I worked with Wal*Mart for about a year
on
Inside Wal-Mart IT
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I will say this. Yes, they pay low wages. Yes its a burn out. IT for retail, is *generally* very high stress for penny-pinching companys. I would rather have that stress working for a dominant company than say for K-mart. But yes they have a great can-do, really make it work attitude and if you implement something for wal*mart and it works, it will probably work anywhere. I know several folks whose careers were made at wal*mart. Almost any competitor will gladly snap you up with a big, big raise if you have made your credentials in wal*mart IT. Oh yeah, and did anyone mention how nasty wal*mart can be if they find out you plan to leave them? (* if you quit and you are useful they figure you are going to a competitor *eventually* So therefore you are a "traitor" *) Most folks who quit try to leave as quietly as possible. Its the only place I ever worked where I saw that sort of behavior.
I am pretty sure that a company I used to work for, NCR, is one of the six. They build and sell really big MPP database servers. They need an extremely reliable and _trusted_ OS to run on these servers (which run in a loosely coupled configuration -- remember MTBF is the product of the MTBF of all the parts) and they don't want to support their own flavor of *nix just for their own niche product. In their particular market, telling customers that they run these special, expensive, multi-terabyte databases on linux is not gonna cut it. Solaris for x86 is just the ticket for them. I believe that they have customers running solaris 8 for x86 so SUN's decision to back away from this OS really puts NCR (and potentially their customers) in a bind.
http://mozilla.org/xpapps/MachVPlan/MachV_NavPlan. html
Thank god they are fixing the lame-ass bookmark organizer.
A better anology is to building a condominium
on
Software Aesthetics
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· Score: 1
Building a dwelling is much more like your average software project.
1) It has multiple subsystems. In a house, there is the roof, the walls, the electricity, ventilation, plumbing, the foundation etc. In most decent sized projects well, there are also many subsystems (database I/O, display widgets, parser, interpreter etc).
2) Some subsystems are more critical than other subsystems. Most people are much more critical about the structural integrity of the house and then probably the plumbing/electrical, than they are about, say ventilation, or nicely placed windows.
3) Look at the life cycle of most condominiums to see what "good enough" construction and design looks like. "Good enough" in condo construction means that the owners don't sue for about eight years (long enough for the original builder to duck financial liability;)
1) it purports to being a system which the students can't crack. This seems like a good thing.
2) it purports to being cheap. This seems like a good thing.
3) But.... what software will it run? Your average third grader has about zero use for Star Office running in the basic Linux Distro. On the other hand there is tons of commercial quality educational software out there for windows and mac.
4) Who is going to support this in the long run?
"Here you go Mr/Mrs school board member, your very own highly reliable linux network and its free! BTW you need to hire/train a full time professional to very efficiently run this network since it uses a new technology. It only took you 15 years to get the hang of running your own PCs, so you might want to hurry up and start reworking your processes to deal with this new system."
Hmmmmm....
Slashdot Mirror
I will say this. Yes, they pay low wages. Yes its a burn out. IT for retail, is *generally* very high stress for penny-pinching companys. I would rather have that stress working for a dominant company than say for K-mart.
But yes they have a great can-do, really make it work attitude and if you implement something for wal*mart and it works, it will probably work anywhere. I know several folks whose careers were made at wal*mart. Almost any competitor will gladly snap you up with a big, big raise if you have made your credentials in wal*mart IT.
Oh yeah, and did anyone mention how nasty wal*mart can be if they find out you plan to leave them? (* if you quit and you are useful they figure you are going to a competitor *eventually* So therefore you are a "traitor" *) Most folks who quit try to leave as quietly as possible. Its the only place I ever worked where I saw that sort of behavior.
I am pretty sure that a company I used to work for, NCR, is one of the six. They build and sell really big MPP database servers. They need an extremely reliable and _trusted_ OS to run on these servers (which run in a loosely coupled configuration -- remember MTBF is the product of the MTBF of all the parts) and they don't want to support their own flavor of *nix just for their own niche product. In their particular market, telling customers that they run these special, expensive, multi-terabyte databases on linux is not gonna cut it. Solaris for x86 is just the ticket for them. I believe that they have customers running solaris 8 for x86 so SUN's decision to back away from this OS really puts NCR (and potentially their customers) in a bind.
http://mozilla.org/xpapps/MachVPlan/MachV_NavPlan. html
Thank god they are fixing the lame-ass bookmark organizer.
Building a dwelling is much more like your average software project. ;)
1) It has multiple subsystems. In a house, there is the roof, the walls, the electricity, ventilation, plumbing, the foundation etc. In most decent sized projects well, there are also many subsystems (database I/O, display widgets, parser, interpreter etc).
2) Some subsystems are more critical than other subsystems. Most people are much more critical about the structural integrity of the house and then probably the plumbing/electrical, than they are about, say ventilation, or nicely placed windows.
3) Look at the life cycle of most condominiums to see what "good enough" construction and design looks like. "Good enough" in condo construction means that the owners don't sue for about eight years (long enough for the original builder to duck financial liability
PS, somebody mod this up.
As part of the 0.000001% of your audience that can follow most of what you said. Thanks.
1) it purports to being a system which the students can't crack. This seems like a good thing.
2) it purports to being cheap. This seems like a good thing.
3) But.... what software will it run? Your average third grader has about zero use for Star Office running in the basic Linux Distro. On the other hand there is tons of commercial quality educational software out there for windows and mac.
4) Who is going to support this in the long run?
"Here you go Mr/Mrs school board member, your very own highly reliable linux network and its free! BTW you need to hire/train a full time professional to very efficiently run this network since it uses a new technology. It only took you 15 years to get the hang of running your own PCs, so you might want to hurry up and start reworking your processes to deal with this new system."
Hmmmmm....