It seems that science is close to being able to grow human organs in pigs. So maybe we don't have to worry so much about losing transplant organs because fewer people are dying in car crashes.
No, it's not like this in the US these days, just in socialist "paradises" like Silicon Valley. In most of the US, one can still make a decent living, even without a college degree.
Nobody said it would be easy. I have good friends who had to live in a tent for a while--with a small child--until they could get back on their feet again. These days, they are doing just fine, living in a decent house with a lawn and a dog.
It all depends on how determined you are to go for that better life. It can be done, and there ARE answers that do not involve government handouts.
When I started my first job, I moved hundreds of miles from a small Oklahoma town to Houston, with everything I owned inside my small, old car. I had no furniture but a card table and a few folding chairs. I slept on an inflatable air mattress that leaked. Because I found a job (something that's never been hard to do in Houston), I could afford basic rent for a small apartment. I had no savings and no liquid funds, just a willingness to work, and a willingness to move where there were jobs to be had.
Recently, my 21-year-old son moved out into his first apartment, also using his own money, of which he didn't have much. He too had only an old car, some hand-me-down furniture, and a willingness to work.
No, it doesn't have to cost thousands to move, even a long distance. It only costs that much when you have a lot to move.
Does this study say something about Firefox users, or does it say something about Windows users?
Maybe Firefox users are more likely to use Windows 7, but that doesn't mean that Chrome users are likewise inclined.
A person's browser choice says something about them. - Edge - probably a person who doesn't know how to switch to a different browser, or doesn't know why one would want to. - IE - probably a similar person, who is using an older computer. - Firefox - probably more security-conscious than most - Chrome - probably hooked into the Google ecosystem
Of course, this is not complete, and there are other reasons to pick a browser. But it seems like a leap to extrapolate a lack of Windows 10 adoption from the subset of users who use Firefox.
If we found a Chinese drone within a few hundred miles of Los Angeles, you KNOW we would pick it up and turn it into an incident. What they are doing is no different. It's a risk we take deploying drones near other countries.
Hackers will typically target the most popular libraries, because these will be found on the largest number of computers. If you want your software to be more secure, use the #2 or #3 library, assuming they have appropriate functionality. Hackers are less likely to attack these.
This principle is beneficial in other ways as well. If you are using commercial libraries, the #2 or #3 brand will try harder to support you, the customer, because they want to catch up with #1. The #1 brand, on the other hand, tends to sit on its laurels, often failing to adequately maintain its code.
We are all safe, now that the UN has banned killer robots. Everyone will surely respect this new ban, just like they respect UN bans against war crimes. I've got a better idea...the UN should ban war! Why do they still allow war anyway???
If the cases were so cut-and-dried, why was the decision 8-0? Usually, if there is such an obvious conflict with the law, at least ONE justice will dissent. But zero?
Remember the "paperless" office, how computers were supposed to eliminate paper? Yeah right! Sure, there are some paperless offices, but that is not the norm. Most offices go through more paper now than they ever did. That paperless office was supposed to be a reality back in the 90's. So much for that!
The role of paper has changed. It used to be the primary, permanent storage medium for information. Now it's more of a temporary medium to store text while it's in process. After the process is complete, the paper is often destroyed. Still, paper hasn't gone away.
Similarly, it's going to take much longer than anyone anticipates, to replace office workers with automation. And similarly, the role of office workers will change, and might even grow.
There is nothing in Agile that restricts creativity and choice by programmers. What it does is allow programmers to make technical design choices, and product owners to make business-facing choices. The business people decide what they want it to do, programmers decide how to get it done.
If anything, it's the waterfall process that allows "architects" to make all the design choices for the programmers, who are expected to just follow the requirements like a code monkey.
This makes no sense at all to me. I've observed in Scrum and Kanban shops that often, developers are often asked to make decisions that SHOULD be made by product people, who often have only a vague idea of what they want. I've certainly never felt limited in my ability to be creative!
