There are really some people that are just made to scam everyone else and get rich(er) in the process. Let's see:
According to the terms of the company that set all this thing up, New Open World Corporation, anyone could vote one time for free, on the internet. You could additionaly vote as much as you wanted via sms. Also according to their terms, they could exclude any votes they wished, at any time.
If you believe their 100 million votes claim, and if you think that each sms vote costs 50 euro cents (I usually see them more expensive on contests, so the lower price helps offset the free votes), they just made a whooping 50 million euros with the sms voting alone. Now this doesn't count all the private donations they got, most definitely from countries that wanted to make sure their entry made it to the top of the list and stayed there (after all, it is a nice boom for tourism) - I don't know if the countries payed to have their entries on the list per-se, but you can bet the tv stations that syndicated the show payed through their nose for the rights.
The show in Lisbon cost 12 million euros. We can even raise that figure to 20 million to cover the marketing campaign costs of the last 6 months. Heck, put in 25 million, just to be on the safe side.
They still made 25 million euros with the sms voting alone. Now how's that for a scam?
The sad thing about it is that so many programmers think that what they're doing is wonderful and great and worthy of respect. We're not. This field is, at the moment, total crap, even at the highest and most "professional" end.
Yes, because we all know everyone that worked and innovated in newly created fields of knowledge were just in their dark ages too, and all they did was essentially crap because it was so new and they didn't have any previously-set standards to follow (the inconveniences of developing a new field and all).
We should really let all those guys that really invented their own fields of work (you know, newton, archimedes, einstein, turing, those chaps) that they were working in (their own field's) dark ages and all they did was just crappy stuff. I mean, it can't be at all possible to work in a new field, innovate *and* do something worthwhile and professional. Of course not.
That's exactly the thinking that is pushing this "policy" of having students drop math. If you make tests easier and drop hard subjects, scores will go up and voila, all students appear to be better. So knowledge doesn't count, only scores do. And how can anyone say that comparing test scores between tests that are so different in difficulty can possibly say anything about how well-versed in math the students are? In fact, students taking harder tests and getting lower scores are very probably better than the ones taking easier tests. And seeing the extreme difference in the tests (heck, the english test on the article is stuff I learned to do when I was like 14 or something), the scores are completely irrelevant at this point:p
Sorry, can't blame the poor chaps, if zx spectrum did anything for my fingers, it was increase my wrist strength, trying to get the stupid athlete on the olympic games to raise the weights... still, nice, feminine fingers here:)
On Civ the settlers did all the work of irrigation and mining and stuff as well as found cities. There was a bug when ordering a settler to do work, so you ordered a settler to irrigate a square, for instance, and then revoked the order and did it again, keeping this up until you could no longer revoke the order, and only then finish the turn. On the next turn the irrigation job would be done. It worked for all kinds of settler work, so you could do anything you wanted on a square in only one turn. I always delayed founding my cities for a couple of turns so I could irrigate and build a road on the square where I would be founding my city, in just 2 turns. It was really great to get cities up and running fast and to build roads in super-fast speed:)
The comment threads on this one definitely break some sort of record on number of puns per line. Nice to see such deep, significant scientific discussion!:)
It's all in there. Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars, particularly the first book, is a pretty accurate portrait of the human nature of a crew on their way to mars. I especially enjoy the part where the ones that are picked to go after all the stress tests and whatever are precisely those who can lie better, and how the masks they put on for to get selected go out the minute they know they're set on their way. And how the most driven personalities are the most psychotic, too. eh.
That's because there was such a scandal over people winning prizes in tv contests and then having to pay so much tax over them that they ended up almost losing money, that the government decided that what the companies were doing was false advertising (saying you win 1 million and then you get 200 if you're lucky:p), and decided to make a law that says that the prize offered in a contest must be after tax. And this was at a time when the government was trying to look nice, and they got a sweet deal out of it, they get the money anyway and they don't piss off anyone (i.e., the dumb voting sheep) in the process.
Maybe if the USians file enough false-advertising lawsuits or whatever, the us government might decide to do the same. Heck, our friend georgy could even get a boost in the polls out of it! hehe!
