor didn't print it). About three months later, they went belly-up. A shame, as at one time they were a great magazine.
And, it's certainly true there is a glut of IT mags right now, I get at least 4 and they often have content so similar it looks like the same staff is coming up with all of them. And the number of articles worth reading has been diminishing of late...
Slashdotters do RTFA.
Tech, life, family, faith: Give me a visit
Is "Gee, we'd like to deploy Open Source software but it would cost more for training and the changeover than a proprietary solution."
My response: "I could have built 2 redundant OpenBSD firewalls for less than half the cost of our new proprietary firewall and the OpenBSD boxes would have a faster turnaround time on security patches and PF is easier to implement and maintain than any proprietary firewall I've seen. Not to mention, just as secure if not more so"
This guy is way out there
Myth: Chicks don't dig geeks, no matter how much money you make. Reality: Some chicks do dig geeks (waves to gf Hi honey!), unfortunately said geek needs to make sure he looks clean and well kept. and then there's the sub-set of female geeks, which is another story entirely. (no my gf isn't a geek, but she likes geeks... all her past bfs were geeks)
Six great myths of IT
... and the realities behind them
Urban legends from the tech trenches
The six myths of IT
It's time to test some long-held assumptions
IT Myth 1: Server upgrades matter
Reality: Don't pay extra for upgradability; you'll never need it
IT Myth 2: Eighty percent of corporate data resides on mainframes
Reality: Try 50 percent, or even less
IT Myth 3: All big shops run multiple platforms
Reality: This 'myth' is closer to fact than fiction
IT Myth 4: CIOs and CTOs have a greater need for business savvy than tech expertise
Reality: Tech chops matter more than ever
IT Myth 5: Most IT projects fail
Reality: It all depends on how you define failure
IT Myth 6: IT doesn't scale
Reality: Virtually any technology is scalable, provided you combine the right ingredients and implement them effectively
IT alligator tales
Urban legends run amok in the technology world
The new Slashdot color scheme is an improvement.
Tech, life, family, faith: Give me a visit
We never said, "80% of data resides on mainframes"
We said, "80% of the important data resides on mainframes."
*snirk*
Now that it's burning into my retinas, it's actually starting to look quite good.
May not be on the mainframes, but they certainly just lost the 20% that was on that smoking heap of plastic and metal they used as a web server.
Slashdot: Now decreasing data clutter by 20%!
"I must not fear. Fear is the mind killer." -Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear
Slashdotting doesn't punish your site
Jesus Christ, could you please get rid of this awful
beige theme on the IT section or make the theming at least configurable. Thanks.
Even worse ...
Boss: What do you think of this? (C'mon you know damn well this question has been posed to you and you've seen these same results)
IT: It might work, but will take 112 days from initiation to the production. It will require a work force of 384 slaves, 34 slave drivers, 12 engineers, 2 turtle doves, and a partridge in a pear tree. The work will need to be managed by a command team composed of 234 bureaucrats, 2347 secretaries (at least two of whom could type), 12,256 paper shufflers, 52,469 rubber stampers, 245,193 red tape processors, and nearly one million dead trees
Boss: But, in the end it'll work, right?
IT: Well...
Boss: We're getting it anyway, I've already ordered it *BIG GRIN*
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
You can't do real work on a Mac
namely,
MYTH: second tape of a backup set will always be bad.
REALITY: only the tape ahead of the data you need, and the blocks in which the data you need reside, will be unrecoverable. in any tape format.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Myth: Chicks don't dig geeks.
Harsh Reality: Chicks dig assholes. Some of them dig geeks, but they'll migrate to the biggest asshole they can find.
Myth: There are no geek chicks.
Harsh Reality: There are geek chicks. They fall into two categories: Unattainable (via relationships or reading this post) or bat-shit crazy
Windows is ready for the desktop but Linux somehow isn't. Whose desktop I ask?
IT Myth 1: Server upgrades matter
Reality: Don't pay extra for upgradability; you'll never need it
great. although of course if it something's totally fucked and an upgrade will fix it..
IT Myth 2: Eighty percent of corporate data resides on mainframes
Reality: Try 50 percent, or even less
fascinating.
IT Myth 3: All big shops run multiple platforms
Reality: This 'myth' is closer to fact than fiction
so it's not really a myth then. just dull.
IT Myth 4: CIOs and CTOs have a greater need for business savvy than tech expertise
Reality: Tech chops matter more than ever
mmmm chops..
