We don't know he doesn't use a CASE system. The OP mentioned that his process is:
- go to client site
- lern workflow, take notes on it
- at end of day, go back to hotel and push things into a format for developers (which may or may be CASE/ UML)
The OP, I think, is really asking something along the lines of "I get tons of info thrown at me by non technical people and need to feed it into some other system to make my programmers happy. Who knows a way of accepting tons of semi-structured, possibly random, and always interrelated data so it can be rearragned and cut up into bite size pieces for some other formalized system without making my eyes bleed?"
I think the two best suggestions here have been:
- Wiki (perhaps not only for you, but for the end client as well, so they can see exactly what you're taking back to your programmers and fix mistakes and add details before it goes out)
- Treenode.. never heard of it, but sounds useful.
One thing that has not come up yet is what you do with your client before you show up at their site. If you're getting *that* much info per-client I betcha that you could come up with a standardized set of questions for them to answer before you even step on a plane. That should reduce your onsite workload and allow you to better grasp their workflow while onsite.
And apple has already changed their homepage.. How long till our President blames this on a certian Middle Eastern country? My thoughts go to NASA and the families of the crew.
Not really. I work in a similar (but non NT thnak god) environment. Students loose track of the forest for the trees. They think that "knowing Maya" will get them a job, but they end up learing what buttons to push and how to model and not how to animate, whihc in the end makes them less marketable.
In the end you need a good mix of low end platforms where you concentrate on simple animation, modeling, texturing and lighting before you can stp up to physics, hair, particles, etc..the Good stuff that Maya offers.
Also, a lot of shops aren't going to be Maya based, it's fscking expensive for a full production license (even an edu license is pricey) You'll most probably see a mix of 3DSMax, Softimage, Lightwave and maybe one Maya staion so learning Maya just ain't all it's cracked up to be.
Worry about your feet sliding through the floor before worring about learning packages.
If you'd like it to be "just" and make a (really small) dent in the MSFT monopoly, make them donate 1.9 billion in Apple hardware and software to schools. Appleworks for everyone!
I'd rather be Uncle Steve's drone than Bill Gates' , at least I'd have some style:)
Even better give it to the FSF and Apache groups and let *them* dole it out to Free Software projects. I bet Open Office would hit 1.0 PDQ if someone would throw $! Million at it for full time developers.
federal law dictates that if you ask "Please put me on your DO NOT CALL list" they cannot call you, and further calls will give you the ability to sue them.
Wow. Fun. Hardware enabled copy pretection. But that hardware can only do so much without the software hooks to look at adata. Would that mean that if linux did include hooks for the protection hardware and standard that it its self would be illeagal? Maybe. What about Apache, for slashcode (or phpslash:) would all software have to include hooks to verify all media (software, cd's images, movies, sounds, etc..)?
things like apache could concevably be considereded enabling technologies that enable piracy and copyright infringment.. How far would it go? Where aould DMCA stop and this shit take over?
Grrr.. I don't want big brother in my computer or in my life. I pay my taxes and do my good deed a day, enough is fucking enough, I consider this harassment by the U.S Govermnent and should this law go into effect, I will be seeking Political Asylum in another country.
--- ORIGINAL
Update: 02/14 02:44 PM by CT: I just wanted to insert my 2 bits into this story. This is a problem close to my heart: I hate getting tech support for PHPSlash. I don't care that it exists, in fact, I'm happy that it does, it fills a need and a lot of people like it.
---
I'm the maintainer of phpSlash. Sorry that you get support questions, if you care to please send them my way to nhruby@arches.uga.edu, direct them to our list: phpslash-users@lists.sourceforge.net ot to the website at http://www.phpslash.org.
As for you resoning about trademarks, you are being a bit idealistic:)
Side Note: RedHat's mailing lists have *always* sucked. I did just get a note a week or so ago that they'll be moving all their lists to mailman RSN. Hopefully, that'll fix their poor archiving problems (among otehr things)
As someone who has used FiLMBOX on NT before, lemme tell ya.. WOOHOO!!!!! For as much as they claim that the deformation engine is threaded nad should be scaled over multiple processors, the looking I did revealed very little of that.. Though of course its hard to parallelize a deformation that's based on linear time data from a MoCap source. The point is that NT just didn't like FiLMBOX at all (BSOD's, driver crashes, odd OGL glitches) I blame part of it on the threading, part of it on NT and part of it on FiLMBOX.. Now that's it's ported to linux I have more control over the non-kaydera stuff and that makes me happy. Now, all I need is for them to support PVM and get large Beowulf with Myrinet interconnects...(Sorry.. It had to be said)
Let's hope to start seeing more 3d modelers and animation packages on linux. Hell even lightwave6 would be nice but I'd love to see SoftImage (which won't happen, it's a microsoft-owned comapany) or Maya. [Houdini is already there, but this should help them out ALOT!!!]