Oh please! Females can't go hunting because the animals might smell them, because you found out you can smell a woman after living exclusively with men for weeks? What do you think men smell like to women, of rosy pastel soft stuff? rofl! If anything, men leave behind stronger scents than women do. You know, all that testosterone stuff, it's a real pain. You wanna know something really interesting-like? Hunters hunt *against* the wind. How about that for shocker?
Frankly, how you could turn your post from a genuine interesting human experience to a "heck, so *that's* why women are meant to stay at home! They smell!" thing just blows me away. Amazing. o0
Re:Relax NG - constraining based on attribute valu
on
Tim Bray Says RELAX
·
· Score: 1
With Relax NG it's possible to constrain the text in the arg element (e.g. "true" or "false") based on the value of the type attribute. For example, if type="int", you could limit the text in arg to an integer value. This is something you can't do in schemas or dtds. Uh? WTF are you talking about? Of course you can restrict text in a schema. I ditched DTD years ago for XSD exactly for that reason, you can restrict pretty much anything in a xsd so you can validate your xml structure *and* data with it. You can even build your custom types and extend them if you need...
XSDs might be too complex for their own good, but if you're gonna bash them, at least know what you're talking about first. And btw, who the heck uses DTD nowadays? I never thought I'd see people mentioning those in 2006! Who in their right mind would use a non-xml-compliant definition file to validate a xml file? Weird...
I'm not a musician. I expect to provide to my loved ones while I'm alive, and when I die, I expect that what I leave behind will be enough for them to provide for themselves. I don't expect them to live off what I did. Why should children of musicians be any different? If a musician dies, is everyone that he/she provides supposed to continue to live off of them for years? What's so fucking special about being a musician that makes their children unable to provide for themselves so bad that they have to live off of the musician's rights?
This is simply the most ridiculous argument I've ever heard. "Oh gawd, think of the poor children!!" o_0
So you are not bound by the limitations of the tools or the OS, but can use whatever OS you need with the tools you need. So if the client wants to host their website in windows because that's their skillset, you can sell them that with virtualization without extra hardware costs because all you run are linux boxes. So if you need to run a custom app built for a particular OS you can without having to replace your OS and retrain your staff. So if you want to develop portable apps, you can test them in multiple systems without the extra hardware and time-consuming boot switch costs. Because you can actually give your customers what they *want* without having to tack on further costs, and the customer can choose whatever it needs to work at the time.
This is what the market wants. The market doesn't give a damn about the OS really. Who cares! They want the best tools to run, and if the best tool happens to run on a different OS than what they normally use, why should they suddenly change their infrastructure to accomodate it? Why wouldn't they want to run a linux shop and use accounting applications made exclusively for windows? Companies just don't and shouldn't have to want the cost and hassle of retraining staff and buying hardware. Why do you think all of a sudden everyone started *giving* away their virtualization software? Pop quiz: before this, which famous piece of software started to be given away for free, opening the way to a software revolution?
So explain to me exactly where is it ever stated that Mono supports a complete 2.0 Winforms implementation? Do you actually know that there are 3 versions of Winforms/.NET? Did you at least Read The F*cking Article? Or are you one of those peeps that troll around looking for a chance to FUD? Oh, wait, this is slashdot, right....
Mono does support Winforms. It doesn't support it in your little test app because you obviously downloaded the VStudio C# express edition and have no clue which.NET version you're targetting, or what the hell you're talking about anyway. And the funniest part is that you actually took the time to quote the release notes, stating that 2.0 support is partial.... then you go on all huffy about winforms support being partial... o_O
For those interested, here is the rundown of Winforms support in Mono:
1.0/1.1: API complete, essentially in the stage of running down the odd difference in behaviour from the MS.NET implementation 2.0: API in development, expect fuller support in Mono 2.0
Implementing Winforms in Mono is perhaps much more difficult then implementing everything else, because you have to visually match the Mono Winforms behaviour with the MS.NET one, both in Windows and in Linux. The big problem with this is that Linux and Windows have completely different underlying graphical APIs, and completely different visual behaviours, so you have double the problems. The Mono Winforms implementation is all C#.NET, all the controls are implemented in.NET, and only at the lowest level is the underlying system-specific API called, to allow for uniform behaviour in both windows and linux.
So if you're that worried about Mono Winforms support, why don't you do something about it? It's an open source project, a community effort, pull the sources and hack out the missing parts.
