> Why are the technical people making bad management > decisions? Well, it seems to me that the cause > would be bad management leaving the decisions up > to them.
Absolutely.
The grandparent post was along the lines of "management should leave decision making to the technical people"; my post tried to highlight the dangers of doing this.
It's not as simple as management=bad, non-management=good; you need competent people doing these roles, and you find competency in both management and non-management staff.
> Well, I guess when management forces technical > people with no real managerial training or > experience to make managerial training, it is > all the fault of the technical person.
In *all* of the cases above, the problems were caused by technical people assuming too much authority off their own bat. It wasn't a case of management roles being forced onto these people; more a case of these people attempting to make decisions without understanding the consequences.
As above, these are management decisions that need to be made by *someone*; either they can be made by managers or non-managers, but in either case it's easy to get them wrong if you don't do your analysis and risk assessment properly.
Several times I've worked on projects where "the people doing the actual work" (i.e. techies) have been responsible for the ultimate failure; they've been given too much authority and made decisions that've ultimately sunk the project.
Examples: - "we know it'll scale to 10k users, once we take the time to optimise it. We'll do that later" (project ultimately scaled to ~100-200 users max) - "upgrading to the new version of tool XXX will let us solve lots of our problems straight away" (maybe so, but it added lots of new problems and dependency issues that blew the project out of the water) - "we'll redo the crappy UI later" (not after you've made loads of incorrect assumptions about workflow based on a UI that already you knew was wrong, you won't!) - "we've just attended a MS Web development seminar that told us our objects should be stateless, so that's what we'll do" (...to the point of having to verify e.g. user identity multiple times for each page loaded. This particular project brought down a country wide intranet when it was deployed, without prior testing because the developers thought "it wasn't necessary") - "Bob's got that problem under control. We don't need to worry about it" (...until Bob, the single gun Tandem guy, left the company and we were left with a totally undocumented Tandem interface that nobody understood in the slightest) - "that's OK; Microsoft are sending out a consultant to deal with that problem" (...sigh... Does no-one understand that the main job of a field MS consultant is to sell more software licences, not to fix problems?)
Every one of these issues was dealt with by a lead techo in the manner described above. Mgmt deferred to the lead techo in each case, and the projects suffered as a result.
Yep, I understand that you could call all these people "managers" rather than "techos", but each of these decisions was made on a supposedly well thought out technical basis. If these people are "management", then so are 90% of the people on Slashdot.
If we're going to characterise all management as PHBs, then why not also characterise all techos as: - making incorrect assumptions, then extrapolating endlessly without attempting to verify the original assumptions - assuming tools from Vendor X are golden (yep, I'm continually amazed how often this happens) - relying on vendor X to provide a solution to problems when they occur, and not investigating workarounds in a timely fashion - believing acceptable performance is always just a few code tweaks away - assuming they know more about usability than designated subject matter experts - endlessly reinvent wheels ("What? That object isn't a 100% fit for our problem? Better create a whole new one that works 1% differently and requires 1000 new lines of code to be maintained")
After 20+ years in the industry, I firmly believe that the best IT managers are those who have worked in multiple technical areas, as they can then see through the tech crap as well as the mgmt/project crap.
> Then iTunes comes along, and now we have access to > cheap, downloadable content. Has that stopped (or > even impacted) file sharing in any significant > way? Has that stopped people from STILL > complaining?
I think what happened is that the RIAA made such a fuss about prosecuting "pirates", nailing 12yo kids and grandmothers in the process, that they've built up a huge amount of bad feeling towards them. Worse, while doing that, the RIAA member companies (who exist to *market* product in a form that people want to buy it) apparently did nothing to try to service the digital music buying market at all; Napster et al stepped in to fill this hole, and got nailed out of existence by the RIAA who still didn't provide a viable alternative.
Bottom line: the RIAA had a chance to build and control the digital music distribution market while it was in its infancy and standards hadn't yet developed, and they totally blew it. In ESR-speak, it's already transitioned from a cathedral to a bazaar, and won't ever be going back.
At this point, even if record companies started releasing 1c songs with DRM protection, people would be cracking them (a) because they can, and (b) because they dislike the RIAA that much. For way beyond a critical mass of people, RIAA=bad.
It seems reasonable to me that, by hiring these guys, Google is going to build a competitor to MS Office that runs within a (Mozilla-based) browser.
Consider that XUL has a lot of the capabilities that let users get a good UI in browsers. Consider also that Google already has zillions of hefty servers dotted around. If they extended XUL as required and created e.g. GoogleWord, GoogleExcel and GooglePoint, users could create and store their docs in a secured, always-there backend similar to that used by Gmail. Imagine logging into Gmail and having all your documents stored with your email, labelled (as for Gmail messages) into one or more categories and searchable - I can see that being very attractive for many people.
Yep, there's obviously a few bits missing: - MS Office document compatibility (but is that such an issue if Google can change user's work habits such that people exchange pointers to GoogleOffice docs rather than the docs themselves? Maybe all they need is an MS Office import/export facility, which reads/writes docs in MS' published XML format from a server located in a country that is suitably patent-free...) - something to allow documents to be embedded within other documents (wonder what percentage of MS Office users actually use this) - XUL would need beefing up in terms of capability - 100 others...
Still, given Google's deep pockets, I don't see these issues as insurmountable. Given that (IMHO) 90% of MS Office users only ever use 10% of MS Office's functionality, a sort-of WordPad on steroids may be enough to get a critical mass of people to switch to using GoogleWord provided they solve other MS-Office-centric issues such as document management on PCs, viruses/spyware and so on.
