Software fashion is one of the enemies of productivity. I used to work on mainframe and because the environment was so stable and unchanging, people could almost instinctively do anything that needed doing. They hardly ever needed to check a manual.
I know the counter argument - well, this J2EE/.NET/whatever will mean we can deliver more work faster. That is, once you've trained people, and people have been through about 3 years of the learning curve and oh... whoops it's time to get on the next thing.
A lot of using a new language/environment isn't just learning, it's the practise of it and learning where the pitfalls are, particularly in relation to your organisation.
I often tell people how good MS Access is, but people say things like "but it's not a proper language". And the answer is "so what?". All that matters is delivering business functionality for data management to 95% of company applications. Speed of execution, size of code and having 100 different singing and dancingActiveX controls sometimes don't matter. What matters more and more to business is fast and cheap delivery of software.
I agree. I've worked with guys who've come over from India, and people who take the attitude of "they're crap" are just deluding themselves and wishful thinking, hoping that global competition will go away.
The big thing is making sure that you can deliver on the responsibility. That means a number of things you have to have control over...
1. Control internal procedures in the team. Don't force me to do 12 page monthly appraisals on the team if I don't think it's necessary.
2. You want me to manage a solution? Fine, but don't sweat on the detail for me. If I want to use a particular chart component, I expect to be able to just go and buy it and not have to go through an internal purchasing department who will take months and decide it for me.
3. I will choose who is hired for my team, and how promotions are allocated, not some wretched HR interviewing process or someone hired by my boss.
I wouldn't do IT management for a large corp, because you are told how to do the things you do that should be completely under your control. People should give managers budgets and requirements and let them do it and not interfere.
I couldn't help thinking that this says more to me about some of the people in IT management than the job itself.
I've sat and worked writing software in places like call centres and factories (like sitting with them), and I got something like 10% of the whining I get in IT departments.
2. That's not my experience, but if someone put me in such a place, I'd go looking elsewhere.
3. Make sure there's a hotline that people know the number for. Make sure someone's manning it. If someone calls your mobile tell them to call the hotline. If they won't, and your manager won't back you up, then you are fscked and may as well leave.
4. Have a backup guy to give 24 hours support. If you can't get the budget, it's a cheapskate outfit and you may as well leave. If you get a support guy, have instigated a procedure of "call the support technician" and they still call you, then leave.
Seriously, if you are an IT manager and have a terrible management structure above you, you really may as well find another job.
I've done IT management in good places and bad places. The good company was a pleasure to work for and we all had fun. The bad company was just horrible and I got the heck out as quick as I could.
I get into some arguments with some friends of mine over this.
When they try and send me an exe of "you gotta see this", the answer I always give is to send me the URL of the website to get it from.
Any.exe is a risk, but by at least going to a known download site and getting something that's over a month old, you are unlikely to pick something up.
It just shows - the major problem with viruses isn't technical - it's a human problem (although if Windows had two defined logins like Red Hat, I'm sure it would help).
I know people who are PC techs who used to make money out of building PCs for people, who now spend a heck of a lot of time cleaning viruses and spyware off machines as well as having to reinstall systems for people.
Where did I say anything about replacing musicians with machines, unless you are referring to my line about typesetters, which was actually about people being replaced by technology, particularly where the technology performs the job better than a human. You can already replace musicians with samplers. Hire a guitarist to make a guitar sound, put it in the sampler and off you go. It's like comparing a great stilton to processed cheese, though.
Also, I'm not against predicting the total destruction of CD shops or the destruction of CD. I'm not convinced that the CD album will be replaced by things like iTunes (it may replace the impulse purchase of singles, though). What I'm saying is that the production of music doesn't have to be in the hands of megacorps and that financially, it doesn't have to be the size of industry it is now, and could become a great deal more fragmented than it is now. One thing that will happen is that a lot of people who are genuine "artists" will get out from record company control.
I'm also saying that if you look at the "busker" model, people do it even though there's no guarantee of payment.
As for browsing a good music store, I agree. I used to work in a small chain (about 6 stores) and it was real fun. The loss of small chains and independents has made buying music pretty boring. Amazon is as interesting as my local stores to be honest.
In the past this was not possible - for printed words, you needed a printing press. To publish music, you needed the equipment to make records or CDs.