... and it goes bang under his nose. Well, duh!! Here's hoping that'll teach him to buy original components instead of cutting corners and getting any dodgy thing that happens to be available. OTOH, no need anymore, it's already blown:p
I can't argue with that. All I'm saying is, it's still not just XP. Following any methodology blindly, to the letter, is a recipe for disaster.
Wait, now I don't get it... isn't the problem with most XP projects that fact that one *doesn't* follow the methodology to the letter? Didn't the xp guys state that it's an all-or-nothing methodology, you have to do it all for it to work properly? Isn't a methodology suppose to have mechanisms to allow you to take maximum advantage of the development process? So how is following any methodology to the letter a recipe for disaster?!?
You're saying that following *XP* to the letter is a recipe for disaster, right? Because it's missing the big picture view essential to development? But if that is true, than it is such a fatal flaw in the methodology as to render it worthless. Not that the specific methods are worthless, mind you, but that the methodology as a whole is. Because either a methodology is sound, or is not. Either it's self-consistent, or it's not.
If you say that it works but then you say that for it to work, you have to add something from other methodologies, such as a top down view or something to fill the gap that it has on the big-picture view part, then, after all, you're saying that it doesn't work on it's own.
If you say that it doesn't work for others because they didn't follow it to the letter, but then you say it works for you because you're *not* following it to the letter, you're adding stuff from the outside, it's a bit of a contradiction there, hmm?
So maybe the people saying it doesn't work for them are really following it to the letter, and falling in the problem gap it has, while you're skirting the edges but adding extra stuff, eh?
That was actually a rhetorical question on my part, but I'll bite.
For a start, coding some nice algorithms to solve sudoku problems is not exactly the same as day-to-day coding in a real world company. But that actually doesn't matter to what I was saying: My point was, all these methodologies feel like ways of evangelizing a population of professionals who just happen to have had the bad taste of being programmers.
While I enjoy and apply many work methods according to what the project needs, I deeply resent reading supposedly helpful professional books where I am, by way of my profession, pictured and treated as a child who doesn't know better and so must be controlled. That quickly sends the book out the window and the methodology down the drain, because a methodology that is based and implicitly condones on such a view of professionals is not worth the paper it is written on.
Being programmers themselves only makes the situation worse, as they are describing themselves! So they are children to be wrestled with and controlled and given nice playing methods so they will stick to the rules and not bother anyone. Nice way of showing that they are responsible and knowledgeable enough for me to read and follow a methodology they are suggesting. They are probably saying that stuff to appeal to clueless managers, who probably think like that, but that only makes their ideas worth even less.
So I got no quarrels with work methods per se, just with the low-life buzzword-laden bottom-feeders shoving books filled with the latest (what did I call it? Ah, yes) "whatever buzzword-laden feelgood bullshit management scheme" they managed to come up with to fill their pockets.
Again, I emphasize: good methodologies are very useful in any sort of project, be it one-man or multi-corporate-department complex. However, I deeply, deeply resent reading about what a $#%& retard programmer I am, can't even program my day and discipline myself to do any useful work. But we've got the answer, woo woo! Here's this way of doing that so I can be saved! Ale-f*****g-luia! As long as you make sure someone is always looking over your shoulder, you're great!
And another thing... why do you x-prog guys just always sound like you're some kind of jehova's witness that just knocked on my door?
I'm a programmer, and I love it. If you want to know why, don't hesitate to ask.
eh??!?!? WTF?!?
Like, I've been saved, you can be too, just ask? You're not the first say this, I'm wondering, is this some sort of religious thing? Because you all really sound alike... do it our way or the highway, there's no better way, if you don't like it then you're not doing it properly, and all that stuff... ?!?!?
Automated testing is not enough to ensure that your software implements and can handle the specs. Automated testing only ensures your modular calls at a low level return what you expect, but a complex software is so much more than simple modular calls. A complex system is much more than the sum of it's parts, which is why unit testing cannot mirror the system's complexity, therefore cannot test it all.
Going about writing tests ahead of code is all fine and dandy, but that way you miss the big picture, the interaction between the parts, because you are concentrating on details. If you can combine the detail view with a bigger view, fine, but most people can't, especially in tight schedules. You end up doing everything in detail view and building your system so tight everytime you get a spec change you hack it because it's not flexible enough, and it grows up to be a nice collection of hacks that performs well under unit testing because, really, that's what it was designed to do.