When I bring new techos into a team, I want them to have the following tech background/skills: - strong communication skills. Very very important in any coding environment, and becoming moreso as outsourced development, Extreme Programming etc become mainstream. You'd better be able to talk to peers, superiors and underlings, or you're going to waste a lot of time and money. You don't have to be the best speaker in an interview, but you need to be able to sustain a technical discussion - significant real-life experience with BOTH a compiled (e.g. Java, C#, C++,...) and a scripting (e.g. Perl, Python, Ruby,...) language. It's surprising how often this comes up, but people who say something to the effect of "I use {C#, Java, C++} for everything and never need anything else" basically lose me there and then; that tells me either they're very inexperienced and/or very inefficient straight away. Or possibly Richard Stallman;-> - experience working in a team, on some sort of significant project. That could be a CS project at university; what I'm interested in is their perspective on how the roles and responsibilities within a team dynamic work, what they've learned from the experience and where their personal interests lie - expertise in a mix of CS areas. I realise that's tough when you're just finishing a CS degree, but in that case people who've done units outside of the standard Java/C# coding stream would gain extra points from me. A guy who presents as "All I want to be for the rest of my life is a coder" probably won't work out that well in my experience; it's the guy who's prepared to take other stuff on that will tend to get ahead - a life outside of IT; family, hobbies, whatever. If you've got that, that generally means you've got fair to good time management skills in order to get your degree while keeping other balls in the air, and those skills will be called upon in most technical roles
> if your application needs to be platform > independent, J2EE is the obvious choice. If you > want the easiest and most productive development > environment, stick with.NET.
I'd agree with that, with the caveat that I don't have quite the same level of expertise with J2EE that I do with.NET.
On the other hand, surely you're considering making some/most/all of your apps browser-based. If so, why not go with the following approach: - build back-end with J2EE or.NET (your preference; generally most places won't care which you use for back end systems, as they'll have experience supporting each these days) - expose all your functionality via Web services - build your UI stuff in XUL so it can be driven by any Mozilla-based browser
Why use XUL? The following reasons: - Mozilla browsers run on just about any platform, so your client-side portability issues disappear - no client deployment. Particularly important if you face having to make customer-specific changes to your UI - powerful user interface; most of the useful UI widgets are in XUL, so you can build an interface that users will like - Firefox is taking a sizeable chunk out of IE's market on Windows, and is now getting recommendations from the sources that IT decision makers tend to respect - it's easy to code test cases that require user interaction in XUL, so a lot of your initial testing can be done while you build up XUL expertise - there's no real lock in; if your customer absolutely requires that a Mozilla browser can't be installed, the effort involved in putting together an identical user interface that works client-server (using e.g. VB.NET or Delphi) is very low once you've got a solid working GUI up and going in XUL. To be honest, that goes for just about any application; migrating your GUI from one toolset to another is very fast, *except* when you have to migrate to a regular HTML GUI such as IE
Downsides of XUL - no really good IDE at present. There's a few good looking works in progress, but that's about it. An IDE along the lines of VS.NET or Delphi for XUL would be a huge step forward at this point - documentation exists and is quite comprehensive, but high quality tutorial-level stuff in particular can be tough to find. Plenty of good reference material though; either online or in books
> You don't, as a consumer, have a "right" to a > refund.
That's true; maybe I should've spelled my point out a bit clearer.
You have a right to expect a purchased product is "fit for purpose" in every Western country I can think of. That applies to any product you can name, and will override any business-specific statements to the contrary. If you buy software, take it home, open the box, start installing it and find it's not "fit for purpose" because of some EULA restriction that you didn't know about beforehand, then you have a right to return it for a refund on that basis.
There's no way that a reasonable court could believe that you had bought the product knowing before you purchased that it wasn't fit for purpose (i.e. you knew the EULA), given that EULAs run to 1000s of lines of legalese and change regularly and without notice.
That might be fine for you and I, but my mum doesn't want to be told "go read the EULA on this Web site" before she buys a copy of MS Word. Is the sales rep going to bring up the site for her on another PC and wait for 30 minutes while she wades through the wording? Is she going to be expected to go home, get onto the Internet, read the agreement, then come back to the store and buy the software? Will the sales rep be expected to answer questions about the EULA, because he's sure as hell going to be asked questions by people who don't understand what they're reading?
I'd guess that this way of presenting legal info is probably also insufficient for it to be binding. Hopefully it'll be tested in court soon...
I live in a Wal-Mart-free country, but what's the issue here? Returning unsuitable merchandise is OK just about everywhere, and any store pretending otherwise hasn't got a legal leg to stand on. They can put up all the in-store signs they like, but that doesn't override my right to a refund.
I return opened-but-not-installed software after refusing to accept the EULA terms, and some spotty Wal-Mart checkout person refuses to give me a refund. I then call his supervisor, and continue until I either get someone who says "OK" or I've spoken to the most senior Wal-Mart person in the store. If I don't get the OK, I get my lawyer and we take it from there.
Yep, I'll be potentially taking on the combined legal might of Wal-Mart, so maybe I should be very very scared. However, in such a clear cut case against such a big corporation, I'd have no trouble finding legal representation that'd be happy to work on a pro bono basis - think of all those class actions against huge tobacco and asbestos companies over the years.
Downsides for me, assuming it goes down this path: - have to search through phone book for legal rep - pain of dealing with legal people in general - time, stress and general mental wear and tear (all claimable as damages *when* I win) - loss of access to my refundable money while it all gets cleared up
Downsides for Wal-Mart, assuming it goes down this path: - bad PR (and any legal person working on this on a pro-bono basis would be doing handstands to get this case on TV and in print media. "Big bad corp versus downtrodden individual" still makes press headlines...) - loss of availability of its people while they're tied up with legal stuff - possibility of a class action suit emerging - possibility of more serious charges (racketeering?) being brought after they go down this path beyond a certain point - possibility of consumer-protection government agency intervention (e.g. ACCC in Australia)
With Wal-Mart presumably being staffed by non-drones at some level of seniority, I'd have to think they'd work out that just giving me the refund I've requested in a timely fashion would be much less painful for them.
...says that EULAs should have to be signed prior to the forking over of the loot. I pick up a box containing software, walk to the shop counter, pay my money and from that point on the software is mine to use as I wish (save for the protections granted by copyright to the seller, and various "fair business" obligations that serve to protect the buyer).
If there's some legalese that I'm supposed to agree to before installing and using the software, then it should be presented to me before I hand over the money.