Well, considering how people were mentioning wanting a php-based slashdot earlier I guess I should plug phpslash Seeing as I work on it and all:)
It's not slash0.9, (based on slash0.2 with improvments) but it's in php and in resonable development with plans to add all the current slashdot goodies.
Don't forget the several thousand a year service fee. Also sfx has a student pricing policy, at about a grand a year and you give sfx some animation. Not a bad deal --Houdini is well worth it, glad to see it ported. Now all we need is harware accelerated OGL in the Xservers (C'mon XFree86 4!!)
I have to agree with Matt here (and in general through this discussion), the LDP may not be the most up-to-date place to get documentation, but it is STILL the first place I look- the orgaization is clear, the info is always what I need, in the format that I need it and in a place that I can find easily.
Many of the HOWTO's have been invaulable to me in getting sub-system X up and running in less than an hour. Yes, some of the Documentation is old, however some of it does not need updating as frequently (the Proxy-ARP-HOWTO for example). The ip-chains HOWTO or video4linux-HOWTO (if there is one) would be something that could use updating a bit more frequently.
The point is if people want documentation that is current and up to date we all have to strive to do that, package maintainers should keep up with the man pages, even for -devel release (I love the Rasterman but sometime E is thin on the documentation..) and people who find old HOWTO's need to contact the maintainers and give suggestions. I my self am trying to re-edit the NIS-HOWTO for organization and clarity, the info is in there, but some times the langauge is funky. If you find something wrong in the kernel and fix it, don't you send the patch off to the module maintainer, Allen or Linus?
Allowing HOWTO's to be viewed as "leased" I think is the right way to go, however it involves all of our work. Think about it: in the time it took me to write this post, I could of edited a paragrapgh of the NIS-HOWTO, make all the world a happier and easier to authenticate place:)
Slashdot Mirror
We don't know he doesn't use a CASE system. The OP mentioned that his process is:
- go to client site
- lern workflow, take notes on it
- at end of day, go back to hotel and push things into a format for developers (which may or may be CASE/ UML)
The OP, I think, is really asking something along the lines of "I get tons of info thrown at me by non technical people and need to feed it into some other system to make my programmers happy. Who knows a way of accepting tons of semi-structured, possibly random, and always interrelated data so it can be rearragned and cut up into bite size pieces for some other formalized system without making my eyes bleed?"
I think the two best suggestions here have been:
- Wiki (perhaps not only for you, but for the end client as well, so they can see exactly what you're taking back to your programmers and fix mistakes and add details before it goes out)
- Treenode.. never heard of it, but sounds useful.
One thing that has not come up yet is what you do with your client before you show up at their site. If you're getting *that* much info per-client I betcha that you could come up with a standardized set of questions for them to answer before you even step on a plane. That should reduce your onsite workload and allow you to better grasp their workflow while onsite.
Maybe you already do this...
http://www.space.com/shuttlemissions/
http://www.msnbc.com/news/857733.asp?0cv=CA00
And apple has already changed their homepage.. How long till our President blames this on a certian Middle Eastern country? My thoughts go to NASA and the families of the crew.
Kevin Smith named his daughter Harley Quinn.. After The Joker's sidekick, not the motorcycle.
Geeky Enough for ya?
Not really. I work in a similar (but non NT thnak god) environment. Students loose track of the forest for the trees. They think that "knowing Maya" will get them a job, but they end up learing what buttons to push and how to model and not how to animate, whihc in the end makes them less marketable.
In the end you need a good mix of low end platforms where you concentrate on simple animation, modeling, texturing and lighting before you can stp up to physics, hair, particles, etc..the Good stuff that Maya offers.
Also, a lot of shops aren't going to be Maya based, it's fscking expensive for a full production license (even an edu license is pricey) You'll most probably see a mix of 3DSMax, Softimage, Lightwave and maybe one Maya staion so learning Maya just ain't all it's cracked up to be.
Worry about your feet sliding through the floor before worring about learning packages.
If you'd like it to be "just" and make a (really small) dent in the MSFT monopoly, make them donate 1.9 billion in Apple hardware and software to schools. Appleworks for everyone!