And that equipment is all very cheap and very accessible. How much is a second hand MIDI keyboard? How much is a Pentium II PC? How much is a microphone? How much is a CD writer? How much is even a good piece of studio software?
Then, getting 500 discs professionally duplicated will cost a couple of bucks each.
The two big problems are having talent and getting your music heard.
Besides, there's also folk music and street performers -- it's not as if we'll somehow be deprived of culture, even if every professional musician on the planet never made another cent.
That's a good example. Some people are happy to drop some money in a hat for a good busker. Some people will just make music just because it's a fun thing to do, and will maybe sell a few CDs that will buy them some beer money. In fact, often people in an independent position produce uncompromising music, because they don't have someone to report to.
That won't support a multi-billion dollar industry but then again, society isn't any the worse for not having a huge industry of typesetters any more.
Specialists have less to fear from the internet than the mainstream. People will go into a book or record store that they have a "relationship" with.
The problem with the big brand stores is that they don't have a "relationship" thing. They just ship product in and out, and add nothing. The records played are often piped in from elsewhere, not what the people who run the shop want to play.
Firstly, classical works well with the "expertise" model because there are numerous recordings.
In my experience, classical experts in music shops are rare, particularly outside of specialist classical music shops. There used to be one at a shop near me, and I probably spent far more there as a result.
Mostly, here in the UK people in music shops are not interested in classical music, and it gets lumped into the same counter as musicals, DVD, video games and spoken word.
My experience is that I get better service from a classical mail order company that I can telephone and say "what's the best recording of 'The Rite of Spring'" and the people there are fans and probably have listened to a number of recordings.
Record shops used to be one of my favourite hangouts because the good independent ones were owned and staffed by fans who were happy to give you an honest opinion. Now, they are mostly just supermarkets. It's no surprise that supermarkets in the UK are now taking trade from the record stores if all a record store is going to be is a supermarket.
I've seen huge comment blocks in code that explain a piece of code that is obvious even on first observation. It's just adding something you don't need.
You are right as well. Most people explain what a system does in terms of an analytical code breakdown, NOT what the purpose of the piece of code is.
The biggest one is the here-be-dragons. If you read one of my programs, you can occassionally find something with quite a large comment block, and in there, I'm often explaining in quite a lot of detail exactly WHY I had to write some quite offensive looking code that I did.
To me, it helps to pass on mindset of the code as you go as well. If people understand your thinking, the rest of what you do will flow from it.
Actually, there isn't much left of professional photographers using film any more. Movies are also going DV with people like Lucas and Rodriguez already doing so.
Lord Lichfield (pro photographer who's been shooting for decades and done things like Pirelli calendars) was interviewed on BBC Radio the other day and said that he hasn't shot any film in years.
If it's good enough for him, it's good enough for me.
I imagine he's using some very high-end equipment, though.
The roles are defined in the web.config for each folder, and I have a custom authenticator which sets the roles based on a database.
It sounds like I have some work to do....
The annoying thing to me, sirshannon, is that I'd assume that people working for a giant size software company like Microsoft would parse a URL into a common form before even doing anything else. At least with a piece of OSS software, you aren't paying for it, so can't really complain.
Do you have a full understanding of the problem? Neither of the articles goes into what you are saying, but I'd appreciate more explanation.
Personally, I have a system with no password protected folders or files, but I do have forms authentication on them and the roles are defined within the folders (in the web.config per folder) and a custom handler checks the roles in the database based on a user ID in a scrambled cookie (hope that makes sense).
I basically define the roles at folder, not file level.
Does this have anything to do with roles, or is it just to do with where folders have been protected at more of a "web server" level?
I support a web application, and it uses Role-Based authentication, database and cookies to store/process the roles (you have probably seen articles with such a thing)
Am I safe, or is this system affected (rather not have to do some unpaid work to fix Microsoft's fault if not really necessary).
Jimmy: "When you came posting security alerts, did you see a sign over my desk that said Large Software Firms Webserver Bug Resolution Team?"
Microsoft: "Jimmy, you know..."
Jimmy: "Did you see a sign over my desk that said Large Software Firms Webserver Bug Resolution Team?"
Microsoft: "No. I didn't".