IT Myth 5: Most IT projects fail
Reality: It all depends on how you define failure
some things work and others don't. whatchacomeanago!
IT Myth 6: IT doesn't scale
Reality: Virtually any technology is scalable, provided you combine the right ingredients and implement them effectively
no shit.
these are the dullest IT myths ever. where is "Goatse man dead!" ?
The only thing we've ever upgraded on our servers is the RAM, and that's usually a stop-gap until we replace the thing.
Wholesale replacement of a machine with a newer, bigger, faster machine is a type of upgrade too, isn't it?
That article was the biggest bunch of statistical bullshit I've ever read. It looks like some reporter needed an article to write and that was all he could think of.
looks like they could not handle the slashdot load
...since we're in the know about where indeces really start.
Myth[0] is that IT in a large organization can be effectively managed.
The fact is that users will divert away from your preplanned utopia in ways you cannot believe.
Many of those users will have their heads up their asses, having no idea how much trouble and hassle they're going to cause in the long term because they clicked on an attachment, saw a glossy magazine advertisement for software to cure all their ills, etc.
A few of those random users will actually be going in right direction, even if the corporate policy hasn't caught up to them yet.
Technically brilliant sysadmins and programmers with as much social acumen as skunk-sprayed porcupines; friendly, organized, effective managers pulling in the wrong technical direction - it's a wild wooly world in IT, not for those with weak stomachs.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
This one was repeated all through high school.
You will make a zillion dollars and be the boss.
If I could find a job, I could test that myth.
Click here for a free picture of an iPod!
"Nerdy computer-types drive the ladies WILD!"
I knew there was something about that college recruiter that didn't sit well with me...
"Good jobs at a fair wage hard to find" and "IT managers smarter, better leaders than those in other industries"...
Or "the Host" as we call it. I work at a very large US Bank, and while there are all sorts of Unix machines, 1000's of Wintel boxen, anything that does anything other than file/print, ultimately involves the Mainframe. 80% of the data may not live there, since we have frames full of DB2 servers, but to get anything done, it need to go via MQ to the Host. Counting bytes doesn't necessarily mean anything - a simple Excel sheet can be > 1 Meg.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
pitiful karma attempt. why didn't you post the meat of the article too? we all can see the headlines, it is clicking on all of those fucking links to see the copy that is annoying. you haven't done nothing, and now their server is timing out. for fucks sake. these WHORES can't WHORE like the old days.
That IT person is only trying to dazzle you with technobabble, and doesn't really know what he(she) is talking about.
I pity the foo that isn't metasyntactic
Oh wait, that's not a myth, it's TRUE!
pure myth. I have never seen a place that offers job training where people actually get some (!)
All I see here is statements, and quotes...
Facts? That's for those other magazines...
Move along...
"(Yes here is where you can make a plug for XP or agile development, but it doesn't work for every shop)."
Actually over in the Smalltalk groups. One is making an argument for use in a financial app. The original "agile development" environment.
Live video streaming isn't scalab.....BUFFERING.....BUFFERING
Do an IT union instead of just "an organization". They establish their own credentials,which are, apprentice, journeyman, master. Then you negotiate from a position of strength in numbers as well. You get cred from your peers, and the PHB class has to deal with it, make 'em eat it. Any "workers" organization that isn't a union is just a lobbying effort, one that will never have the cash resources of the industry organizations, a union though, is an entity they HAVE to deal with if it's strong enough and you are smart enough, and isn't the point in being an IT guy being "smart enough"?
And you also have the benefit of a solid century plus in hindsight to see what to do and what not to do with your union. You can look at the past, see where unions have been doofus tards, and where they have been strong and useful, both for themselves and for society in general, then, use your collective brains and "do it better".
and know a bunch of sales reps using said myths amply for each call
Markus
"Boss: But it IS better than what we have...right?
IT: Well....technically....
Boss: Great, let's do that!"
And that's were most IT goes wrong. You should not only be able to give technical reasons why not. But also fiscal, even psychological reasons if it comes to that.
Not everythings about the technology. That's why a good CTO is comfortable with business, and the technical aspects.
Its amazing just how little these supposed journalists truly know.
Any technology is scalable...
Really? I happen to know of a case where someone was fired because they believed this religiously; they insisted that any performance issues the new system might produce could be handled with a server upgrade.
So they upgraded the server, and what do you know - response times fell. From 300 seconds to 90. The system still wasn't usable, and the manager was fired. Perhaps the most embarassing part was the fact that a back-of-the-napkin analysis would have revealed the flaws in the "Use disk space for memory" design.