Intellectual property isn't THAT much different to real property: when I buy a washing machine, I don't take it home, plug it in and then find out that it's illegal to use it to wash blue clothes...
> Even lowly users with no programming expierience > can organise their files into a simple database > and play around with them. I've known plenty of > quite large companies that still use Access as > their main database.
I've known plenty of quite large companies that have completely banned Access because of those same users with no programming experience.
They've been burned by having Joe Marketing create a personal contact tracking app in Access in his spare time, then show it to his mates. Pretty soon it's been filled with every contact for the company, and is an absolutely vital piece of corporate infrastructure that still lives on Joe's PC. Then something goes wrong - Joe's PC gets upgraded/replaced, Joe gets promoted or leaves, Joe gets the new version of Office loaded and his wonky app doesn't work any more, someone tries to move the app onto a server and it all falls over, someone tries to upgrade it to SQL Server to support more users and Joe's code doesn't allow that, etc.
A big effort is expended by IT people who have to wade through Joe's illiterate and/or download/cut/paste coding style, to save data that should've been in Act! in the first place. Good thing Joe saved $50 by not buying the Act! application in the first place...
Many MANY places have been burned by this sort of crap over and over, so they've banned Access outright from the workplace.
Got the same problem here...
on
Metered HTTP Proxy?
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
My requirements: - need to be able to limit each daughter to e.g. 1Gb of traffic. Once they hit that, bzzt, no more Internet access till next month. After that, they can either experience the joys of 28kb/s downloading or grovel at someone's feet to let them browse under another login id - each daughter needs to be able to check how much Internet "allowance" she has left - need to be able to limit use to a specific period of the day. With holidays coming up, I don't want them to be sitting in their rooms all day chatting... Ideally, I'd be able to block out individual sites (e.g. MSN) while leaving other stuff untouched - need to be able to block out the most noxious sites. For some reason, teenage girls can't seem to resist downloading crapware if it calls itself "PicOfGoodCharlotte.exe" or something similar...
Yep, I'm aware that I could set up something that does most/all of this, but frankly there's not enough hours in the day at present to do so.
No, I do know about the original intended use of BitTorrent, and that it was created so stuff like Linux distros could be distributed.
That's my point - unlike Napster, Kazaa, etc., BitTorrent was created to service a legitimate, useful and ongoing need that isn't about to go away. As others have said, many P2P solutions have sprung up to fill an unsatisfied need for music (and now movie) distribution - the music industry failed to meet that market early enough, and now has to find a way of competing with "free" and high quality music.
If Kazaa et al get squished legally, another 5 solutions will spring up, and they won't have the legal exposure/s that Kazaa had that caused their demise. The next step will be for RIAA companies to change legislation to try to block that next set of P2P apps, and so on it goes until someone invents a way using e.g. FreeNet to provide P2P services. At that point, it'd be game over - untraceable files, stored in fragments with strong encryption across multiple unknown servers, and nobody can know which piece of file is stored on their own server. How do you legislate *that* out of existence?
The music industry has more chance in trying to sell music over the Internet themselves, and bundling it with other services e.g. free concert tickets, or whatever. There is no way people will switch back to paying big bucks for music on CD, now that they've tasted it for free; the only possible way the RIAA can ultimately win is to sweeten the pot by bundling something with CDs that can't be freely duplicated, and concert tickets is one option that springs to mind.
of Bittorrent (e.g. downloading Linux distros), the RIAA and MPAA have no legal way of killing it off. Bittorrent is outstandingly useful for downloading all sorts of large files, and not all large files are copy-disallowed material.
As the article said, the genii is now out of the bottle, and there's no way it can be captured and contained again.
> You aren't certain that this $600 in revenue would > have ever made it to the game makers. It's > probably not right to call it lost revenue.... > I hope they do some hard time in a federal > pound-me-in-the-ass prison
From your comments, it seems that you feel these guys should do hard time for copyright violations amounting to a thousand dollars or so.
Boy, if and when my $20k car gets stolen, I hope you're on the jury that sentences those bad guys. I just pray the prison system has brought back torture at that point, as they'll obviously deserve it and it'd be a shame to have them get off with only a lousy 50 years or so in jail.
I suspect the real issue here is e.g. putting PCs with Internet access into kids' rooms, as distinct from PCs without Internet access.
This is an issue I'm struggling with now. With 8 computers in the house (including one Linux firewall), do I put a PC in each of the 3 kids' bedrooms? At this moment, I'm inclined to install e.g. Mepis and restrict Internet access to e.g. 7pm-8pm each day on bedroom PCs; that should remove the possibility of endless hours of pointless IM and downloading WM* files, while still letting them get homework done and talk to their friends for a bit each night. If there's some exceptional circumstance, then Mum or I can invoke the "Internet access extension" clause in our contracts...
Still struggling to work out if this is a good approach or not, amidst the other obvious (e.g. no access, or unrestricted access) and not-so-obvious options. I'd be interested in any other suggestions.
I think you're being a bit tough on the guy - he's just asking for recommendations, not to be led by the hand through a full implementation.
The useful responses to date have been along the lines of "Check out product X from vendor Y. It's cool because...". The original asker is still going to have to do his due diligence, but at least he's got a few leads now.
If "Ask Slashdot" isn't for this sort of question, I'm struggling to see what it WOULD be for.
...note that this type of work may become illegal if the EU embraces software patents.
As you're in the one region of the world that seems to not be bowing down to corporate interests at every opportunity, please do what you can to ensure it doesn't happen.
I *want* to watch video on my Linux box; I don't want to have to buy MS product just so my kids can watch movies that we've paid for.
> And if John Q Jackass has his vendetta, he'll wind > up spending more time behind bars than the PC > store for slander, possible perjury, whatever the > formal charge is for inciting a malicious > prosecution, etc.
I realise this is a totally hypothetical example, but what law has he broken?
JQJ says "Vendor X sold me a PC with dodgy Windows on it" to Microsoft (note: not someone with any legal authority to act in this matter).
