The fudge factor, if my memory serves me, starts out as a guess based on the full set of COCOMO projects and then (and this is important) is tuned by comparing the estimates and actuals for the project. Each development group (or company) should have its own constant based on experience. COCOMO is mostly a good tool to estimate future effort based on analyzing past performance. If you use it other ways, your mileage will most certainly vary (sometimes a lot!)
As an old-timer with 30+ years experience I rather enjoy being current enough that 28 year olds ask *me* questions and seriously expect an answer. It is possible to stay up to date with technology and still work as an architect or a manager. It just requires that you spend a lot of time listening to the team members and a lot of time caring how the project and the people come out. If you do that, occasional fire-fights and crises will keep your technical skills up.
Eventually, becoming a manager may appeal to you as it finally did for me. Beware of stereotypes - they just limit what you can conceive of and ultimately what you can do.
I convert Gutenberg books for my Palm and read them that way. Very convenient - good literature - and FREE!!! Maybe if people start availing themselves of the good stuff written before 1920 the book companies will start to realize that the latest controversial topic doesn't sell any more... and then they will price the new stuff for what they're worth.
I agree! I installed Mandrake in a totally uneventful install and it worked perfectly the first time. You will have to pry my cold dead fingers away from my Mandrake distro because it works, it's painless, and it's friendly to a Unix-inexperienced user. Add to it the fact that I was able to summarily dismiss Bill's virus from the system and what else could anybody want!
If you have the source, you don't have to engage in reverse engineering or share unpublished information on the product. Again, Open Source will be the safe refuge for developers who don't want hassles!
1. Newspapers usually devote more than 30 seconds to important stories and the sound-bite from the TV broadcast occupies one or two lines from a 100-line column.
2. Newspapers generally stand as responsible for what they say and are genuinely embarrased when they mis-state the truth. Newsprint may be temporary but it is permanent enough to keep them honest.
3. If it is an important and controversial topic I tend to read the newspaper for the truth. Newspaper stories generally segregate fact from opinion with care and that makes them particularly valuable.
4. Newspapers keep editorials and content separate.
5. Reading the entire content of the TV news takes considerably less than 30 minutes -- particularly if you simply read the first paragraph of the story and go on as the TV news people usually do.
Writers try hard to cover stories using a vocabulary that an eighth grader can comprehend. That is not always easy and is particularly difficult when the topic is science or technology. -- Have you ever tried to explain what you do to an eighth grader with a good general education? I'll bet Linux is not a major topic in his life and news of computers is not particularly exciting.
As a group/. readers are considerably more educated than the general population; particularly in science and technology. To expect those topics to be dealt with in a newspaper and satisfy us is unreasonable. Sometimes I suspect that newspapers stay away from topics they can't adequately explain since when they fail the truth is sacrificed.
I truly hope that newspapers succeed in getting their content onto the web and survive as a business. Should they fall silent the population will have lost their primary (IMHO) source of information.
Actually, I would like an electronic book that was downloadable from the net or a desktop. Only, this book would display free e-texts from Project Gutenberg, etc. and *optionally* also display the commercial stuff. While massive CPU power isn't required for the book, low power consumption certainly is.
We should look at the information we have to save before we decry the methods of saving it. Society's popular culture is preserved poorly if at all while "everything" worthwhile from all of civilization still fits in a few libraries. The filter of decay has served mankind well so far - sorting out that which somebody treasured enough to save from the vast ocean of lesser stuff. In this century the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered nicely preserved for over a millenium because somebody thought them worthwhile.
Stored properly, writable CD's last 100 years or more while each holds well in excess of an encyclopedia. The problem of preservation is considerably simplified as compared to paper. By 100 years paper documents are of limited utility and only scholars can access them. With digital media, copies are simple and cheap so anyone could have a copy if they wanted.
I think the challenge of the future will be one of sorting the trash; i.e. selecting moon landing data from a mountain of memos, reports, and minutae surrounding it. But, that would seem to have been the problem since history began.
For all of our ego, I think we might have only a few times more real value to save for posterity than did our counterparts at the turn of the century or in the '50s. People seem comfortable with what we saved in the past - why not admit that we are really not that much more advanced and that the real value of our lives and era can be summarized on a few (or a few thousand) CD's a year. Not enough to cause an information apocalypse or anything but a shelf in a library...
I have been happy with Hurricane Electric (he.net) but I have not put them through extreme demands, etc. But, for a cheap site with lots of functionality and good uptime, I've been happy.
How often have you been asked to do something stupid to preserve an unrealistic schedule? Did it help (rhetorical question)?
Well-implemented methdologies can control management by making them follow the same rules the programmers do. Management and business owner expectations are based on defined processes and nobody entertains the notion that the project can be started without a spec and a plan.
Poorly implemented methodologies are used to control programmers while managers continue to do their counter-productive thing. If that is the case then the wrong people are being controlled and the methodology will not do any good.
Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater - methodologies can be very worthwhile if they are implemented well and followed consistently.
Having personally been involved in managing y2k fixes I can say that the outcome would have been very serious had people not fixed what was wrong. No, the world would not have ended... No, Life as we know it was never in jeopardy... We all would have survived. And those who tried to make a fortune by scaring innocent people deserve whatever has befallen them.
But -- Incredible amounts of computer code was cataloged, examined, fixed, and streamlined. Embedded systems were replaced or repaired so people did not die in Intensive Care units of hospitals when critical equipment would have stopped working. To mankind's credit little was left to fail in 2000.
One could also argue that this was the first time project management was seriously applied on a large scale and now projects are managed better by experienced people.
Finally, lots of inefficient code has been or is scheduled for replacement and new systems are much more efficient. We would not have the explosive growth of Internet applications were it not for the large number of new systems in place which, by the way, replaced code that would have died in January 2000. The new systems supported interfaces and expansion that we are still implementing.
Maybe Y2K has taught people that code is valuable, that programmers are skilled and valuable, and that we need to clean up our act.
I have often seen methods used to reduce the effectiveness of brute force attacks such as error timeouts (e.g. delay 30 seconds if there is a failed attempt), error limits (disable the account for x hours or permanently after three, five, or ten failures), and possibly combining either of the above with a report to the user on successful login how many failed attempts have occured.
Any of the above methods would produce minimal user inconvenience while seemingly rendering brute force attacks ineffective.
Now, folks, what is the error in my reasoning? There must be a problem since I do not see any of the techniques widely used outside internal lan / system administration.
I wonder if those who want to terraform Mars have forgotten why Mars is in its current situation. Mars doesn't have the requisite gravity to hold liquid/gaseous water or any significant atmosphere. So, if we were to terraform Mars we would exhaust all of its water and atmospheric resources in a few hundred years leaving a dry stripped rock in our wake. I would hope our entry into colonizing the universe could be a little more considerate of our surroundings.
Maybe we could just colonize the planet using domes and other resource conservation techniques and have an outpost for a good long time.
I remember seeing that PHP has good support for file upload (RFC 1867) and that would be a simple substitute for FTP. Be aware, however, that early versions of Netscape only support uploads of 32K if memory serves me right.
Fortunately for all of us, a patent is only as good as its defense. If they can't defend lots of the alleged infringements in court then the patent loses its value over time and becomes essentially useless.
Slashdot Mirror
The fudge factor, if my memory serves me, starts out as a guess based on the full set of COCOMO projects and then (and this is important) is tuned by comparing the estimates and actuals for the project. Each development group (or company) should have its own constant based on experience. COCOMO is mostly a good tool to estimate future effort based on analyzing past performance. If you use it other ways, your mileage will most certainly vary (sometimes a lot!)
As an old-timer with 30+ years experience I rather enjoy being current enough that 28 year olds ask *me* questions and seriously expect an answer. It is possible to stay up to date with technology and still work as an architect or a manager. It just requires that you spend a lot of time listening to the team members and a lot of time caring how the project and the people come out. If you do that, occasional fire-fights and crises will keep your technical skills up.
Eventually, becoming a manager may appeal to you as it finally did for me. Beware of stereotypes - they just limit what you can conceive of and ultimately what you can do.
I convert Gutenberg books for my Palm and read them that way. Very convenient - good literature - and FREE!!! Maybe if people start availing themselves of the good stuff written before 1920 the book companies will start to realize that the latest controversial topic doesn't sell any more ... and then they will price the new stuff for what they're worth.
I agree! I installed Mandrake in a totally uneventful install and it worked perfectly the first time. You will have to pry my cold dead fingers away from my Mandrake distro because it works, it's painless, and it's friendly to a Unix-inexperienced user. Add to it the fact that I was able to summarily dismiss Bill's virus from the system and what else could anybody want!
If you have the source, you don't have to engage in reverse engineering or share unpublished information on the product. Again, Open Source will be the safe refuge for developers who don't want hassles!
1. Newspapers usually devote more than 30 seconds to important stories and the sound-bite from the TV broadcast occupies one or two lines from a 100-line column.
2. Newspapers generally stand as responsible for what they say and are genuinely embarrased when they mis-state the truth. Newsprint may be temporary but it is permanent enough to keep them honest.
3. If it is an important and controversial topic I tend to read the newspaper for the truth. Newspaper stories generally segregate fact from opinion with care and that makes them particularly valuable.
4. Newspapers keep editorials and content separate.
5. Reading the entire content of the TV news takes considerably less than 30 minutes -- particularly if you simply read the first paragraph of the story and go on as the TV news people usually do.
Writers try hard to cover stories using a vocabulary that an eighth grader can comprehend. That is not always easy and is particularly difficult when the topic is science or technology. -- Have you ever tried to explain what you do to an eighth grader with a good general education? I'll bet Linux is not a major topic in his life and news of computers is not particularly exciting.
