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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."
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.)
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)
All my experiences with outsourcing was with outsourcing the QA and testing.
You can give them the product, a list of parameters or check boxes, and get results back in a couple days.
All the ease of building in regression testing, without all the work. And if the indians are cheaper than the time it would take me to design and implement the unit tests, then it's win-win according to PHBs.
In general, I agree with you though.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
If the customer anticipates any future modifications and upgrades, I think that ought to be mentioned in the inital functional specifications, so that the developers can make sufficient room for such accomodations.
BZZZT! Wrong answer. A good software architect holds one law above all else: "The customer doesn't actually know what they want!" This means that you need to code as defensively as possible. If it's your baby that you coded from scratch, you should be able to do a good job of this. Just make sure your systems are separated, your code is clean, and just about any new feature you can think of can be plugged in.
The part that sucks is when you inherit someone else's mess, then try to whip it into a usable system that can be adjusted to the customer's needs. While I've seen plenty of well written Open Source projects (although MOST are still crap), I have never seen even ONE existing business system that was well written from the get-go. Every last one of them ended up needing a complete overhaul to get it up to snuff. It's even worse when you have no idea what your company even does. (Eventually got that worked out, thank God.)
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Try This.
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.
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 ...
"Uuuuhhh... you realize that this either means you're gay or a cross-dresser, right?"
From your comment, I'd say you've never been in that sort of situation. It's not uncommon for the b/f's or g/f's of models to be given clothes that they like as well since the models get to keep some of the things that they like. It helps them not look *ahem* out of place (ie she is dressed really well and you're not).
Everything I need to know I learned by killing smart people and eating their brains.
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.
That's why relationships are a bad idea. It's best to stick to temporary partners, that way you get all of the sex (and a greater variety of it) without the pointless hassle of a relationship. The women prefer it as well (even if they don't admit it).