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Tim Lister on Project Sluts and Strawmen

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the fancy-lingo-for-good-sense dept.

cramco writes "Tim Lister, principal of Atlantic Systems Guild and co-author of 'Waltzing with Bears: Managing Software Project Risk,' and 'Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams' talks about the patterns that help determine software success or failure. Patterns good and bad include project sluts, Brownian motion, the strawman, and the safety valve."

17 of 128 comments (clear)

  1. He forgot one by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    The whore my book pattern.

    1. Re:He forgot one by smittyoneeach · · Score: 5, Funny
      The WMB pattern is really a specialization of the traditional whore_my_product pattern.
      Specializations of the WMP pattern invoke a whore_method() call, with returns along the lines of:
      • Cheesy sex tape leak
      • Customs bust while travelling
      • Messy divorce, with optional taped calls to children
      • Wardrobe malfunction
      • Altercation with police, typically un-sober
      • Provocative language directed at another media/political personality
      • Endorsement of whacky fad (911-truther, Holocaust denier, global warming radicalism)
      The whore_method() takes no arguments initially, but always throws a very public exception, littering the cable news stack with arguments.
      In the absence of actual news, natural disasters, or death-porn, these arguments can reverberate on the cable news stack for weeks, becoming tedious.
      The quality of the product varies inversely to the tastelessness of the whore_method(): real artists just deliver the goods.
      --
      Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
  2. We need more project sluts by AuMatar · · Score: 5, Funny

    Let me tell you, nothing motivates me more at work than a project groupie who will bang me for completing on time.

    What do you mean not that type of slut?

    --
    I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
    1. Re:We need more project sluts by Tihstae · · Score: 5, Funny

      I thought they were called "any woman".


      You are posting on /. Do you even know what a woman looks like without a web browser to see them?
    2. Re:We need more project sluts by Rupert · · Score: 3, Funny

      The main difference between project managers and project sluts is that only one of them is happy if you finish early.

      --

      --
      E_NOSIG
    3. Re:We need more project sluts by syousef · · Score: 4, Funny

      Let me tell you, nothing motivates me more at work than a project groupie who will bang me for completing on time.

      You do realize that if management hired her and she was up to the usual standards she'd be inept in the sack, be ugly and have about 3 good teeth...and if women were scarce it would be a fat alcoholic man in a dress. You'd then be told you had to make do, bring it across the line, take one for the team etc. etc.

      --
      These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
  3. not quite as annoying as expected... by darekana · · Score: 3, Funny
    But I still can't imagine being in a meeting and telling the boss...

    Sir... are you trying to make us into "project sluts"?
    Where we bang any project that has a spec?

    --
    Interactive Visual Medical Dictionary
  4. No best practices... by vux984 · · Score: 4, Funny

    FTFA...

    Lister: I get chills when I hear that phrase. From my point of view there are some pretty good practices, but no best practices ... I'd like people to think about patterns - abstracting their work and recognizing the patterns they're in, good and bad, and making informed decisions to promote those patterns or replace them.

    So, Lister... would thinking about patterns be a best practice?

    Uh-oh! the chain of logic has been attached to itself, we're trapped in a circle from which there is no escape!!

  5. And you forgot one. by neoshroom · · Score: 4, Funny

    The whore my karma pattern.

    --
    Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.
    1. Re:And you forgot one. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      The whore my karma pattern.

      Oh, looks who's talking... ;)

  6. From TFA by guzzirider · · Score: 2, Funny

    "My dad once said, "it's hard to hate someone when you know their name."

    Well Adolf Hitler comes to mind, I know that name ...

    1. Re:From TFA by Ai+Olor-Wile · · Score: 2, Funny

      I do believe Godwin disagrees with you, good sir.

  7. Institutionalize It by neoshroom · · Score: 4, Funny

    And getting together with your co-workers after work just so you can bond? Fuck that. If it happens, it happens. But do NOT try to institutionalize it. All you'll do is end up with a bunch of people waiting for the first person to leave so they can all go home to their families.

    Obviously, you hold their families hostage at an undisclosed location until the conclusion of the bonding is complete.

    --
    Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.
  8. No she didn't! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    It was actually a typical example of the Anonymous Coward pattern

  9. Re:strawman by xero314 · · Score: 4, Funny

    My boss kept asking me to make prototypes...then... build entire ERP and CRM systems around [them] I'm guessing you used to work for SAP.
  10. Re:His Answer by clem · · Score: 3, Funny

    Speckerhead.

    --
    Your courageous and selfless spelling corrections have made me a better person.
  11. Has the Sun set on the Pattern Competence Horizon? by skeptictank · · Score: 2, Funny

    Are the abstraction heuristics beyond further synergy? Can Idiomatic Representations still be Frameworked into Generic Self-Similarities? Is the bullshit stinking so bad that even the middle management is shying away from the cows?