As a group /. readers are considerably more educated than the general population; particularly in science and technology. To expect those topics to be dealt with in a newspaper and satisfy us is unreasonable. Sometimes I suspect that newspapers stay away from topics they can't adequately explain since when they fail the truth is sacrificed.
I truly hope that newspapers succeed in getting their content onto the web and survive as a business. Should they fall silent the population will have lost their primary (IMHO) source of information.
Actually, I would like an electronic book that was downloadable from the net or a desktop. Only, this book would display free e-texts from Project Gutenberg, etc. and *optionally* also display the commercial stuff. While massive CPU power isn't required for the book, low power consumption certainly is.
We should look at the information we have to save before we decry the methods of saving it. Society's popular culture is preserved poorly if at all while "everything" worthwhile from all of civilization still fits in a few libraries. The filter of decay has served mankind well so far - sorting out that which somebody treasured enough to save from the vast ocean of lesser stuff. In this century the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered nicely preserved for over a millenium because somebody thought them worthwhile.
Stored properly, writable CD's last 100 years or more while each holds well in excess of an encyclopedia. The problem of preservation is considerably simplified as compared to paper. By 100 years paper documents are of limited utility and only scholars can access them. With digital media, copies are simple and cheap so anyone could have a copy if they wanted.
I think the challenge of the future will be one of sorting the trash; i.e. selecting moon landing data from a mountain of memos, reports, and minutae surrounding it. But, that would seem to have been the problem since history began.
For all of our ego, I think we might have only a few times more real value to save for posterity than did our counterparts at the turn of the century or in the '50s. People seem comfortable with what we saved in the past - why not admit that we are really not that much more advanced and that the real value of our lives and era can be summarized on a few (or a few thousand) CD's a year. Not enough to cause an information apocalypse or anything but a shelf in a library...
I have been happy with Hurricane Electric (he.net) but I have not put them through extreme demands, etc. But, for a cheap site with lots of functionality and good uptime, I've been happy.
How often have you been asked to do something stupid to preserve an unrealistic schedule? Did it help (rhetorical question)?
Well-implemented methdologies can control management by making them follow the same rules the programmers do. Management and business owner expectations are based on defined processes and nobody entertains the notion that the project can be started without a spec and a plan.
Poorly implemented methodologies are used to control programmers while managers continue to do their counter-productive thing. If that is the case then the wrong people are being controlled and the methodology will not do any good.
Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater - methodologies can be very worthwhile if they are implemented well and followed consistently.
Having personally been involved in managing y2k fixes I can say that the outcome would have been very serious had people not fixed what was wrong. No, the world would not have ended ... No, Life as we know it was never in jeopardy ... We all would have survived. And those who tried to make a fortune by scaring innocent people deserve whatever has befallen them.
But -- Incredible amounts of computer code was cataloged, examined, fixed, and streamlined. Embedded systems were replaced or repaired so people did not die in Intensive Care units of hospitals when critical equipment would have stopped working. To mankind's credit little was left to fail in 2000.
One could also argue that this was the first time project management was seriously applied on a large scale and now projects are managed better by experienced people.
Finally, lots of inefficient code has been or is scheduled for replacement and new systems are much more efficient. We would not have the explosive growth of Internet applications were it not for the large number of new systems in place which, by the way, replaced code that would have died in January 2000. The new systems supported interfaces and expansion that we are still implementing.
Maybe Y2K has taught people that code is valuable, that programmers are skilled and valuable, and that we need to clean up our act.
I have often seen methods used to reduce the effectiveness of brute force attacks such as error timeouts (e.g. delay 30 seconds if there is a failed attempt), error limits (disable the account for x hours or permanently after three, five, or ten failures), and possibly combining either of the above with a report to the user on successful login how many failed attempts have occured.
Any of the above methods would produce minimal user inconvenience while seemingly rendering brute force attacks ineffective.
Now, folks, what is the error in my reasoning? There must be a problem since I do not see any of the techniques widely used outside internal lan / system administration.
I wonder if those who want to terraform Mars have forgotten why Mars is in its current situation. Mars doesn't have the requisite gravity to hold liquid/gaseous water or any significant atmosphere. So, if we were to terraform Mars we would exhaust all of its water and atmospheric resources in a few hundred years leaving a dry stripped rock in our wake. I would hope our entry into colonizing the universe could be a little more considerate of our surroundings.
Maybe we could just colonize the planet using domes and other resource conservation techniques and have an outpost for a good long time.
Just call me an interplanetary tree hugger!
I remember seeing that PHP has good support for file upload (RFC 1867) and that would be a simple substitute for FTP. Be aware, however, that early versions of Netscape only support uploads of 32K if memory serves me right.
Fortunately for all of us, a patent is only as good as its defense. If they can't defend lots of the alleged infringements in court then the patent loses its value over time and becomes essentially useless.