I'm glad you can see the need for a spectrum of different methods, to suit different needs. This is key. No single methodology works for everything, or everywhere.
In my 27 years in software development, I've never worked on an Agile project that failed to deliver finished products. In agile, the initial coding becomes part of the analysis and design phase. Agile does not mean less (or inferior) design and analysis. It just changes the method and sequence.
Every waterfall project also has technical debt and design errors. That is not specific to agile. In fact, because waterfall attempts to complete the design without anything concrete (i.e., working) for customers to see, it becomes much easier for bad designs to become buried in the reams of documentation.
Yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes. Most of my career has been in small shops, ranging from 1 to 14 developers. All of them used agile, and succeeded because of it.
There are badly planned agile projects, but this is not a feature of agile. There are also badly planned waterfall projects, but this is not a feature of waterfall. The notion that agile means "lack of planning" stems from a lack of understanding of what agile really is. Agile is a different way of organizing priorities, and it does so in a different sequence than waterfall. It does not eliminate organizing or planning or priorities.
Toyota, SalesForce, Amazon, Google, Intuit, and many other major corporations use agile successfully, against stiff competition.
I completely agree that good teams are key. My experience has been that in waterfall shops, the teams that get things done actually have an agile mindset.
If your agile shop lets the product manager / customer get off the hook without defining what they want, they are doing it wrong. Agile does not remove the need for requirements, it only changes how and when they are created. Up front, only the big outline is created, and the individual points are fleshed out as you get to them. This is NOT the same thing as getting off the hook.
I have worked in a number of Agile shops with competent, enthusiastic professionals. I'm sorry that you have had a less positive experience.
To be competent, it is not a requirement that you also be "senior." I sit next to a kid just one year out of college, who definitely meets the definition of "competent." Inexperienced, yes, but also competent.
Open source projects are not ideally suited to Agile, because one of the core features of most Agile processes is having teams that are physically located together. For most open source projects, this is not practical.
Agile is not the ONLY methodology that works, so I'm not surprised that Linux succeeds without Agile. However, many large corporations use Agile methodologies in a big way: Cisco, Phillips, Intuit, Honeywell, Ericsson, Amazon, Google, LinkedIn, SalesForce, just to name a few. At least some of these corporations produce software that is "very good."
Exactly! So when waterfall tries to nail down the details up front, it does itself a disservice. Users find out months later that those nailed-down details don't quite work for them, and now you have to go back and re-engineer your project. With Agile, you find out much earlier in the process that the details weren't right.
We agree about the importance of well-designed code. Poorly designed code hampers agile development as much as it does waterfall development.
My comments were about the requirements. Waterfall pretends to know the requirements up front, but then has to follow the project with a series of change orders. This happens because users often don't really know what they want until they see something in action. "Yes, this is good, but..." Because the change requests can't happen until the project is complete, they are relatively expensive to implement, especially if the changes affect the underlying architecture.
Agile assumes that these change requests will happen, and focuses on reducing the cost of the change requests. By getting software into the hands of "customers" very early in the process, these changes are found much earlier in the process, when it's relatively cheap to change the architecture, if needed.
There is a reason that waterfall timelines are measured in quarters or years, while agile timelines are typically measured in terms of days or weeks.
There is no inherent quality difference between Agile and Waterfall, in my experience. The difference is in how the project is broken down into small pieces, and in what order those pieces are carried out.
Slashdot Mirror
It seems that science is close to being able to grow human organs in pigs. So maybe we don't have to worry so much about losing transplant organs because fewer people are dying in car crashes.
No, it's not like this in the US these days, just in socialist "paradises" like Silicon Valley. In most of the US, one can still make a decent living, even without a college degree.
Nobody said it would be easy. I have good friends who had to live in a tent for a while--with a small child--until they could get back on their feet again. These days, they are doing just fine, living in a decent house with a lawn and a dog.