MS gives JQJ a shiny new Windows, which JQJ then dutifully installs on the PC.
MS then confronts X with a "Please explain" email or visit from BSA or whatever. All X has to do is say "I didn't do anything wrong", produce some sort of supporting paperwork and that's game over.
If MS goes back to JQJ and says "You've been telling porkies", JQJ can say "This PC had the bogus version of Windows on it since I bought it. Now I've installed the shiny new version you gave me". How is MS (note: without any legal powers) to decide which of X and JQJ is telling the truth?
MS isn't about to visit every JQJ out there and examine the InstallDate registry entry to find out when Windows was installed on that particular PC. MS and/or the BSA can jump up and down and try to get local law enforcement involved, but any evidence that did exist would be well and truly gone by then.
Sorry Sprotch, not romanced at all. That's exactly what happened (well, the parts that were visible to me, that is).
Do you honestly think that no-one here would have a similar story? Nobody ever dies through overwork? Falls asleep in the car driving home at 3am, or gets pissed and jumps off a bridge?
The local crack dealer has a similar scheme going; they'll give you product for free, on the basis that you'll get hooked and wind up funding his lifestyle later on.
Unfortunately, his goons are puny compared to those of the BSA and WIPO; all Lefty, Knuckles and Rocko can threaten is violence and weapons, not generations of indentured servitude.
A few years ago, I worked as a contractor for a certain large company. This company is notorious for driving people too hard, so I had reservations about working there.
When my contract was handed to me for signing, the default "max 8 hrs x 5 days per week" clause had been removed. I asked about that, as that clause generally serves as protection for both my customer (they don't get slugged for huge dollars and can plan their cash flow accordingly) and me (I get to see my family). The company replied that it was normal practice for them to remove any such clauses.
A few weeks in, and most of the people around me were working 18 hour days regularly (I started right around crunch time). I made a policy decision as follows: - I'd work up to 14 hours a day - once I'd worked 60 hours a week, I'd go home
Remember I was a contractor; I didn't feel any personal or professional commitment towards a management group that had put into place these sorts of work practices, and it was quite obvious to anyone working there that the long hours being worked were leading to mistakes that led to additional hours being worked to fix them.
Anyway, as expected, I got confronted pretty quickly about my perceived slacking off. My response was that I hadn't signed up for a lifestyle change; I was after income, pure and simple. Being close to Xmas, I was quite happy to work a few extra hours, pocket some extra cash and thus fund a nicer holiday, but that was the extent of the sacrifice I was prepared to make for the cause.
I pretty much had them over a barrel at that point; there was no time to train someone to replace me, and I'd made it abundantly clear what my motivations were and that they were essentially non-negotiable.
My personal lack of commitment was discussed in front of the rest of my workmates, by my boss, at the next team meeting. I took it on myself to respond, outlining my reasons for working as I did and that I didn't regard limiting myself to 60 hour weeks as being a lack of commitment - I said I thought it showed a lack of planning, and left it at that. When I finished, you could have heard a pin drop...
A few days prior to Xmas, my boss didn't turn up. This was strange, given that he worked huge hours himself, but not unexpected since pretty much everyone was quite ill at that point due to tiredness and shared (airborne) diseases. When he didn't turn up the next few days either, someone called his house and there was no answer. Eventually a relative of his went to his house and found he'd hung himself in the bedroom.
I've got no doubt at all that his death was 90%+ due to overwork, possibly exacerbated by my taking a somewhat defiant stance in public several days earlier. He'd lived alone and worked huge hours for the past several years, so there was no real possibility for other issues to have caused his suicide.
After a few months' thought, and subsequent discussions with my fellow workmates at that place, I decided that what had happened had been pretty grim but ultimately good things had come out of it. Work practices in that particular group had changed quite dramatically in the following few months; the new boss had put caps on the number of hours worked each day and each week, and re-introduced paid overtime for full time employees. Although several people had left (the turnover in that group ran close to 80% per year), those that were still there were now working in a way they felt was personally and professionally sustainable.
Having several of them call me up to thank me for taking a stance in a very awkward environment certainly helped me personally, although my "stance" was totally selfish.
Since then, I simply refuse to work in "death march" situations. I find the whole idea totally absurd; the end result is that a crappier product is shipped slightly sooner, but people's lives are affected too much for the trade-off to be worthwhile. I've seen two deaths (one described above), several bitter divorces, people leaving the industry, middle-of-the-office screaming matches,... - life's just too short for this sort of rubbish, and IMHO anyone who thinks it's appropriate really needs to adjust their thinking.
> Do you have any suggestions of alternative profit > models for web sites?
Paid subscription?
Seriously, thanks to the Internet I've now exceeded the number of advertisements I'm prepared to view in my lifetime. I now block them on *any* site that I'm likely to visit more than once or twice. Advertisements stopped having any positive effect on me many years ago, and some are now so obtrusive (i.e. personally offensive) that I not only block them - I actively avoid buying those products.
Be honest - how many times have you seen an ad for e.g. some new model car, and decided "You know, I was just in the market for a car today. Good thing this ad appeared as now I know what to buy and where to go to buy one. And, what the hell, I'm not gonna buy the family wagon we really need; I'm gonna buy one of these fancy BMW sports cars because of the cool lifestyle aspects shown in the ad"? If what they're really trying to do with that ad is not sell me a car, but give me "brand awareness", then thanks - I'm aware of the brand, but I also feel free to remove it from my vision wherever and whenever it appears.
In my mind, and I suspect many others, Web advertising is now useless. The only Web ads I now notice are those that are too obnoxious to ignore, and I specifically block those out using AdBlock. I use Gmail constantly, but don't remember a single ad I've ever seen on Gmail; I know they're in the right-hand column, but my brain just doesn't parse them.
Slashdot Mirror
> Why are the technical people making bad management
> decisions? Well, it seems to me that the cause
> would be bad management leaving the decisions up
> to them.
Absolutely.
The grandparent post was along the lines of "management should leave decision making to the technical people"; my post tried to highlight the dangers of doing this.