That's what I've seen happening in the real world, unfortunately. Theory is a very nice thing, but it kinda tends to depend on being perfectly implemented, with perfect people and perfect timings and perfect managers and perfect clients.
First there was the "cat herder" motif. Programmer's are savage animals to be herded about by sensible managers, since they are wild and unpredictable and can't possibly function in a professional manner. That didn't go down too well, so after that programmers are this special breed that must be protected from the evil clutches of managers, like an artist on a quest trying to get rid of those pesky debt collectors. Nope, didn't work either. So now programmers are, really, nothing special, *bemused chuckle*, so they must work in pairs because they really can't discipline themselves all that much, so can't follow deadlines and schedules and program their work accordingly (pun intended).
Really, wtf?!? Who comes up with this shite!?!
I'm a professional. I study. I work. I have to deal with clients and managers and other programmers and emails and schedules and deadlines and projects and planning and meetings and $"#%$$ hard disk failures and stupid IDEs and dumb APIs and idiotic OSs and back pain from lugging the laptop around and hand pain from sitting on %$#"%$$% chairs with %&#%#$ desks and &%%"% mice and #$£&% keyboards and procrastination and bills and everything else one has to deal with in any job. And above all of this I still love the job, so I have the extra duty of being wacky some of the time just to fulfill my geek quota.
And besides all of this, because I have this label someone stuck on my back somewhere without me noticing, announcing to the world that I'm a programmer, I have to also be a "lab rat [so aptly put by the parent, which is why I'm shamelessly quoting] for whatever buzzword-laden feelgood bullshit management scheme comes along this week" (or the next... and the next...), because someone is bound to read that buzzword-laden $#&%$%# and decide it would be so much more better amazing wonderful wow to make me work like the aforementioned buzzword-laden recommends as the oh so bestest way to get anything done with those darned critters^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hprogrammers!
Could you buzzword-writing freaks, like, go pester the street vendors or accountants or something? I really need to finish these project design reports so I can start implementing the architecture I designed together with my team on - *gasp* - separate computers.
Slashdot Mirror
There are really some people that are just made to scam everyone else and get rich(er) in the process. Let's see:
According to the terms of the company that set all this thing up, New Open World Corporation, anyone could vote one time for free, on the internet. You could additionaly vote as much as you wanted via sms. Also according to their terms, they could exclude any votes they wished, at any time.
If you believe their 100 million votes claim, and if you think that each sms vote costs 50 euro cents (I usually see them more expensive on contests, so the lower price helps offset the free votes), they just made a whooping 50 million euros with the sms voting alone. Now this doesn't count all the private donations they got, most definitely from countries that wanted to make sure their entry made it to the top of the list and stayed there (after all, it is a nice boom for tourism) - I don't know if the countries payed to have their entries on the list per-se, but you can bet the tv stations that syndicated the show payed through their nose for the rights.
The show in Lisbon cost 12 million euros. We can even raise that figure to 20 million to cover the marketing campaign costs of the last 6 months. Heck, put in 25 million, just to be on the safe side.
They still made 25 million euros with the sms voting alone. Now how's that for a scam?
Yes, because we all know everyone that worked and innovated in newly created fields of knowledge were just in their dark ages too, and all they did was essentially crap because it was so new and they didn't have any previously-set standards to follow (the inconveniences of developing a new field and all).
We should really let all those guys that really invented their own fields of work (you know, newton, archimedes, einstein, turing, those chaps) that they were working in (their own field's) dark ages and all they did was just crappy stuff. I mean, it can't be at all possible to work in a new field, innovate *and* do something worthwhile and professional. Of course not.
You, sir, are an idiot.