It all depends on how determined you are to go for that better life. It can be done, and there ARE answers that do not involve government handouts.
Maybe it's not so fun any more to write a cheesy game. But there are plenty of fun things to do if you're a hacker.
- 3D printing
- Arduino and other compute sticks
- Lego Mindstorms
- Drones
- Google Cardboard
If you just look around a little, there are lots of fun things you can do as a programmer, and many can be done with not much expense.
The landscape has changed, but the fun stuff is still out there.
Not when you don't have much to move.
When I started my first job, I moved hundreds of miles from a small Oklahoma town to Houston, with everything I owned inside my small, old car. I had no furniture but a card table and a few folding chairs. I slept on an inflatable air mattress that leaked. Because I found a job (something that's never been hard to do in Houston), I could afford basic rent for a small apartment. I had no savings and no liquid funds, just a willingness to work, and a willingness to move where there were jobs to be had.
Recently, my 21-year-old son moved out into his first apartment, also using his own money, of which he didn't have much. He too had only an old car, some hand-me-down furniture, and a willingness to work.
No, it doesn't have to cost thousands to move, even a long distance. It only costs that much when you have a lot to move.
Does this study say something about Firefox users, or does it say something about Windows users?
Maybe Firefox users are more likely to use Windows 7, but that doesn't mean that Chrome users are likewise inclined.
A person's browser choice says something about them.
- Edge - probably a person who doesn't know how to switch to a different browser, or doesn't know why one would want to.
- IE - probably a similar person, who is using an older computer.
- Firefox - probably more security-conscious than most
- Chrome - probably hooked into the Google ecosystem
Of course, this is not complete, and there are other reasons to pick a browser. But it seems like a leap to extrapolate a lack of Windows 10 adoption from the subset of users who use Firefox.
If we found a Chinese drone within a few hundred miles of Los Angeles, you KNOW we would pick it up and turn it into an incident. What they are doing is no different. It's a risk we take deploying drones near other countries.
Hackers will typically target the most popular libraries, because these will be found on the largest number of computers. If you want your software to be more secure, use the #2 or #3 library, assuming they have appropriate functionality. Hackers are less likely to attack these.
This principle is beneficial in other ways as well. If you are using commercial libraries, the #2 or #3 brand will try harder to support you, the customer, because they want to catch up with #1. The #1 brand, on the other hand, tends to sit on its laurels, often failing to adequately maintain its code.
We are all safe, now that the UN has banned killer robots. Everyone will surely respect this new ban, just like they respect UN bans against war crimes. I've got a better idea...the UN should ban war! Why do they still allow war anyway???
Then comes the reality. I take this as a sure sign that the two OSes WILL merge!
If the cases were so cut-and-dried, why was the decision 8-0? Usually, if there is such an obvious conflict with the law, at least ONE justice will dissent. But zero?
Remember the "paperless" office, how computers were supposed to eliminate paper? Yeah right! Sure, there are some paperless offices, but that is not the norm. Most offices go through more paper now than they ever did. That paperless office was supposed to be a reality back in the 90's. So much for that!
The role of paper has changed. It used to be the primary, permanent storage medium for information. Now it's more of a temporary medium to store text while it's in process. After the process is complete, the paper is often destroyed. Still, paper hasn't gone away.
Similarly, it's going to take much longer than anyone anticipates, to replace office workers with automation. And similarly, the role of office workers will change, and might even grow.
There is nothing in Agile that restricts creativity and choice by programmers. What it does is allow programmers to make technical design choices, and product owners to make business-facing choices. The business people decide what they want it to do, programmers decide how to get it done.
If anything, it's the waterfall process that allows "architects" to make all the design choices for the programmers, who are expected to just follow the requirements like a code monkey.
This makes no sense at all to me. I've observed in Scrum and Kanban shops that often, developers are often asked to make decisions that SHOULD be made by product people, who often have only a vague idea of what they want. I've certainly never felt limited in my ability to be creative!