It's not as simple as management=bad, non-management=good; you need competent people doing these roles, and you find competency in both management and non-management staff.
> Well, I guess when management forces technical
> people with no real managerial training or
> experience to make managerial training, it is
> all the fault of the technical person.
In *all* of the cases above, the problems were caused by technical people assuming too much authority off their own bat. It wasn't a case of management roles being forced onto these people; more a case of these people attempting to make decisions without understanding the consequences.
As above, these are management decisions that need to be made by *someone*; either they can be made by managers or non-managers, but in either case it's easy to get them wrong if you don't do your analysis and risk assessment properly.
Several times I've worked on projects where "the people doing the actual work" (i.e. techies) have been responsible for the ultimate failure; they've been given too much authority and made decisions that've ultimately sunk the project.
Examples:
- "we know it'll scale to 10k users, once we take the time to optimise it. We'll do that later" (project ultimately scaled to ~100-200 users max)
- "upgrading to the new version of tool XXX will let us solve lots of our problems straight away" (maybe so, but it added lots of new problems and dependency issues that blew the project out of the water)
- "we'll redo the crappy UI later" (not after you've made loads of incorrect assumptions about workflow based on a UI that already you knew was wrong, you won't!)
- "we've just attended a MS Web development seminar that told us our objects should be stateless, so that's what we'll do" (...to the point of having to verify e.g. user identity multiple times for each page loaded. This particular project brought down a country wide intranet when it was deployed, without prior testing because the developers thought "it wasn't necessary")
- "Bob's got that problem under control. We don't need to worry about it" (...until Bob, the single gun Tandem guy, left the company and we were left with a totally undocumented Tandem interface that nobody understood in the slightest)
- "that's OK; Microsoft are sending out a consultant to deal with that problem" (...sigh... Does no-one understand that the main job of a field MS consultant is to sell more software licences, not to fix problems?)
Every one of these issues was dealt with by a lead techo in the manner described above. Mgmt deferred to the lead techo in each case, and the projects suffered as a result.
Yep, I understand that you could call all these people "managers" rather than "techos", but each of these decisions was made on a supposedly well thought out technical basis. If these people are "management", then so are 90% of the people on Slashdot.
If we're going to characterise all management as PHBs, then why not also characterise all techos as:
- making incorrect assumptions, then extrapolating endlessly without attempting to verify the original assumptions
- assuming tools from Vendor X are golden (yep, I'm continually amazed how often this happens)
- relying on vendor X to provide a solution to problems when they occur, and not investigating workarounds in a timely fashion
- believing acceptable performance is always just a few code tweaks away
- assuming they know more about usability than designated subject matter experts
- endlessly reinvent wheels ("What? That object isn't a 100% fit for our problem? Better create a whole new one that works 1% differently and requires 1000 new lines of code to be maintained")
After 20+ years in the industry, I firmly believe that the best IT managers are those who have worked in multiple technical areas, as they can then see through the tech crap as well as the mgmt/project crap.
> Then iTunes comes along, and now we have access to
> cheap, downloadable content. Has that stopped (or
> even impacted) file sharing in any significant
> way? Has that stopped people from STILL
> complaining?
I think what happened is that the RIAA made such a fuss about prosecuting "pirates", nailing 12yo kids and grandmothers in the process, that they've built up a huge amount of bad feeling towards them. Worse, while doing that, the RIAA member companies (who exist to *market* product in a form that people want to buy it) apparently did nothing to try to service the digital music buying market at all; Napster et al stepped in to fill this hole, and got nailed out of existence by the RIAA who still didn't provide a viable alternative.
Bottom line: the RIAA had a chance to build and control the digital music distribution market while it was in its infancy and standards hadn't yet developed, and they totally blew it. In ESR-speak, it's already transitioned from a cathedral to a bazaar, and won't ever be going back.
At this point, even if record companies started releasing 1c songs with DRM protection, people would be cracking them (a) because they can, and (b) because they dislike the RIAA that much. For way beyond a critical mass of people, RIAA=bad.
It seems reasonable to me that, by hiring these guys, Google is going to build a competitor to MS Office that runs within a (Mozilla-based) browser.
Consider that XUL has a lot of the capabilities that let users get a good UI in browsers. Consider also that Google already has zillions of hefty servers dotted around. If they extended XUL as required and created e.g. GoogleWord, GoogleExcel and GooglePoint, users could create and store their docs in a secured, always-there backend similar to that used by Gmail. Imagine logging into Gmail and having all your documents stored with your email, labelled (as for Gmail messages) into one or more categories and searchable - I can see that being very attractive for many people.
Yep, there's obviously a few bits missing:
- MS Office document compatibility (but is that such an issue if Google can change user's work habits such that people exchange pointers to GoogleOffice docs rather than the docs themselves? Maybe all they need is an MS Office import/export facility, which reads/writes docs in MS' published XML format from a server located in a country that is suitably patent-free...)
- something to allow documents to be embedded within other documents (wonder what percentage of MS Office users actually use this)
- XUL would need beefing up in terms of capability
- 100 others...
Still, given Google's deep pockets, I don't see these issues as insurmountable. Given that (IMHO) 90% of MS Office users only ever use 10% of MS Office's functionality, a sort-of WordPad on steroids may be enough to get a critical mass of people to switch to using GoogleWord provided they solve other MS-Office-centric issues such as document management on PCs, viruses/spyware and so on.
All good points in the parent...