That's exactly the thinking that is pushing this "policy" of having students drop math. If you make tests easier and drop hard subjects, scores will go up and voila, all students appear to be better. So knowledge doesn't count, only scores do. And how can anyone say that comparing test scores between tests that are so different in difficulty can possibly say anything about how well-versed in math the students are? In fact, students taking harder tests and getting lower scores are very probably better than the ones taking easier tests. And seeing the extreme difference in the tests (heck, the english test on the article is stuff I learned to do when I was like 14 or something), the scores are completely irrelevant at this point :p
Sorry, can't blame the poor chaps, if zx spectrum did anything for my fingers, it was increase my wrist strength, trying to get the stupid athlete on the olympic games to raise the weights... still, nice, feminine fingers here :)
On Civ the settlers did all the work of irrigation and mining and stuff as well as found cities. There was a bug when ordering a settler to do work, so you ordered a settler to irrigate a square, for instance, and then revoked the order and did it again, keeping this up until you could no longer revoke the order, and only then finish the turn. On the next turn the irrigation job would be done. It worked for all kinds of settler work, so you could do anything you wanted on a square in only one turn. I always delayed founding my cities for a couple of turns so I could irrigate and build a road on the square where I would be founding my city, in just 2 turns. It was really great to get cities up and running fast and to build roads in super-fast speed :)
A troll marked as insightful... why doesn't that surprise me? Eh.
The comment threads on this one definitely break some sort of record on number of puns per line. Nice to see such deep, significant scientific discussion! :)
It's all in there. Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars, particularly the first book, is a pretty accurate portrait of the human nature of a crew on their way to mars. I especially enjoy the part where the ones that are picked to go after all the stress tests and whatever are precisely those who can lie better, and how the masks they put on for to get selected go out the minute they know they're set on their way. And how the most driven personalities are the most psychotic, too. eh.
That's because there was such a scandal over people winning prizes in tv contests and then having to pay so much tax over them that they ended up almost losing money, that the government decided that what the companies were doing was false advertising (saying you win 1 million and then you get 200 if you're lucky :p), and decided to make a law that says that the prize offered in a contest must be after tax. And this was at a time when the government was trying to look nice, and they got a sweet deal out of it, they get the money anyway and they don't piss off anyone (i.e., the dumb voting sheep) in the process.
Maybe if the USians file enough false-advertising lawsuits or whatever, the us government might decide to do the same. Heck, our friend georgy could even get a boost in the polls out of it! hehe!
*blink blink*
Is it just me, or is it strangely telling that the only ads on that site are for Apple's iPhone? ^_^
Oh please! Females can't go hunting because the animals might smell them, because you found out you can smell a woman after living exclusively with men for weeks? What do you think men smell like to women, of rosy pastel soft stuff? rofl! If anything, men leave behind stronger scents than women do. You know, all that testosterone stuff, it's a real pain. You wanna know something really interesting-like? Hunters hunt *against* the wind. How about that for shocker?
Frankly, how you could turn your post from a genuine interesting human experience to a "heck, so *that's* why women are meant to stay at home! They smell!" thing just blows me away. Amazing. o0
Some restriction examples: Is that enough restriction for you?
XSDs might be too complex for their own good, but if you're gonna bash them, at least know what you're talking about first. And btw, who the heck uses DTD nowadays? I never thought I'd see people mentioning those in 2006! Who in their right mind would use a non-xml-compliant definition file to validate a xml file? Weird...
Really? It would kill the industry? You say that as if it were a bad thing... if we could only wish it so... *sigh*
I'm not a musician. I expect to provide to my loved ones while I'm alive, and when I die, I expect that what I leave behind will be enough for them to provide for themselves. I don't expect them to live off what I did. Why should children of musicians be any different? If a musician dies, is everyone that he/she provides supposed to continue to live off of them for years? What's so fucking special about being a musician that makes their children unable to provide for themselves so bad that they have to live off of the musician's rights?
This is simply the most ridiculous argument I've ever heard. "Oh gawd, think of the poor children!!" o_0
Yes.
So you are not bound by the limitations of the tools or the OS, but can use whatever OS you need with the tools you need. So if the client wants to host their website in windows because that's their skillset, you can sell them that with virtualization without extra hardware costs because all you run are linux boxes. So if you need to run a custom app built for a particular OS you can without having to replace your OS and retrain your staff. So if you want to develop portable apps, you can test them in multiple systems without the extra hardware and time-consuming boot switch costs. Because you can actually give your customers what they *want* without having to tack on further costs, and the customer can choose whatever it needs to work at the time.