Most IT projects fail...
Well, well. This is spin at its worst. Yes, only 34% of IT projects come in on time. Another 50% are "a day late and dollar short..." - that is, after the project schedule slips, they end up shipping a product with missing features. General hint for journalist: if you have to redefine words to prove your point, you're probably not telling the truth.
No, perhaps 70% of projects aren't unmitigated failures, but I'll bet that IT projects fare far worse than other industries:
Yup, IT is still at the bottom of the barrel when it comes to delivering on promises. Not good.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
this is how it should go:
;)
Boss: But it IS better than what we have...right?
IT: No
At this point he wonder why, and then you lay on all the negatives, no buts, howevers, or 'maybe if we's'.
Its called Social skills.
I have experienced that the statement 'Well, technically..' is never any damn good.It always gets interpeted in a manner that is positive to the listeners opinions, and not the speakers opinion.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Reality: Don't pay extra for upgradability; you'll never need it - "When was the last time you swapped out the processors on a production server? Have you ever ripped out a working system's RAID controller and substituted one with bigger cache? How about pulling out a machine's mirrored 18GB Ultra160 SCSI boot drives just to replace them with some 36GB Ultra360 spindles?">/em>
Come to think of it, we replace and upgrade the drives in our servers all the time. I'm not talking about the disposable 1U racks the mom-and-pop IT house calls "servers", but the very expensive Sun enterprise servers. When a harddrive goes out (and they do, they do) you don't replace the whole fricking server. That's stupidity of the highest magnitude.
You might not ever need to upgrade the CPU, but you do want to keep that expensive server operational and in use as long as possible. That means additional storage on occasion and replacing the parts that go bad.
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
The IT industry is picking up. (I hear this from recruitment consultants) It's usually the same job posted three times a week for a month.
Your IT job is secure (until they can find a cheaper replacement).
Googles going to make you rich.
There you have it. InfoWorld has debunked a myth using the informal comments of a nameless marketing manager from a nameless vendor from some unknown date and time at an unknown location.
Myth #7: That a company whose revenue is based on page-views and number of magazines sold is more credible than a tabloid.
(A better choice is to forget the colors altogether.)
One could say that projects don't generally fail for the following reasons:
Projects are so huge so interdisciplinary they have very poorly formed boundaries between the project and the overall business environment
Projects are so large that they don't have beginning and end dates, only phases with transitions between the phases.
We already know how to pay insurance claims. The projects that are coming on line now are related to automating, supporting or synthesizing actual business processes.
From the article:
This guy doesn't know what an urban legend is, does he? If someone told you that an old mainframe serviceman actually got stuck inside an IBM mainframe for several days and survived by eating the spare tractor-feed paper thingies from the printer, that'd be an urban legend. But "buying a server that's can be upgraded is beneficial" is not an urban legend. It's a misconception or even just a lack of expertise.
It's okay to spit.
-- The world is watching America, and America is watching TV.
"a team situated halfway around the world"
That is called offshoring, not outsourcing. Outsourcing is often offshore now, but it does not have to be. Outsourcing can be as simple as having Sun do all your hardware installs and repairs.
Btw, technically, all my work is outsourcing (I am a consultant). I am located in the US but do a lot of work for British customers (so I guess that they are offshoring as well). Many of my customers keep coming back, so I'm taking that to mean that they are happy.
Judging by all the Myth No. 7 posts, I can safely say that Myth No 8. is "There is only one Myth No. 7".
However, in my experience, writing code is about 20-30% of a project, 30% or more on RFP/Contracts/legal/Capital allocation stuff, 40% installation, hardware, comms lines etc. etc.
But end of the day, we in the financial market data business, have to deliver things on time--not before, not after.
And, yes we have been using programmers from all differnet places on the same project to take advantage of the local language/environment and the time difference.
I admit that most of my programmers don't last long ...
- People who believe other people have no right to live, got no right to live ...
So:
An official at Oblix concurs. "[IT personnel] like the leverage that they have by keeping it a heterogeneous environment," says Ken Sims, vice president of marketing and business development at Oblix.
The VP of Marketing and business development thinks this. An engineer who obviously knows what he's talking about.
What a complete load of crap. We saw this a year or more ago in an Economist article about IT staff wanting nothing more than to save their own jobs in the face of inevitable automation.
Repeat after me, it's nonsense. Hooey. Claptrap. Most IT personnel I know are too busy keeping things running. And yes, all big shops I know _are_ multiplatform. VMS, Windows, Solaris, HP-UX, proprietary mainframe crap, etc etc etc. You've all seen it.