Jimmy: "You know why you didn't see that sign?"
Microsoft: "Why?"
Jimmy: "Cause it ain't there. Because fixing Large Software Firms Webserver Bugs ain't my fscking business"
I've got to say at this point, that I'm currently maintaining and supporting an ASP.NET application.
However, next time I'm going to take my chances with PHP, MySQL and Apache.
I'm not worried about 1 little bug, but it seems to me as an outsider that the people in charge of this should have put this in. This to me isn't something that looks like an overflow, but the equivalent of leaving a key under your door mat.
I just can't see these technologies taking off. What's the benefit? That maybe you can save some network and processing traffic because you can do some local storage and processing on a transaction?
So what? It's simpler to have programmers building web pages, raising the network traffic and spending the saved development costs on more network traffic IMO.
I see more and more companies moving towards web applications, and don't think they'll go for the equivalent of a client/server solution.
I had the same argument with people when I was doing mainframe work and client/server was the new buzzword. There was all this "well, people can work locally and we can validate locally", and people like me were saying "validate all you want, we'll be validating for ourselves to protect the mainframe database". So then, any change to rules had to be reflected in the client application and in the mainframe, and sure enough, mistakes occurred. Things skipped through the client validation and hit our mainframe validation because there were differences.
So, regardless of the local validation and data, you have to communicate with the server.
Shipping multiuser applications to browsers generally counts as a stupid idea IMO, with a few exceptions of some nice little standalone helpers and things where users have control over their own data.
Personally, I'm not a real big GUI fan in anything.
IMO a maximum of about 10% of the work is on the GUI, and the other 90% of the work is the code behind the GUI functions. Particularly on support - most work is on the behind, not on the front.
So, I can live without a GUI. It also often means that you understand the code written because you did it yourself, rather than having to examine code generated by a GUI.
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Software fashion is one of the enemies of productivity. I used to work on mainframe and because the environment was so stable and unchanging, people could almost instinctively do anything that needed doing. They hardly ever needed to check a manual.
I know the counter argument - well, this J2EE/.NET/whatever will mean we can deliver more work faster. That is, once you've trained people, and people have been through about 3 years of the learning curve and oh... whoops it's time to get on the next thing.
A lot of using a new language/environment isn't just learning, it's the practise of it and learning where the pitfalls are, particularly in relation to your organisation.
I often tell people how good MS Access is, but people say things like "but it's not a proper language". And the answer is "so what?". All that matters is delivering business functionality for data management to 95% of company applications. Speed of execution, size of code and having 100 different singing and dancingActiveX controls sometimes don't matter. What matters more and more to business is fast and cheap delivery of software.
I agree. I've worked with guys who've come over from India, and people who take the attitude of "they're crap" are just deluding themselves and wishful thinking, hoping that global competition will go away.
The big thing is making sure that you can deliver on the responsibility. That means a number of things you have to have control over...
1. Control internal procedures in the team. Don't force me to do 12 page monthly appraisals on the team if I don't think it's necessary.
2. You want me to manage a solution? Fine, but don't sweat on the detail for me. If I want to use a particular chart component, I expect to be able to just go and buy it and not have to go through an internal purchasing department who will take months and decide it for me.
3. I will choose who is hired for my team, and how promotions are allocated, not some wretched HR interviewing process or someone hired by my boss.
I wouldn't do IT management for a large corp, because you are told how to do the things you do that should be completely under your control. People should give managers budgets and requirements and let them do it and not interfere.
I've sat and worked writing software in places like call centres and factories (like sitting with them), and I got something like 10% of the whining I get in IT departments.
2. That's not my experience, but if someone put me in such a place, I'd go looking elsewhere.
3. Make sure there's a hotline that people know the number for. Make sure someone's manning it. If someone calls your mobile tell them to call the hotline. If they won't, and your manager won't back you up, then you are fscked and may as well leave.
4. Have a backup guy to give 24 hours support. If you can't get the budget, it's a cheapskate outfit and you may as well leave. If you get a support guy, have instigated a procedure of "call the support technician" and they still call you, then leave.
Seriously, if you are an IT manager and have a terrible management structure above you, you really may as well find another job.
I've done IT management in good places and bad places. The good company was a pleasure to work for and we all had fun. The bad company was just horrible and I got the heck out as quick as I could.
