- The user interface is the worst of any software product I've ever used, and I'm not exaggerating.
- The user documentation is even worse
- I'm told the developer documentation is worser still, esp. if you don't speak German.
- COBOL is so fucking awesome.
- It costs a leg, an arm, your first born and your left nuts. Oh and your soul.
- I have seen worse UIs - a proprietary X11 interface for one. - the variable names are mostly in German, but once you have programmed in it, you learn what they are - very consistent usage within and across modules. There is English documentation provided by SAP. - SAP is NOT written in COBOL. As someone else stated, it is C kernel with ABAP for the business language. - it is expensive, but it is cheaper now than it was 5 years ago. Most of the cost is in paying people to do the implementation, and then support contracts. Much like every other enterprise software.
Many SAP projects go over budget. It is a large complicated piece of software - which many do not understand. Like any vendor, the ease of installation is over sold by SAP and confirmed by implementors wanting the work.
The biggest issue that any implementation has is under estimating how much the business process will change.
I worked on a few implementations, the biggest failure was also a success. The system did exactly what the company wanted. However, the company did not understand it's own business and thus asked for the wrong features. Once implemented the company's operations came to a stand still as they could not follow the business process as implemented and was eventually bought by their biggest competitor.
I no-longer work with SAP, but I think it is a great product - just be sure you understand what your business process is and how that process will change once implemented in SAP. Rushing a project and taking shortcuts is a surefire way to end up with a failed project. Oh, and any project that lasts as many years of this, will have had 300% turnover of the implementation staff, so plenty of time will have been lost rolling consultants on/off the project.
What are the reason for a stronger dollar? If these are all good reasons, why hasn't the US government tried to weaken the dollar years ago? I think, in general, having a stronger currency is better than a weaker one.
I'm guessing they aren't wanting to pay enough? I mean, I'll go anywhere for the right price...but, it would have to be a LOT of $$$'s offered to make me move to NYC and work.
What is enough? These companies are paying market rates. Check Dice ~80K-140K. There are plenty of applicants, they just don't seem to be able to understand basic problem solving. Maybe the money is not enough, but what would be enough?
The North East has a shortage of qualified people too. Many companies in New York are spending months trying to find people that have the basic understanding to be good programmers. Smaller companies have it harder, since they can not afford to pay for the qualified, and can't make the mistakes of hiring idiots. Larger companies can afford to hire a few idiots.
These same companies are having a hard time keeping good people, since the competition across the street will pay more.
I would agree with this. If your professor doesn't know the language, you will not learn anything useful. I could go on, but I won't (have to protect the innocent).
After 8 years of Java, they should be able to explain what a checked/unchecked exception is. How about what an interface is? Abstract classes? Never mind trying to get them to write code to reverse and array of characters.
I wish they were smart enough to get to some theory. We just want people to fix and build our code. It is not rocket science.
The only downer is that JVM releases typically lag Sun by 4 - 6 months, but that's acceptable in my mind; it takes that long to shake the "D'oh!" bugs out of a VM anyway.
Being 4-6 months behind is not bad at all. We won't be moving from 1.3.1 for a few years. Not until IBM ugrades WebSphere.
Apple supporting Mac OS X on Intel hardware would be bad for business. I am planning to replace all my Intel hardware with Mac hardware. The reason? I want OS X. If they ported it to Intel I would have no reason to switch. I personally feel that Apple's market share will increase as people like me buy more Mac hardarw to get access to the best operating system there is.
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- The user interface is the worst of any software product I've ever used, and I'm not exaggerating.
- The user documentation is even worse
- I'm told the developer documentation is worser still, esp. if you don't speak German.
- COBOL is so fucking awesome.
- It costs a leg, an arm, your first born and your left nuts. Oh and your soul.
- I have seen worse UIs - a proprietary X11 interface for one.
- the variable names are mostly in German, but once you have programmed in it, you learn what they are - very consistent usage within and across modules. There is English documentation provided by SAP.
- SAP is NOT written in COBOL. As someone else stated, it is C kernel with ABAP for the business language.
- it is expensive, but it is cheaper now than it was 5 years ago. Most of the cost is in paying people to do the implementation, and then support contracts. Much like every other enterprise software.
Many SAP projects go over budget. It is a large complicated piece of software - which many do not understand. Like any vendor, the ease of installation is over sold by SAP and confirmed by implementors wanting the work.
The biggest issue that any implementation has is under estimating how much the business process will change.
I worked on a few implementations, the biggest failure was also a success. The system did exactly what the company wanted. However, the company did not understand it's own business and thus asked for the wrong features. Once implemented the company's operations came to a stand still as they could not follow the business process as implemented and was eventually bought by their biggest competitor.
I no-longer work with SAP, but I think it is a great product - just be sure you understand what your business process is and how that process will change once implemented in SAP. Rushing a project and taking shortcuts is a surefire way to end up with a failed project. Oh, and any project that lasts as many years of this, will have had 300% turnover of the implementation staff, so plenty of time will have been lost rolling consultants on/off the project.
Sorry, but this is the first I heard of an App store from Red Hat. What kind of software can you get there?
There is R http://www.r-project.org/ as a free alternative.
What are the reason for a stronger dollar? If these are all good reasons, why hasn't the US government tried to weaken the dollar years ago? I think, in general, having a stronger currency is better than a weaker one.
I'm guessing they aren't wanting to pay enough? I mean, I'll go anywhere for the right price...but, it would have to be a LOT of $$$'s offered to make me move to NYC and work.
What is enough? These companies are paying market rates. Check Dice ~80K-140K. There are plenty of applicants, they just don't seem to be able to understand basic problem solving. Maybe the money is not enough, but what would be enough?
The North East has a shortage of qualified people too. Many companies in New York are spending months trying to find people that have the basic understanding to be good programmers. Smaller companies have it harder, since they can not afford to pay for the qualified, and can't make the mistakes of hiring idiots. Larger companies can afford to hire a few idiots.
These same companies are having a hard time keeping good people, since the competition across the street will pay more.
The key to all this is 'good' people.
I hope they enable USB 2.0 booting. I like being able to startup from an external drive.
I would agree with this. If your professor doesn't know the language, you will not learn anything useful. I could go on, but I won't (have to protect the innocent).
After 8 years of Java, they should be able to explain what a checked/unchecked exception is. How about what an interface is? Abstract classes? Never mind trying to get them to write code to reverse and array of characters.
I wish they were smart enough to get to some theory. We just want people to fix and build our code. It is not rocket science.
Do you mean Darwin 8? The only reason Darwin 8 will not work on 32 bit athlons is they do not support SSE2. Athlon 64s do.
Oracle wins either way. Since most SAP installations run oracle databases, choosing SAP over Oracle still puts money Oracle's pockets.
The only downer is that JVM releases typically lag Sun by 4 - 6 months, but that's acceptable in my mind; it takes that long to shake the "D'oh!" bugs out of a VM anyway.
Being 4-6 months behind is not bad at all. We won't be moving from 1.3.1 for a few years. Not until IBM ugrades WebSphere.
Apple supporting Mac OS X on Intel hardware would be bad for business. I am planning to replace all my Intel hardware with Mac hardware. The reason? I want OS X. If they ported it to Intel I would have no reason to switch. I personally feel that Apple's market share will increase as people like me buy more Mac hardarw to get access to the best operating system there is.