You are certainly correct that the people are more important than the process. Funny, that's the #1 value on the Agile Manifesto!
Well, I don't want to cherry pick too much. So here are some more shops that use Agile:
Toyota, Cisco, Phillips, Intuit, Honeywell, Ericsson, Amazon, Google, LinkedIn, SalesForce.
Still not enough? This HP survey found that 69% of development shops now are pure agile or "leaning" agile.
http://techbeacon.com/survey-a...
I'm glad you can see the need for a spectrum of different methods, to suit different needs. This is key. No single methodology works for everything, or everywhere.
In my 27 years in software development, I've never worked on an Agile project that failed to deliver finished products. In agile, the initial coding becomes part of the analysis and design phase. Agile does not mean less (or inferior) design and analysis. It just changes the method and sequence.
Every waterfall project also has technical debt and design errors. That is not specific to agile. In fact, because waterfall attempts to complete the design without anything concrete (i.e., working) for customers to see, it becomes much easier for bad designs to become buried in the reams of documentation.
I completely agree with your final observation.
Yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes. Most of my career has been in small shops, ranging from 1 to 14 developers. All of them used agile, and succeeded because of it.
There are badly planned agile projects, but this is not a feature of agile. There are also badly planned waterfall projects, but this is not a feature of waterfall. The notion that agile means "lack of planning" stems from a lack of understanding of what agile really is. Agile is a different way of organizing priorities, and it does so in a different sequence than waterfall. It does not eliminate organizing or planning or priorities.
Toyota, SalesForce, Amazon, Google, Intuit, and many other major corporations use agile successfully, against stiff competition.
I completely agree that good teams are key. My experience has been that in waterfall shops, the teams that get things done actually have an agile mindset.
If your agile shop lets the product manager / customer get off the hook without defining what they want, they are doing it wrong. Agile does not remove the need for requirements, it only changes how and when they are created. Up front, only the big outline is created, and the individual points are fleshed out as you get to them. This is NOT the same thing as getting off the hook.
I have worked in a number of Agile shops with competent, enthusiastic professionals. I'm sorry that you have had a less positive experience.
To be competent, it is not a requirement that you also be "senior." I sit next to a kid just one year out of college, who definitely meets the definition of "competent." Inexperienced, yes, but also competent.
Open source projects are not ideally suited to Agile, because one of the core features of most Agile processes is having teams that are physically located together. For most open source projects, this is not practical.
Agile is not the ONLY methodology that works, so I'm not surprised that Linux succeeds without Agile. However, many large corporations use Agile methodologies in a big way: Cisco, Phillips, Intuit, Honeywell, Ericsson, Amazon, Google, LinkedIn, SalesForce, just to name a few. At least some of these corporations produce software that is "very good."
Exactly! So when waterfall tries to nail down the details up front, it does itself a disservice. Users find out months later that those nailed-down details don't quite work for them, and now you have to go back and re-engineer your project. With Agile, you find out much earlier in the process that the details weren't right.
We agree about the importance of well-designed code. Poorly designed code hampers agile development as much as it does waterfall development.
My comments were about the requirements. Waterfall pretends to know the requirements up front, but then has to follow the project with a series of change orders. This happens because users often don't really know what they want until they see something in action. "Yes, this is good, but..." Because the change requests can't happen until the project is complete, they are relatively expensive to implement, especially if the changes affect the underlying architecture.
Agile assumes that these change requests will happen, and focuses on reducing the cost of the change requests. By getting software into the hands of "customers" very early in the process, these changes are found much earlier in the process, when it's relatively cheap to change the architecture, if needed.
There is a reason that waterfall timelines are measured in quarters or years, while agile timelines are typically measured in terms of days or weeks.
There is no inherent quality difference between Agile and Waterfall, in my experience. The difference is in how the project is broken down into small pieces, and in what order those pieces are carried out.