I'm sorry, but this is just one example of how this article discredits itself. I hate this kind of shit--it just gives managers dangerous and wrong ideas about how the IT world works.
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
There is another side to that. There are some potential problems with your solution, not saying these are necessairly problems in your specific case, but these are problems I've seen:
1) Performance. Many proprietary firewalls outperform their OSS counterparts, int eh case of high end ones significantly. This is for a number of reasons, but often because it has ASICs supporting it. You can do something much faster with dedicated hardware than with software. A small, cheap, 66mhz ASIC can decode DVDs, but it takes a P3 500 to do it in software.
2) Support. When our Netscreen has problems, we can get very high level support, including having an engeneer come out if need be. With an OSS solution, you are on your own. In most cases, this doesn't matter, but if something is critical it can be the difference between an hour of down tiem and a couple days downtime.
3) Along those lines, it's much easier in the event of an emergency involving the person that supports it. Most OSS solutions I've seen are what I call "80% solutions". They do basically what you need, however they require a fair bit of reworking to do your specific job. No problem, except that means how they work is known only to you. Well, what happens if you die? This is a real question that needs to be considered in the case of critical systems. If it's a major commercial solution, no problem, the company can get support from an authorized agent that will know what they are doing while they franticly find a replacement tech guy. If it's custom OSS, they are SOL, since even a contractor is going to need time to analyze how the hell it all works to fix it.
Now I'm not trying to say that an OSS solution is never the answer. It's probably the way tto go for, say a small office firewall that is too big and complex for a simple NAT box, but not enough to need real power. However it is not the best solution in all cases.
There is also skepticism because there are a lot of poor quality OSS projects out there. There are poor quality commercial projects too, but I know that a Cisco or Netscreen firewall is good, it's been proven. I can cite thousands of big, critical networks that use them. I do not know that of the OpenBSD firewall. It does not have the legacy.
So there ARE good reasons to be skepical.
How about some names? Any "larger org" doing THAT is an organization I want to stay far away from.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
So why even put Myth 3 in there if it isn't a myth?
they failed to address the myth that Linux is more secure than Windows.
All manufacturers love clients who buy "potential." Check the price structures, you can usually buy two small boxes now for the price of one box twice as big. If you buy a box and consider doubling the size 18 months later it will probably cheaper to buy a new box twice as fast. If the box has space for 24 CPUs, get 24 CPUs, if you don't need 24 CPUs get the next lower model...
I've seen disks swapped (and I've swapped a number, old 9GB disks for O/S, new 144 GB disk for data files), but I've very rarely seen CPUs or RAM purchased for a server. Come to think of it I'm a sysadmin and I've very rarely seen a box pushed to its limits (CPUs, yes, RAM for a JVM, yes, disks, yes, whole boxen, only when someone does something bad). Most companies overbuy (the others get slashdotted).
You got me into this! You were the ideologue! I'm only a poor assassin! - Twenty evocations, Bruce Sterling
Also ironic is that the above five items are called the "Triple Constraint"
Design for Use, not Construction!
It was extremely difficult to demonstrate the value to the rest of the company. They just had no tech savvy at all. I can certainly take some of the blame for not being as good as some others at promoting the tech team, but because everything worked flawlessly, the company as a whole assigned no value to it, and it became very hard to get funding.
If we'd built a culture of missed deadlines, failing equipment and feature creep, it would have been easy to get more money.
Linux isn't ready for the dekstop.
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
As a server, how old and trusted (I smell Debian here) must a Gentoo box be to be trusted? I would never trust my duct tape backyard projects to real work, so what should make me trust the same in an OS?
So when did forum campers and MMOG campers become the same breed of oxygen thieves? Who knows? I sure don't. I just want something to let me get back to work and not troubleshoot for endless days.
Linux... it just NOT works.
People prefer going back to the main page to find the link to the next part of the article, instead of having the obvious "next" button.
Duke Nukem Forever isn't the longest running April Fool's joke ever.
Slashdot, stuff that matters.
Emacs is good operating system, but it has one flaw: Its text editor could be better.
I love SCO. Although I am a foward looking person, I believe their stock is a must buy. They have a product line that is outstanding and they have no choice but to go up.
M
I can only work from my own experience, but:
IT Myth 1: Server upgrades matter
At a nimble shop (i.e. mine) they do. Of course I don't upgrade the servers while in production. Duh! I remove them from production, upgrade them (often by mixing and matching parts), and then assign a new task. When I'm at the top of my form, the hardware goes through about three different production cycles before being retired for power or reliability reasons. Each cycle sees it in a substantially different configuration where it has to meet different requirements.