This is what the market wants. The market doesn't give a damn about the OS really. Who cares! They want the best tools to run, and if the best tool happens to run on a different OS than what they normally use, why should they suddenly change their infrastructure to accomodate it? Why wouldn't they want to run a linux shop and use accounting applications made exclusively for windows? Companies just don't and shouldn't have to want the cost and hassle of retraining staff and buying hardware. Why do you think all of a sudden everyone started *giving* away their virtualization software? Pop quiz: before this, which famous piece of software started to be given away for free, opening the way to a software revolution?
So explain to me exactly where is it ever stated that Mono supports a complete 2.0 Winforms implementation? Do you actually know that there are 3 versions of Winforms/.NET? Did you at least Read The F*cking Article? Or are you one of those peeps that troll around looking for a chance to FUD? Oh, wait, this is slashdot, right....
.NET version you're targetting, or what the hell you're talking about anyway. And the funniest part is that you actually took the time to quote the release notes, stating that 2.0 support is partial.... then you go on all huffy about winforms support being partial... o_O
.NET, all the controls are implemented in .NET, and only at the lowest level is the underlying system-specific API called, to allow for uniform behaviour in both windows and linux.
Mono does support Winforms. It doesn't support it in your little test app because you obviously downloaded the VStudio C# express edition and have no clue which
For those interested, here is the rundown of Winforms support in Mono:
1.0/1.1: API complete, essentially in the stage of running down the odd difference in behaviour from the MS.NET implementation
2.0: API in development, expect fuller support in Mono 2.0
Implementing Winforms in Mono is perhaps much more difficult then implementing everything else, because you have to visually match the Mono Winforms behaviour with the MS.NET one, both in Windows and in Linux. The big problem with this is that Linux and Windows have completely different underlying graphical APIs, and completely different visual behaviours, so you have double the problems. The Mono Winforms implementation is all C#
So if you're that worried about Mono Winforms support, why don't you do something about it? It's an open source project, a community effort, pull the sources and hack out the missing parts.
for they will never be as remembered as baseball legends, like Babe Ruth or Jackie Robinson.
Who?
... and it goes bang under his nose. Well, duh!! Here's hoping that'll teach him to buy original components instead of cutting corners and getting any dodgy thing that happens to be available. OTOH, no need anymore, it's already blown :p
I can't argue with that. All I'm saying is, it's still not just XP. Following any methodology blindly, to the letter, is a recipe for disaster.
Wait, now I don't get it... isn't the problem with most XP projects that fact that one *doesn't* follow the methodology to the letter? Didn't the xp guys state that it's an all-or-nothing methodology, you have to do it all for it to work properly? Isn't a methodology suppose to have mechanisms to allow you to take maximum advantage of the development process? So how is following any methodology to the letter a recipe for disaster?!?
You're saying that following *XP* to the letter is a recipe for disaster, right? Because it's missing the big picture view essential to development? But if that is true, than it is such a fatal flaw in the methodology as to render it worthless. Not that the specific methods are worthless, mind you, but that the methodology as a whole is. Because either a methodology is sound, or is not. Either it's self-consistent, or it's not.
If you say that it works but then you say that for it to work, you have to add something from other methodologies, such as a top down view or something to fill the gap that it has on the big-picture view part, then, after all, you're saying that it doesn't work on it's own.
If you say that it doesn't work for others because they didn't follow it to the letter, but then you say it works for you because you're *not* following it to the letter, you're adding stuff from the outside, it's a bit of a contradiction there, hmm?
So maybe the people saying it doesn't work for them are really following it to the letter, and falling in the problem gap it has, while you're skirting the edges but adding extra stuff, eh?
Hmmmm, food for thought...
That was actually a rhetorical question on my part, but I'll bite.
For a start, coding some nice algorithms to solve sudoku problems is not exactly the same as day-to-day coding in a real world company. But that actually doesn't matter to what I was saying: My point was, all these methodologies feel like ways of evangelizing a population of professionals who just happen to have had the bad taste of being programmers.
While I enjoy and apply many work methods according to what the project needs, I deeply resent reading supposedly helpful professional books where I am, by way of my profession, pictured and treated as a child who doesn't know better and so must be controlled. That quickly sends the book out the window and the methodology down the drain, because a methodology that is based and implicitly condones on such a view of professionals is not worth the paper it is written on.
Being programmers themselves only makes the situation worse, as they are describing themselves! So they are children to be wrestled with and controlled and given nice playing methods so they will stick to the rules and not bother anyone. Nice way of showing that they are responsible and knowledgeable enough for me to read and follow a methodology they are suggesting. They are probably saying that stuff to appeal to clueless managers, who probably think like that, but that only makes their ideas worth even less.
