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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."
... they are usually pusing something on behalf of their advertisers.
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.
These don't sound like myths so much as they sound like uneducated things that ignorant, non IT people say.
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).
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.
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...
Catch up with the times. s/IBM/Microsoft/
The true tragedy is CIO's who think, because they've mastered Excel or Access, believe they've got a firm understanding of enterprise systems and make decisions based upon this belief. It'd be comic if it hadn't resulted in many a night's lost sleep shoring up disasters. Sometimes you've gotta leave to see how much you were suckered into sacrificing your life and health, trying to make a bad choice look good.
I can't even remember all the times I nearly told someone off, with a lot of colorful language, in a meeting and quit. I do know at least once I was about a heartbeat from it and I still don't know why I didn't say what so desperately needed to be said.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Quite correct. Would you also agree that one of the root causes of all these is that the profession is quite young. And because IMHO the situation is and will be relatively volatile in the following years, we have phenomena like these.
In my country, a civil engineer cannot undertake major projects (like say a bridge) unless he/she has reached a certain "level" which is determined by his past projects and experience. So there is a natural flow that requires that younger engineers must start from the low and climb their way up. The real difference is that this mechanism is in place to prevent companies from hiring younger inexperienced engineers just to cut costs. And that's because there must be assurance that the bridge must be built correctly, or peoples lifes will be in danger.
As time passes and our profession becomes equally crucial in many cases, I believe that the same problem will make its appearance. What we need to do is to get organized and support independent regulation authorities which will prevent companies from doing anything they think its cheaper.
Of cource, before anything else, we ourselves must take our profession seriously because it is no longer a game.
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
Like hell it is when when I can get redundancy (read failover) for less than half the price.
Yeah, there is more to IT than firewalls. Protecting your IP/corporate resources is pretty important in my book though. Anyway, that's my example and if you don't like it, posting anonymously and bitching isn't going to do anything because I doubt anyone else will read your comment.
This guy is way out there
The real difference is that this mechanism is in place to prevent companies from hiring younger inexperienced engineers just to cut costs.
Ouch. That struck a nerve. Everyone who's seen companies hire Junior incompetents over Senior Engineers, raise your hand.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
The problem here is rather those in accounting who always open email attachments, preferrably those ending in .exe or .com .
Been there. Done that. It's really not any fun. Could be the reason I really haven't dated in quite a while. I've gotten plenty of offers, but haven't really taken any of them up on it. *shrugs*
Everything I need to know I learned by killing smart people and eating their brains.
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".
Phase 7: Promotion of nonparticipants.
In our company, phase 7 is awards for the managers.
And you would do the exact same thing the first time you got laid...
" So, no need to read the article, then?"
There is no need to article. Not because of slashdot but because it's just a few anecdotes put together as if they mean anything.
It's a stupid fluff piece. Wake me when somebody does a decent study.
evil is as evil does
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!
Most IT professionals are hired by PHBs, not other IT professionals. Yes, IT professionals know that an MCSE is worthless. The problem is that PHBs do not. In government jobs, a certification is almost a requirement.
How many times do EE's scrap a project after a successful prototype has been built, due to project management failure?
I've seen some incredibly cool products that, um, didn't come out of Apple.
-- The world is watching America, and America is watching TV.
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
Your opinion matters to the one who authorizes purchases.
In our company, it's more like:
Boss: Our Megabux system does not meet the organization's needs because it doesn't do X, Y, and Z.
IT: It does do all those things.
Boss: It doesn't work correctly because it does not programatically match our mission and is architectually incompatible and too tightly coupled with our other existing systems, according to my golfing partner.
IT: It meets all the design and functional requirements. In fact, it works quite well.
Boss: I know we can improve the system by leveraging the superior talent used by commercial software companies and using COTS software because I read it in a magazine, and I want everyone to know I knew it first. It will also save us tons of money.
IT: It will be a huge, costly, time-consuming project to replace our working system with COTS and integrate all the interconnected systems.
Boss: Send out an RFP, and I'll be watching this project closely since you've made your opposition known. If it fails, I'll know why.
Point taken, but when you're in an auditorium, and the principal manager of a death march is given an award for documenting the *lessons learned* (which are all related to incompetent or untrained IT staff), it's even worse than seeing him promoted. Sometimes I wonder why IT people don't go postal.
So why even put Myth 3 in there if it isn't a myth?
> uh yea. slashdot is reflection of reality.