Not everybody does things this way... Some always launch a new production server with newly purchased hardware. But if they do they're spending more money than they need to.
IT Myth 4: CIOs and CTOs have a greater need for business savvy than tech expertise
Nevertheless, CIOs usually get the job because they are business savvy guys who have found a functional middle-ground with their tech-savvy underlings. They are, in other words, slightly better listeners than the average businessman.
Technical experts to not mistake CIOs for technical experts. That's left for other businessmen and journalists to do.
IT Myth 5: Most IT projects fail
Since the big corporate shift to Java, Visual Basic and dot-net, few projects fail outright anymore. The language structures themselves tend to prevent the most blatent mistakes that would otherwise require experts to fix. Of course, that allows mediocre developers to talk their way into senior positions and it leaves them every bit as mediocre when it comes to solving subtle problems. The projects often end up almost-sort-of-working (you know what I mean!) and they do get deployed. They also get replaced with another almost-sort-of-working product two years down the line after it has becomes obvious that the original software isn't making the grade.
The real difference is that a failed project in Java is marginally deployable while a failed project in C probably can't leave the shop.
Meanwhile, as something of a corollary to Paul Graham's piece about programming languages, the few projects which use another language tend to attract and group good developers who don't want to compete with the posers for senior positions. With less dispersal of the talented, those projects have a much better chance of success than they used to.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
You are BUSTED...
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FROM
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November 09, 2003
The BSOD is Back
Starting to have major problems with Mordion (my notebook) again... The hard drive (yes, not the fan this time) has returned to its former habit of making obnoxious clicking/tweeting sounds and crashing the OS. (Note it only crashes when the noise is made. I don't consider that coincidental.) I just got a BSOD about an hour ago -- it was a 0x77 Kernel Stack Inpage Error, with the specific string listed with MS as being either a boot sector virus, drive controller problems, or mechanical failure.
Considering the noises this thing is making, and that it checked out clean when carefully checked with an updated copy of NAV, I'm pretty sure it's a physical problem with the drive. Ugh. The most annoying aspect of this is that if I do bring it back to CompUSA before it's totally, utterly dead, they'll probably just hold it for six weeks and act confused when it doesn't BSOD constantly like last time.
Luckily for me, I was able to pick up a 50-disc spindle of Memorex CD-Rs on eBay last week for $6 (well, plus $7 shipping, but that still is a lot better than retail!), so I can do a proper backup again. My last backup is a bit outdated, in part because I was running low on discs and couldn't afford to buy a new set. I'd do a full backup to my tower, but it's unfortunately in one of the rooms that has no power, and I haven't had the energy to relocate it.
My little brother has a DVD-R now. I'm jealous, I want one! *grin* Maybe I'll luck out and Mordion will suffer motherboard failure just in time to be warranty-replaced by a model with a DVD-R. I'd say that's extremely unlikely, except that's pretty much what happened with my first Toshiba laptop as well as the Compaq they replaced it with, which effectively earned me a brand-new notebook a year later. For anybody wondering, btw, unless you want to suddenly have a new computer under warranty, don't do stupid stuff like run processor-intensive software on your notebook for hours while it's in a padded laptop-case that just might not allow the system to dissapate heat. Especially if the case happens to also block the fans.
No, I did not do that to them entirely. In fact, it was *safe* to run them in that case most of the time, as they usually ran cool enough -- the big problem (imho) was that I tried it while playing online graphical games for a day at a time. I could be wrong, though. It might also be that my incredible clumsiness from dyspraxia damaged something, because shortly before each computer died, I had accidentally bumped it severely into something.
I'd like to say that despite the intermittent instability, I'm really happy with how durable my Sony metal (aluminum?) notebook is. Mordion has now been dropped on the floor, knocked off desks, done literal backflips off the bed, hit rather hard with solid objects because of my depth perception issues... "He" has landed hard enough to crack the case on a solid PCMCIA card in half, and at some point during one of the falls off the bed, landed on its screen hard enough to actually break the latch off.
(Sadly re-attaching the piece was a failure. A scary one, at that: I glued the latch back on, but it broke off while in the lock because I wasn't careful to make sure the glue was totally dry, and then fell through the slot. From the way the rattling stopped after a while, I have a horrible suspicion that the piece glued itself to one of the internal components.)