...) and a scripting (e.g. Perl, Python, Ruby, ...) language. It's surprising how often this comes up, but people who say something to the effect of "I use {C#, Java, C++} for everything and never need anything else" basically lose me there and then; that tells me either they're very inexperienced and/or very inefficient straight away. Or possibly Richard Stallman ;->
When I bring new techos into a team, I want them to have the following tech background/skills:
- strong communication skills. Very very important in any coding environment, and becoming moreso as outsourced development, Extreme Programming etc become mainstream. You'd better be able to talk to peers, superiors and underlings, or you're going to waste a lot of time and money. You don't have to be the best speaker in an interview, but you need to be able to sustain a technical discussion
- significant real-life experience with BOTH a compiled (e.g. Java, C#, C++,
- experience working in a team, on some sort of significant project. That could be a CS project at university; what I'm interested in is their perspective on how the roles and responsibilities within a team dynamic work, what they've learned from the experience and where their personal interests lie
- expertise in a mix of CS areas. I realise that's tough when you're just finishing a CS degree, but in that case people who've done units outside of the standard Java/C# coding stream would gain extra points from me. A guy who presents as "All I want to be for the rest of my life is a coder" probably won't work out that well in my experience; it's the guy who's prepared to take other stuff on that will tend to get ahead
- a life outside of IT; family, hobbies, whatever. If you've got that, that generally means you've got fair to good time management skills in order to get your degree while keeping other balls in the air, and those skills will be called upon in most technical roles
> if your application needs to be platform .NET.
.NET.
.NET (your preference; generally most places won't care which you use for back end systems, as they'll have experience supporting each these days)
> independent, J2EE is the obvious choice. If you
> want the easiest and most productive development
> environment, stick with
I'd agree with that, with the caveat that I don't have quite the same level of expertise with J2EE that I do with
On the other hand, surely you're considering making some/most/all of your apps browser-based. If so, why not go with the following approach:
- build back-end with J2EE or
- expose all your functionality via Web services
- build your UI stuff in XUL so it can be driven by any Mozilla-based browser
Why use XUL? The following reasons:
- Mozilla browsers run on just about any platform, so your client-side portability issues disappear
- no client deployment. Particularly important if you face having to make customer-specific changes to your UI
- powerful user interface; most of the useful UI widgets are in XUL, so you can build an interface that users will like
- Firefox is taking a sizeable chunk out of IE's market on Windows, and is now getting recommendations from the sources that IT decision makers tend to respect
- it's easy to code test cases that require user interaction in XUL, so a lot of your initial testing can be done while you build up XUL expertise
- there's no real lock in; if your customer absolutely requires that a Mozilla browser can't be installed, the effort involved in putting together an identical user interface that works client-server (using e.g. VB.NET or Delphi) is very low once you've got a solid working GUI up and going in XUL. To be honest, that goes for just about any application; migrating your GUI from one toolset to another is very fast, *except* when you have to migrate to a regular HTML GUI such as IE
Downsides of XUL
- no really good IDE at present. There's a few good looking works in progress, but that's about it. An IDE along the lines of VS.NET or Delphi for XUL would be a huge step forward at this point
- documentation exists and is quite comprehensive, but high quality tutorial-level stuff in particular can be tough to find. Plenty of good reference material though; either online or in books
http://zope.org/Members/EIONET/SOAPMethod/
may be what you're looking for. Not ideal, but it will let you serve SOAP from Zope
> You don't, as a consumer, have a "right" to a
> refund.
That's true; maybe I should've spelled my point out a bit clearer.
You have a right to expect a purchased product is "fit for purpose" in every Western country I can think of. That applies to any product you can name, and will override any business-specific statements to the contrary. If you buy software, take it home, open the box, start installing it and find it's not "fit for purpose" because of some EULA restriction that you didn't know about beforehand, then you have a right to return it for a refund on that basis.
There's no way that a reasonable court could believe that you had bought the product knowing before you purchased that it wasn't fit for purpose (i.e. you knew the EULA), given that EULAs run to 1000s of lines of legalese and change regularly and without notice.
Hope that clears up my point.
That might be fine for you and I, but my mum doesn't want to be told "go read the EULA on this Web site" before she buys a copy of MS Word. Is the sales rep going to bring up the site for her on another PC and wait for 30 minutes while she wades through the wording? Is she going to be expected to go home, get onto the Internet, read the agreement, then come back to the store and buy the software? Will the sales rep be expected to answer questions about the EULA, because he's sure as hell going to be asked questions by people who don't understand what they're reading?
I'd guess that this way of presenting legal info is probably also insufficient for it to be binding. Hopefully it'll be tested in court soon...
I live in a Wal-Mart-free country, but what's the issue here? Returning unsuitable merchandise is OK just about everywhere, and any store pretending otherwise hasn't got a legal leg to stand on. They can put up all the in-store signs they like, but that doesn't override my right to a refund.
I return opened-but-not-installed software after refusing to accept the EULA terms, and some spotty Wal-Mart checkout person refuses to give me a refund. I then call his supervisor, and continue until I either get someone who says "OK" or I've spoken to the most senior Wal-Mart person in the store. If I don't get the OK, I get my lawyer and we take it from there.
Yep, I'll be potentially taking on the combined legal might of Wal-Mart, so maybe I should be very very scared. However, in such a clear cut case against such a big corporation, I'd have no trouble finding legal representation that'd be happy to work on a pro bono basis - think of all those class actions against huge tobacco and asbestos companies over the years.
Downsides for me, assuming it goes down this path:
- have to search through phone book for legal rep
- pain of dealing with legal people in general
- time, stress and general mental wear and tear (all claimable as damages *when* I win)
- loss of access to my refundable money while it all gets cleared up
Downsides for Wal-Mart, assuming it goes down this path:
- bad PR (and any legal person working on this on a pro-bono basis would be doing handstands to get this case on TV and in print media. "Big bad corp versus downtrodden individual" still makes press headlines...)
- loss of availability of its people while they're tied up with legal stuff
- possibility of a class action suit emerging
- possibility of more serious charges (racketeering?) being brought after they go down this path beyond a certain point
- possibility of consumer-protection government agency intervention (e.g. ACCC in Australia)
With Wal-Mart presumably being staffed by non-drones at some level of seniority, I'd have to think they'd work out that just giving me the refund I've requested in a timely fashion would be much less painful for them.
...says that EULAs should have to be signed prior to the forking over of the loot. I pick up a box containing software, walk to the shop counter, pay my money and from that point on the software is mine to use as I wish (save for the protections granted by copyright to the seller, and various "fair business" obligations that serve to protect the buyer).
