Next time try writing functions in VBA and calling them from the cell.
I just finished helping an E. Eng. with a 1,000-row, 120-column monster with 300-character formulas. It was not humanly possible to manage all the formulas using just Excel, so we abstracted them into VBA functions. Made the spreadsheet much neater and comprehensible.
Arguments like this miss a central point: when you design and build a bridge, the (significant) engineering cost is built into the bridge. The state or county that pays for the bridge, will jolly well pay the engineers who reviewed the design. All well and good. You won't pay? You don't get your bridge.
What if you could magically replicate the bridge, and not pay the engineers for the 2nd, 3rd, clone etc.? Ignoring the fact the the terrain and other circumstances vary, how would you feel, Mister Engineer, if you sat on your derrière,, unpaid, as your design was copied with no compensation for your efforts?
Don't confuse the economics of tangible goods and services, with the new economics of digital media, which can be copied at no cost. You don't get what you don't pay for.
I don't know what the answer is. Show me a way I can receive consistent compensation for whatever I chose to charge for my software, and I will accept liability. You don't like my price? Don't buy. You think I'm not entitled to charge what I want? Please tell me what language you write and what applications you have developed.
I don't have the iron wring on my pinkie. I am no more qualified to judge your work, than you are to opinionate on software.
This is nonsense. You are obviously not a developer.
This discussion misses one central point:
[1] It is possible to develop good software.
[2] Quality costs money.
[3] If software is priced (high) to reflect its cost and quality, it will be pirated, and the developers will not cover their expenses.
[4] There is a ceiling to the cost of software, and it is the equivalent of the nuisance value of duplicating the CD.
Not everyone can afford a Porsche, yet Porsche continues to stay in business. Those who can't afford a Porsche, don't whine that Porsches should be free.
You want the software equivalent of a Porsche? Show me how the developer can be fairly compensated and then maybe we can entertain this silly notion of liability.
My first job was programming card-based systems. I've struggled with enough card jams at 3:00 AM to appreciate this blast from the past. Remember the "Multi-Function Card Machine" (MFCM)? Affectionately renamed "Mother-F**ing Card Masher".
Very impressive. Did you use a cross-assembler on the mainframe? Why 13 photocells? The card has 12 rows.
My hack was figuring out the hole-punch code on the Montreal Metro tickets in the 60's. I built a template from a strip of tin can, and drilled the holes with a 5/32" bit. Free transit! Yay!
The world of software engineering is a different place in the Aerospace industry
Very true, and there's a good reason for that: Boeing et al. recoup every penny of their software development costs, because it's built into the selling price of the 747. There's no point in pirating 747 software, 'cause what are you going to do with the software if you don't have a 747? (Ignore the terrorist scenario).
If there were some way of eliminating 'piracy', and guaranteeing that the developer gets every penny of every copy used, you would see quality go up. Not everybody can afford a Porsche (substitute brand of your choice), and yet Porsche continues to make & sell superior cars. That's because there will always be people who appreciate and are willing to pay for quality in a car. And you can't replicate cars for free the way you can duplicate a CD (not yet anyway).
There will always be a market for the software equivalent of a Hyundai, and people willing to settle for lower quality. But if you could somehow protect sales, there would also be a small but lucrative market for people who require, and appreciate, quality in software. Kind of like Apple. (No, I don't use an Apple computer. Just an iPod).
You disagree? Please tell me what OS, development platform you use, and which flawless products your company produces.
Reminds me of an amazing Univac CE (Customer Engineer) who was repairing the printer on our 32K "mainframe" one day when the DP (Data Processing) manager comes around and says impatiently "Make it print something".
The CE walks up to the maintenance panel, toggles the switches for a while, and keys in a program in hex. He presses a button, and the printer starts chugging out paper covered with "Something Something Something..."
Do you think this wonderful new design could fix the problem where the bottom half of page n is repeated at the beginning of page n + 1? Or is that just too mundane for the über geeks that run this site?
As Louis Armstrong said in the early days of TV before he was banned for awhile, "We're going to play the next song not too slow, not too fast, just half fast..."
I installed Linspire on a second PC to prevent my web-surfing family from compromising our Windows box (which sits in the corner cut off from the Internet).
Linspire installed easily, and recognized most of the hardware. We have achieved our objective, and I don't spend week-ends extirpating malware.
However, it took me three hours to install a @#$% HP P1000 printer. And I have to do it again because Linspire lost the printer after a recent upgrade.
Funny, the browser crashes regularly on Linspire.
Our second 120 GB hard drive is sitting empty because I can't find the damn thing. What's Linux for "dir *.*/s"?
Plus, the developer's kit couldn't even link a "Hello World" program. And Roberts wants us to develop for him? Bah!
Slashdot Mirror
I take that back: checking my dictionary, you were right in the first place. Sorry.
Nope: it's "acceuillir".
I'm not talking about the Google Map API: that requires registration & a license key.
I want to programmatically launch a map query with a simple HTTP request.
Thanks.