Why am I saying all of this? Well, mostly because I feel bad for griping about a computer that actually has come through absolute abuse and continued to work. My Sony metal Clie, Maree, has endured similar-but-worse with no problems aside from those caused by my experimenting heavily with software and "cracks." So the truth is, yes, I have a notebook with some drive issues, but considering the way it is treated -- not by my own choice so much as my incredible motor-skill issues -- it's actually doing impressively well.
Okay, more to post on other issues, I'll shut up now. *grin*
Posted by moggy at November 09, 2003 07:17 PM | TrackBack
I recently came across this book, Business Information Technology. It is right on the spot, targeted at those CTOs with poor scientific or technical backgrounds. Highly recommended.
MYTH: Hypertext is about making obscure, uninformative links labelled "here","will", "do" and "that" :/
A Computer Science /IT degree is worthless. I picked up a Masters degree in CS quite recently. I received a 4.0 GPA, top of my class. It is worthless. Good thing a corporation paid for the worthless rag. I would NOT have taken on debt for something so useless. Extreme caution is wise in this debt-usury society.
:-)
I sought out the CS degree to get a firsthand view in the industry. The biggest letdown I learned are techies themselves. They are so socially inept they allow Congress to destroy their industry.
(re: Google Dr Matloff Myth Software Labor Shortage)
Professions like Doctors and Dentists have political Unions, like the AMA & ADA, that provide "Congress protection". Programmers are just too stupid to protect themselves politically. Schools want me to teach Computer Science because of my perfect 4.0 GPA. Never. It is a horrible industry. Techies, like the blinded deer in the headlights, stupidly stand by in their political illiteracy, while Congress destroys their industry. Sorry to be blunt, but programmers and techies, as a group are such socially inept losers. It is not worth my time.
Score & Karma: SASA: Slashdot Approval Seekers Anonymous
it says so in the manual,
With all due respect sir, you have no idea about what you're talking about. To be frank, you sound like a PHB in one of those IT departments from Hell.
You *are* aware that Cisco has diliberately broken their products, and have put backdoors into them? They've even admitted it. So your overpriced firewall is already broken, and probably hacked already. You *do* know that Cisco itself was hacked, and their source code stolen?
Secondly, have you *ever* spoken to people who develop the closed-source firewall products? I've interviewed dozens over the years. As engineers, they are almost (90%+) clueless about security. The simple concept of a stack overflow alone thows many for a loop. If you're lucky, they might have heard of it. But it wasn't a big concern during development.
Finally, you're point about the implementor being hit by a truck is the only valid point you raise. If your IT department hasn't documented and set up a replacement proceedure that can be executed on a moments notice, you've only done half the job. Even bringing in a new Closed-source box is going to take time to set things up, especially if the person doing so isn't familiar with the product and/or revision.
So, in a nutshell, you make absolutely no knowledgeable comments about what you're speaking of. The only one you've impressed is yourself.
Then try and bullshit more about how you know about pretty much anything and then sling some shitty code together and think you are a programmer. Then focus on interupting others that do have a clue so that you can appear to be the expert. Throw in a mixture of rejecting assistance and actually pinching people out of helping you (i.e. guarding your little empire like a dog would do with a bone that they have not chewed on in months... but yet growls at anyone who happens by)
Don't forget more bullshit about how apparently while others were doing their tasks while you were fucking off and creating more abortion like programs that any 15 year old that picked up a book on "Learn Perl in 15 minutes" would never dream of committing to the world you somehow know EVERYTHING there is to know about development. (I hereby excuse myself for that horrible runon because I can)
Throw in slackers aplenty that spend all their time that is not stuck writing shitty 3rd grader scripts or surfing here on slashdot, playing java/shockwave games and then bitching constantly for things that other departments do that you yourself will in 5 minutes make a completely different but also self serving argument that in your mind justifies.
Oh, don't forget to ignore all efforts of improvement... after all, shouldn't your incoherant bitching (much like uh... this post) be enough to change the world? Why should you then add effort to record cognizant ideas and constructive criticism or heaven forbide, actually work towards making it better? You have java games to get back to.
Remember, if you apply no other systematic method throughout your day, let it be hypocrisy coupled with a refusal to admit lack of knowledge in an effort to improve.
In short, I say the problem with IT is the promotion (double entendre) of asshole-itis. Those rare shops that value creativeness, skill, effort and teamwork are sadly those shops that eventually turn into the corporate morale-crushing machines full of empty suits.
Ok, big breath now... I am done, please mark this as the troll it is and move on