If there's some legalese that I'm supposed to agree to before installing and using the software, then it should be presented to me before I hand over the money.
Intellectual property isn't THAT much different to real property: when I buy a washing machine, I don't take it home, plug it in and then find out that it's illegal to use it to wash blue clothes...
> Even lowly users with no programming expierience
> can organise their files into a simple database
> and play around with them. I've known plenty of
> quite large companies that still use Access as
> their main database.
I've known plenty of quite large companies that have completely banned Access because of those same users with no programming experience.
They've been burned by having Joe Marketing create a personal contact tracking app in Access in his spare time, then show it to his mates. Pretty soon it's been filled with every contact for the company, and is an absolutely vital piece of corporate infrastructure that still lives on Joe's PC. Then something goes wrong - Joe's PC gets upgraded/replaced, Joe gets promoted or leaves, Joe gets the new version of Office loaded and his wonky app doesn't work any more, someone tries to move the app onto a server and it all falls over, someone tries to upgrade it to SQL Server to support more users and Joe's code doesn't allow that, etc.
A big effort is expended by IT people who have to wade through Joe's illiterate and/or download/cut/paste coding style, to save data that should've been in Act! in the first place. Good thing Joe saved $50 by not buying the Act! application in the first place...
Many MANY places have been burned by this sort of crap over and over, so they've banned Access outright from the workplace.
My requirements:
- need to be able to limit each daughter to e.g. 1Gb of traffic. Once they hit that, bzzt, no more Internet access till next month. After that, they can either experience the joys of 28kb/s downloading or grovel at someone's feet to let them browse under another login id
- each daughter needs to be able to check how much Internet "allowance" she has left
- need to be able to limit use to a specific period of the day. With holidays coming up, I don't want them to be sitting in their rooms all day chatting... Ideally, I'd be able to block out individual sites (e.g. MSN) while leaving other stuff untouched
- need to be able to block out the most noxious sites. For some reason, teenage girls can't seem to resist downloading crapware if it calls itself "PicOfGoodCharlotte.exe" or something similar...
Yep, I'm aware that I could set up something that does most/all of this, but frankly there's not enough hours in the day at present to do so.
No, I do know about the original intended use of BitTorrent, and that it was created so stuff like Linux distros could be distributed.
That's my point - unlike Napster, Kazaa, etc., BitTorrent was created to service a legitimate, useful and ongoing need that isn't about to go away. As others have said, many P2P solutions have sprung up to fill an unsatisfied need for music (and now movie) distribution - the music industry failed to meet that market early enough, and now has to find a way of competing with "free" and high quality music.
If Kazaa et al get squished legally, another 5 solutions will spring up, and they won't have the legal exposure/s that Kazaa had that caused their demise. The next step will be for RIAA companies to change legislation to try to block that next set of P2P apps, and so on it goes until someone invents a way using e.g. FreeNet to provide P2P services. At that point, it'd be game over - untraceable files, stored in fragments with strong encryption across multiple unknown servers, and nobody can know which piece of file is stored on their own server. How do you legislate *that* out of existence?
The music industry has more chance in trying to sell music over the Internet themselves, and bundling it with other services e.g. free concert tickets, or whatever. There is no way people will switch back to paying big bucks for music on CD, now that they've tasted it for free; the only possible way the RIAA can ultimately win is to sweeten the pot by bundling something with CDs that can't be freely duplicated, and concert tickets is one option that springs to mind.
of Bittorrent (e.g. downloading Linux distros), the RIAA and MPAA have no legal way of killing it off. Bittorrent is outstandingly useful for downloading all sorts of large files, and not all large files are copy-disallowed material.
As the article said, the genii is now out of the bottle, and there's no way it can be captured and contained again.
See that's the type of invention that should be patentable: it's unique, a significant advance(???) over existing products, and totally insane.
I want one, and I'd be prepared to pay a premium to the legal monopoly/patent holder to get one.
> You aren't certain that this $600 in revenue would ...
> have ever made it to the game makers. It's
> probably not right to call it lost revenue.
> I hope they do some hard time in a federal
> pound-me-in-the-ass prison
From your comments, it seems that you feel these guys should do hard time for copyright violations amounting to a thousand dollars or so.
Boy, if and when my $20k car gets stolen, I hope you're on the jury that sentences those bad guys. I just pray the prison system has brought back torture at that point, as they'll obviously deserve it and it'd be a shame to have them get off with only a lousy 50 years or so in jail.
I suspect the real issue here is e.g. putting PCs with Internet access into kids' rooms, as distinct from PCs without Internet access.
This is an issue I'm struggling with now. With 8 computers in the house (including one Linux firewall), do I put a PC in each of the 3 kids' bedrooms? At this moment, I'm inclined to install e.g. Mepis and restrict Internet access to e.g. 7pm-8pm each day on bedroom PCs; that should remove the possibility of endless hours of pointless IM and downloading WM* files, while still letting them get homework done and talk to their friends for a bit each night. If there's some exceptional circumstance, then Mum or I can invoke the "Internet access extension" clause in our contracts...
Still struggling to work out if this is a good approach or not, amidst the other obvious (e.g. no access, or unrestricted access) and not-so-obvious options. I'd be interested in any other suggestions.
I think you're being a bit tough on the guy - he's just asking for recommendations, not to be led by the hand through a full implementation.
The useful responses to date have been along the lines of "Check out product X from vendor Y. It's cool because...". The original asker is still going to have to do his due diligence, but at least he's got a few leads now.
If "Ask Slashdot" isn't for this sort of question, I'm struggling to see what it WOULD be for.
...note that this type of work may become illegal if the EU embraces software patents.
As you're in the one region of the world that seems to not be bowing down to corporate interests at every opportunity, please do what you can to ensure it doesn't happen.
I *want* to watch video on my Linux box; I don't want to have to buy MS product just so my kids can watch movies that we've paid for.
> And if John Q Jackass has his vendetta, he'll wind
> up spending more time behind bars than the PC
> store for slander, possible perjury, whatever the
> formal charge is for inciting a malicious
> prosecution, etc.