Obsessed with the Golden Ratio, are we?
Rick Mercer; the Quinlan Quints; Cathy Jones (sexiest smile on TV). Fantastically funny stuff.
I just finished helping an E. Eng. with a 1,000-row, 120-column monster with 300-character formulas. It was not humanly possible to manage all the formulas using just Excel, so we abstracted them into VBA functions. Made the spreadsheet much neater and comprehensible.
What if you could magically replicate the bridge, and not pay the engineers for the 2nd, 3rd, clone etc.? Ignoring the fact the the terrain and other circumstances vary, how would you feel, Mister Engineer, if you sat on your derrière,, unpaid, as your design was copied with no compensation for your efforts?
Don't confuse the economics of tangible goods and services, with the new economics of digital media, which can be copied at no cost. You don't get what you don't pay for.
I don't know what the answer is. Show me a way I can receive consistent compensation for whatever I chose to charge for my software, and I will accept liability. You don't like my price? Don't buy. You think I'm not entitled to charge what I want? Please tell me what language you write and what applications you have developed.
I don't have the iron wring on my pinkie. I am no more qualified to judge your work, than you are to opinionate on software.
This is nonsense. You are obviously not a developer.
This discussion misses one central point:
[1] It is possible to develop good software.
[2] Quality costs money.
[3] If software is priced (high) to reflect its cost and quality, it will be pirated, and the developers will not cover their expenses.
[4] There is a ceiling to the cost of software, and it is the equivalent of the nuisance value of duplicating the CD.
Not everyone can afford a Porsche, yet Porsche continues to stay in business. Those who can't afford a Porsche, don't whine that Porsches should be free.
You want the software equivalent of a Porsche? Show me how the developer can be fairly compensated and then maybe we can entertain this silly notion of liability.
Here's the funniest thing I've seen written about VB: Verity Stob's "Thirteen ways to loathe VB".
Also, you typically come to depend upon a whole ecosystem of third-party vendors whose OCX'es may not keep pace with changing versions of Windows.
My first job was programming card-based systems. I've struggled with enough card jams at 3:00 AM to appreciate this blast from the past. Remember the "Multi-Function Card Machine" (MFCM)? Affectionately renamed "Mother-F**ing Card Masher".
My hack was figuring out the hole-punch code on the Montreal Metro tickets in the 60's. I built a template from a strip of tin can, and drilled the holes with a 5/32" bit. Free transit! Yay!
They switched to oil later.
(Apparently Slashdot can't take the greek upsilon-delta-omega-rho).
Seriously, I wish they would line up the guys who write this software against a wall, and recreate St Valentine's Day Massacre.
Has anyone ever seen a 16 RPM record? I haven't, although I remember for a while all turntables had switchable 78, 45, 33 and 16 RPM speeds.
Very true, and there's a good reason for that: Boeing et al. recoup every penny of their software development costs, because it's built into the selling price of the 747. There's no point in pirating 747 software, 'cause what are you going to do with the software if you don't have a 747? (Ignore the terrorist scenario).
If there were some way of eliminating 'piracy', and guaranteeing that the developer gets every penny of every copy used, you would see quality go up. Not everybody can afford a Porsche (substitute brand of your choice), and yet Porsche continues to make & sell superior cars. That's because there will always be people who appreciate and are willing to pay for quality in a car. And you can't replicate cars for free the way you can duplicate a CD (not yet anyway).
There will always be a market for the software equivalent of a Hyundai, and people willing to settle for lower quality. But if you could somehow protect sales, there would also be a small but lucrative market for people who require, and appreciate, quality in software. Kind of like Apple. (No, I don't use an Apple computer. Just an iPod).
You disagree? Please tell me what OS, development platform you use, and which flawless products your company produces.
Really? Not in C/C++? How do you get the first compiler to run on a new architecture? Probably a cross-compiler.
(Not a troll: genuinely curious & ignorant)
The CE walks up to the maintenance panel, toggles the switches for a while, and keys in a program in hex. He presses a button, and the printer starts chugging out paper covered with "Something Something Something..."
As Louis Armstrong said in the early days of TV before he was banned for awhile, "We're going to play the next song not too slow, not too fast, just half fast..."
This is truly funny! Thank you for making this whole thread worth reading.
Give the author a break: assume English is not his/her native language.
Linspire installed easily, and recognized most of the hardware. We have achieved our objective, and I don't spend week-ends extirpating malware.
However, it took me three hours to install a @#$% HP P1000 printer. And I have to do it again because Linspire lost the printer after a recent upgrade.
Funny, the browser crashes regularly on Linspire. Our second 120 GB hard drive is sitting empty because I can't find the damn thing. What's Linux for "dir *.* /s"?
Plus, the developer's kit couldn't even link a "Hello World" program. And Roberts wants us to develop for him? Bah!
Sounds like your typical WndProc() function :o)
Nine women can have nine babies in nine months.
Recently, a MS update to my system caused all my printers to disappear. I don't need this aggravation!