So I got no quarrels with work methods per se, just with the low-life buzzword-laden bottom-feeders shoving books filled with the latest (what did I call it? Ah, yes) "whatever buzzword-laden feelgood bullshit management scheme" they managed to come up with to fill their pockets.
Again, I emphasize: good methodologies are very useful in any sort of project, be it one-man or multi-corporate-department complex. However, I deeply, deeply resent reading about what a $#%& retard programmer I am, can't even program my day and discipline myself to do any useful work. But we've got the answer, woo woo! Here's this way of doing that so I can be saved! Ale-f*****g-luia! As long as you make sure someone is always looking over your shoulder, you're great!
And another thing... why do you x-prog guys just always sound like you're some kind of jehova's witness that just knocked on my door?
I'm a programmer, and I love it. If you want to know why, don't hesitate to ask.
eh??!?!? WTF?!?
Like, I've been saved, you can be too, just ask? You're not the first say this, I'm wondering, is this some sort of religious thing? Because you all really sound alike... do it our way or the highway, there's no better way, if you don't like it then you're not doing it properly, and all that stuff... ?!?!?
Hello. I have a delivery for you.
*WHAM* <-- sarcasm cluebat
You're welcome.
Automated testing is not enough to ensure that your software implements and can handle the specs. Automated testing only ensures your modular calls at a low level return what you expect, but a complex software is so much more than simple modular calls. A complex system is much more than the sum of it's parts, which is why unit testing cannot mirror the system's complexity, therefore cannot test it all.
Going about writing tests ahead of code is all fine and dandy, but that way you miss the big picture, the interaction between the parts, because you are concentrating on details. If you can combine the detail view with a bigger view, fine, but most people can't, especially in tight schedules. You end up doing everything in detail view and building your system so tight everytime you get a spec change you hack it because it's not flexible enough, and it grows up to be a nice collection of hacks that performs well under unit testing because, really, that's what it was designed to do.
That's what I've seen happening in the real world, unfortunately. Theory is a very nice thing, but it kinda tends to depend on being perfectly implemented, with perfect people and perfect timings and perfect managers and perfect clients.
Amen to that, brother!
First there was the "cat herder" motif. Programmer's are savage animals to be herded about by sensible managers, since they are wild and unpredictable and can't possibly function in a professional manner. That didn't go down too well, so after that programmers are this special breed that must be protected from the evil clutches of managers, like an artist on a quest trying to get rid of those pesky debt collectors. Nope, didn't work either. So now programmers are, really, nothing special, *bemused chuckle*, so they must work in pairs because they really can't discipline themselves all that much, so can't follow deadlines and schedules and program their work accordingly (pun intended).
Really, wtf?!? Who comes up with this shite!?!
I'm a professional. I study. I work. I have to deal with clients and managers and other programmers and emails and schedules and deadlines and projects and planning and meetings and $"#%$$ hard disk failures and stupid IDEs and dumb APIs and idiotic OSs and back pain from lugging the laptop around and hand pain from sitting on %$#"%$$% chairs with %&#%#$ desks and &%%"% mice and #$£&% keyboards and procrastination and bills and everything else one has to deal with in any job. And above all of this I still love the job, so I have the extra duty of being wacky some of the time just to fulfill my geek quota.
And besides all of this, because I have this label someone stuck on my back somewhere without me noticing, announcing to the world that I'm a programmer, I have to also be a "lab rat [so aptly put by the parent, which is why I'm shamelessly quoting] for whatever buzzword-laden feelgood bullshit management scheme comes along this week" (or the next... and the next...), because someone is bound to read that buzzword-laden $#&%$%# and decide it would be so much more better amazing wonderful wow to make me work like the aforementioned buzzword-laden recommends as the oh so bestest way to get anything done with those darned critters^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hprogrammers!
Could you buzzword-writing freaks, like, go pester the street vendors or accountants or something? I really need to finish these project design reports so I can start implementing the architecture I designed together with my team on - *gasp* - separate computers.
:/
:p
Raising the hopes and dashing them. Ah well, twas fun while it lasted
*art of filling a form with meaningless legalese crappola?