I realise this is a totally hypothetical example, but what law has he broken?
JQJ says "Vendor X sold me a PC with dodgy Windows on it" to Microsoft (note: not someone with any legal authority to act in this matter).
MS gives JQJ a shiny new Windows, which JQJ then dutifully installs on the PC.
MS then confronts X with a "Please explain" email or visit from BSA or whatever. All X has to do is say "I didn't do anything wrong", produce some sort of supporting paperwork and that's game over.
If MS goes back to JQJ and says "You've been telling porkies", JQJ can say "This PC had the bogus version of Windows on it since I bought it. Now I've installed the shiny new version you gave me". How is MS (note: without any legal powers) to decide which of X and JQJ is telling the truth?
MS isn't about to visit every JQJ out there and examine the InstallDate registry entry to find out when Windows was installed on that particular PC. MS and/or the BSA can jump up and down and try to get local law enforcement involved, but any evidence that did exist would be well and truly gone by then.
Have I missed anything?
Sorry Sprotch, not romanced at all. That's exactly what happened (well, the parts that were visible to me, that is).
Do you honestly think that no-one here would have a similar story? Nobody ever dies through overwork? Falls asleep in the car driving home at 3am, or gets pissed and jumps off a bridge?
The local crack dealer has a similar scheme going; they'll give you product for free, on the basis that you'll get hooked and wind up funding his lifestyle later on.
Unfortunately, his goons are puny compared to those of the BSA and WIPO; all Lefty, Knuckles and Rocko can threaten is violence and weapons, not generations of indentured servitude.
#define SARCASM_MODE 0
A few years ago, I worked as a contractor for a certain large company. This company is notorious for driving people too hard, so I had reservations about working there.
... - life's just too short for this sort of rubbish, and IMHO anyone who thinks it's appropriate really needs to adjust their thinking.
When my contract was handed to me for signing, the default "max 8 hrs x 5 days per week" clause had been removed. I asked about that, as that clause generally serves as protection for both my customer (they don't get slugged for huge dollars and can plan their cash flow accordingly) and me (I get to see my family). The company replied that it was normal practice for them to remove any such clauses.
A few weeks in, and most of the people around me were working 18 hour days regularly (I started right around crunch time). I made a policy decision as follows:
- I'd work up to 14 hours a day
- once I'd worked 60 hours a week, I'd go home
Remember I was a contractor; I didn't feel any personal or professional commitment towards a management group that had put into place these sorts of work practices, and it was quite obvious to anyone working there that the long hours being worked were leading to mistakes that led to additional hours being worked to fix them.
Anyway, as expected, I got confronted pretty quickly about my perceived slacking off. My response was that I hadn't signed up for a lifestyle change; I was after income, pure and simple. Being close to Xmas, I was quite happy to work a few extra hours, pocket some extra cash and thus fund a nicer holiday, but that was the extent of the sacrifice I was prepared to make for the cause.
I pretty much had them over a barrel at that point; there was no time to train someone to replace me, and I'd made it abundantly clear what my motivations were and that they were essentially non-negotiable.
My personal lack of commitment was discussed in front of the rest of my workmates, by my boss, at the next team meeting. I took it on myself to respond, outlining my reasons for working as I did and that I didn't regard limiting myself to 60 hour weeks as being a lack of commitment - I said I thought it showed a lack of planning, and left it at that. When I finished, you could have heard a pin drop...
A few days prior to Xmas, my boss didn't turn up. This was strange, given that he worked huge hours himself, but not unexpected since pretty much everyone was quite ill at that point due to tiredness and shared (airborne) diseases. When he didn't turn up the next few days either, someone called his house and there was no answer. Eventually a relative of his went to his house and found he'd hung himself in the bedroom.
I've got no doubt at all that his death was 90%+ due to overwork, possibly exacerbated by my taking a somewhat defiant stance in public several days earlier. He'd lived alone and worked huge hours for the past several years, so there was no real possibility for other issues to have caused his suicide.
After a few months' thought, and subsequent discussions with my fellow workmates at that place, I decided that what had happened had been pretty grim but ultimately good things had come out of it. Work practices in that particular group had changed quite dramatically in the following few months; the new boss had put caps on the number of hours worked each day and each week, and re-introduced paid overtime for full time employees. Although several people had left (the turnover in that group ran close to 80% per year), those that were still there were now working in a way they felt was personally and professionally sustainable.
Having several of them call me up to thank me for taking a stance in a very awkward environment certainly helped me personally, although my "stance" was totally selfish.
Since then, I simply refuse to work in "death march" situations. I find the whole idea totally absurd; the end result is that a crappier product is shipped slightly sooner, but people's lives are affected too much for the trade-off to be worthwhile. I've seen two deaths (one described above), several bitter divorces, people leaving the industry, middle-of-the-office screaming matches,
> Do you have any suggestions of alternative profit
> models for web sites?
Paid subscription?
Seriously, thanks to the Internet I've now exceeded the number of advertisements I'm prepared to view in my lifetime. I now block them on *any* site that I'm likely to visit more than once or twice. Advertisements stopped having any positive effect on me many years ago, and some are now so obtrusive (i.e. personally offensive) that I not only block them - I actively avoid buying those products.
Be honest - how many times have you seen an ad for e.g. some new model car, and decided "You know, I was just in the market for a car today. Good thing this ad appeared as now I know what to buy and where to go to buy one. And, what the hell, I'm not gonna buy the family wagon we really need; I'm gonna buy one of these fancy BMW sports cars because of the cool lifestyle aspects shown in the ad"? If what they're really trying to do with that ad is not sell me a car, but give me "brand awareness", then thanks - I'm aware of the brand, but I also feel free to remove it from my vision wherever and whenever it appears.
In my mind, and I suspect many others, Web advertising is now useless. The only Web ads I now notice are those that are too obnoxious to ignore, and I specifically block those out using AdBlock. I use Gmail constantly, but don't remember a single ad I've ever seen on Gmail; I know they're in the right-hand column, but my brain just doesn't parse them.