:)
I'd rather be Uncle Steve's drone than Bill Gates' , at least I'd have some style
Even better give it to the FSF and Apache groups and let *them* dole it out to Free Software projects. I bet Open Office would hit 1.0 PDQ if someone would throw $! Million at it for full time developers.
federal law dictates that if you ask "Please put me on your DO NOT CALL list" they cannot call you, and further calls will give you the ability to sue them.
Wow. Fun. Hardware enabled copy pretection. But that hardware can only do so much without the software hooks to look at adata. Would that mean that if linux did include hooks for the protection hardware and standard that it its self would be illeagal? Maybe. What about Apache, for slashcode (or phpslash :) would all software have to include hooks to verify all media (software, cd's images, movies, sounds, etc..)?
things like apache could concevably be considereded enabling technologies that enable piracy and copyright infringment.. How far would it go? Where aould DMCA stop and this shit take over?
Grrr.. I don't want big brother in my computer or in my life. I pay my taxes and do my good deed a day, enough is fucking enough, I consider this harassment by the U.S Govermnent and should this law go into effect, I will be seeking Political Asylum in another country.
--- ORIGINAL
:)
Update: 02/14 02:44 PM by CT: I just wanted to insert my 2 bits into this story. This is a problem close to my heart: I hate getting tech support for PHPSlash. I don't care that it exists, in fact, I'm happy that it does, it fills a need and a lot of people like it.
---
I'm the maintainer of phpSlash. Sorry that you get support questions, if you care to please send them my way to nhruby@arches.uga.edu, direct them to our list: phpslash-users@lists.sourceforge.net ot to the website at http://www.phpslash.org.
As for you resoning about trademarks, you are being a bit idealistic
-n
Side Note: RedHat's mailing lists have *always* sucked. I did just get a note a week or so ago that they'll be moving all their lists to mailman RSN. Hopefully, that'll fix their poor archiving problems (among otehr things)
As someone who has used FiLMBOX on NT before, lemme tell ya.. WOOHOO!!!!! For as much as they claim that the deformation engine is threaded nad should be scaled over multiple processors, the looking I did revealed very little of that.. Though of course its hard to parallelize a deformation that's based on linear time data from a MoCap source. The point is that NT just didn't like FiLMBOX at all (BSOD's, driver crashes, odd OGL glitches) I blame part of it on the threading, part of it on NT and part of it on FiLMBOX.. Now that's it's ported to linux I have more control over the non-kaydera stuff and that makes me happy. Now, all I need is for them to support PVM and get large Beowulf with Myrinet interconnects...(Sorry.. It had to be said)
Whoops! Try this:
http://phplib.netuse.de/download
Let's hope to start seeing more 3d modelers and animation packages on linux. Hell even lightwave6 would be nice but I'd love to see SoftImage (which won't happen, it's a microsoft-owned comapany) or Maya. [Houdini is already there, but this should help them out ALOT!!!]
Well, considering how people were mentioning wanting a php-based slashdot earlier I guess I should plug phpslash Seeing as I work on it and all:)
It's not slash0.9, (based on slash0.2 with improvments) but it's in php and in resonable development with plans to add all the current slashdot goodies.
Don't forget the several thousand a year service fee. Also sfx has a student pricing policy, at about a grand a year and you give sfx some animation. Not a bad deal --Houdini is well worth it, glad to see it ported. Now all we need is harware accelerated OGL in the Xservers (C'mon XFree86 4!!)
I have to agree with Matt here (and in general through this discussion), the LDP may not be the most up-to-date place to get documentation, but it is STILL the first place I look- the orgaization is clear, the info is always what I need, in the format that I need it and in a place that I can find easily.
:)
Many of the HOWTO's have been invaulable to me in getting sub-system X up and running in less than an hour. Yes, some of the Documentation is old, however some of it does not need updating as frequently (the Proxy-ARP-HOWTO for example). The ip-chains HOWTO or video4linux-HOWTO (if there is one) would be something that could use updating a bit more frequently.
The point is if people want documentation that is current and up to date we all have to strive to do that, package maintainers should keep up with the man pages, even for -devel release (I love the Rasterman but sometime E is thin on the documentation..) and people who find old HOWTO's need to contact the maintainers and give suggestions. I my self am trying to re-edit the NIS-HOWTO for organization and clarity, the info is in there, but some times the langauge is funky. If you find something wrong in the kernel and fix it, don't you send the patch off to the module maintainer, Allen or Linus?
Allowing HOWTO's to be viewed as "leased" I think is the right way to go, however it involves all of our work. Think about it: in the time it took me to write this post, I could of edited a paragrapgh of the NIS-HOWTO, make all the world a happier and easier to authenticate place