Real people post here... Those are real people's attitudes. *shrug*
> "(blah blah blah snip)sexist jackass(blah blah
> blah snip)"
Cutting meaningful words down to obscure the actual intent based on the person's gender is *exactly* the kind of shitty behavior I was talking about.
> young women need to stop being irrational,
> double-standard holding, over-reactionary,
> cat-fighting, back-stabbing, gold-digging,
> know it alls.
All you're doing here is displaying the exact same gender-generalizing crap that I pointed out as being a factor AGAINST many Slashdotters getting dates with decent women. Entertainingly, in doing so, you yourself are being an irrational double-standard-holding over-reactionary know-it-all. Your point was again...?
Most women (not girls) are atracted to guys who can hold a conversation.
A geek is no more likely to be able to hold an intelligent conversation than any other person. They just *sound* smarter because their chosen topics of conversation revolve around technical items rather than football, or cars.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
And one day, when *you* get laid, you'll see why it is we prefer chicks to computers
As much as it would be hard for my friends and coworkers to believe, I am not a virgin. Yes I have had sex and I still tend to prefer computers to girls.
Don't get me wrong. Given the choice between a night with a sparcstation and a night with Natalie Portman I'd choose Natalie Portman anyday. But in reality, sadly, those are not the choices.
In reality I can work my ass off trying to impress some woman and then be forced to spend at least 50% of my limited freetime doing what she wants and I also have to hang out with her idiot friends and talk to her her dumbass family members on holidays and all kinds of other equally abhorrent stuff. And why? So that I can get laid a couple times a week? I've been there and done that and it is just not worth it. I'll take computers.
Now if I could find a girl who was kinda like Marla from Fight Club, then I might change my mind about girls. The problem is that most girls are lamers and the ones who aren't are already taken or wouldn't go out with me anyways.
And the fact is you don't need a girlfriend to gat laid. Get out the Yellow Pages and look under Massage Parlour and go to the ones that have adverts reading "Asian massage" and "Full Service." It'll cost you about one C-note plus a twenty dollar tip and most of the chicks are hot.
I started learning basic 20 years ago at age 9. I liked it but I loved piano and politics.
:(
:)
Three and a half years ago, I got back into programming with PHP, and what a difference that makes (I had to laugh when I saw a one-line loop). Moved on to Java, SQL (Oracle, MySQL), and now Python.
One of the surprising things I found after getting a Java certification was how useful it was. I was getting faster at coding, not looking up things in the javadocs as often. And being forced to memorize parts of the core libraries -even if I promptly forgot half of it- means I know exactly where to look, and I won't waste time writing util classes for stuff that already exists. I've actually erased hundreds of lines at a time of code that was duplicating core lib. functionalities...
I don't disagree with your main point- given a choice between a person that likes to think like a programmer and a person with a certificate, I'd choose the programmer. However if you can find people that like programming and have solid knowledge in one area, do consider it a bonus
Information: "I want to be anthropomorphized"
However, often it is also the case that "senior" engineers sitting on high salaries have no incentive to try hard or achieve more. They just sit there.
Yes, there is often deadweight in the senior engineering positions, but line management has no idea who it is. The best bullshitters are considered to be the best engineers by MIS-management.
Now, young and inexperienced developers fall into 2 categories: potential, no potential. If you can find the ones with potential, then within a couple of years they'll be producing almost (or more) as much as your beloved senior developers
That's incorrect in a situation that requires institutional memory. I'd guess it would take 3-4 years, by which time training the developer would have negated any supposed cost savings, and the new developer would now be senior and making a much larger salary. OJT by MIS-management.
I generalize, of course, but I have experience of exactly this situation in a team of developers that I manage. Yes, I said "manage". Get over it. I'm your PHB. Kneel before me!!!!
You've already demonstrated your MIS-conception of the issue - no need to overdo it.
could the qualification/licensing have to do with legal requirements under law?
you need to submit a license to mass produce an electrical device (EE) or vehicle (ME, AE)
release a pharmaceutical (PHC, CE)?
Until Tom dick and harry start getting injured or die as a result of coding errors I suspect this is the real reason software engineers do not require licensing. Licensing is the result of saftey requirements enfoced by legislation. Hence the guarded professions: EE, ME, CE, MD, MS, pilots, plumbers etc where a measurable standard must be met.
Until then software design going to be the lowest price, fastest turn around: not necessarily with the highest quality or safety in mind. Read this post to see what I mean.
peterrenshaw ~ Another Scrappy Startup
+5 Insightful?
I don't know whether to laugh or cry...
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.