When they try and send me an exe of "you gotta see this", the answer I always give is to send me the URL of the website to get it from.
Any .exe is a risk, but by at least going to a known download site and getting something that's over a month old, you are unlikely to pick something up.
It just shows - the major problem with viruses isn't technical - it's a human problem (although if Windows had two defined logins like Red Hat, I'm sure it would help).
I know people who are PC techs who used to make money out of building PCs for people, who now spend a heck of a lot of time cleaning viruses and spyware off machines as well as having to reinstall systems for people.
Also, I'm not against predicting the total destruction of CD shops or the destruction of CD. I'm not convinced that the CD album will be replaced by things like iTunes (it may replace the impulse purchase of singles, though). What I'm saying is that the production of music doesn't have to be in the hands of megacorps and that financially, it doesn't have to be the size of industry it is now, and could become a great deal more fragmented than it is now. One thing that will happen is that a lot of people who are genuine "artists" will get out from record company control.
I'm also saying that if you look at the "busker" model, people do it even though there's no guarantee of payment.
As for browsing a good music store, I agree. I used to work in a small chain (about 6 stores) and it was real fun. The loss of small chains and independents has made buying music pretty boring. Amazon is as interesting as my local stores to be honest.
And that equipment is all very cheap and very accessible. How much is a second hand MIDI keyboard? How much is a Pentium II PC? How much is a microphone? How much is a CD writer? How much is even a good piece of studio software?
Then, getting 500 discs professionally duplicated will cost a couple of bucks each.
The two big problems are having talent and getting your music heard.
That's a good example. Some people are happy to drop some money in a hat for a good busker. Some people will just make music just because it's a fun thing to do, and will maybe sell a few CDs that will buy them some beer money. In fact, often people in an independent position produce uncompromising music, because they don't have someone to report to.
That won't support a multi-billion dollar industry but then again, society isn't any the worse for not having a huge industry of typesetters any more.
The problem with the big brand stores is that they don't have a "relationship" thing. They just ship product in and out, and add nothing. The records played are often piped in from elsewhere, not what the people who run the shop want to play.
In my experience, classical experts in music shops are rare, particularly outside of specialist classical music shops. There used to be one at a shop near me, and I probably spent far more there as a result.
Mostly, here in the UK people in music shops are not interested in classical music, and it gets lumped into the same counter as musicals, DVD, video games and spoken word.
My experience is that I get better service from a classical mail order company that I can telephone and say "what's the best recording of 'The Rite of Spring'" and the people there are fans and probably have listened to a number of recordings.
Record shops used to be one of my favourite hangouts because the good independent ones were owned and staffed by fans who were happy to give you an honest opinion. Now, they are mostly just supermarkets. It's no surprise that supermarkets in the UK are now taking trade from the record stores if all a record store is going to be is a supermarket.
I've seen huge comment blocks in code that explain a piece of code that is obvious even on first observation. It's just adding something you don't need.
You are right as well. Most people explain what a system does in terms of an analytical code breakdown, NOT what the purpose of the piece of code is.
The biggest one is the here-be-dragons. If you read one of my programs, you can occassionally find something with quite a large comment block, and in there, I'm often explaining in quite a lot of detail exactly WHY I had to write some quite offensive looking code that I did.
To me, it helps to pass on mindset of the code as you go as well. If people understand your thinking, the rest of what you do will flow from it.
Does anyone already do this? It sounds like a winning little service.
Actually, there isn't much left of professional photographers using film any more. Movies are also going DV with people like Lucas and Rodriguez already doing so.
If it's good enough for him, it's good enough for me.
I imagine he's using some very high-end equipment, though.
What? When you could produce an episode of Celebrity Pet Makeover Challenges from Hell instead?
Here's my problems:-
I don't really know C++ very well.
I can't get my head around the papers that explain the maths.
Are there any "tea boy" jobs that can be done (like promotion, documentation, admin) that can be done?
It sounds like I have some work to do....
The annoying thing to me, sirshannon, is that I'd assume that people working for a giant size software company like Microsoft would parse a URL into a common form before even doing anything else. At least with a piece of OSS software, you aren't paying for it, so can't really complain.
Do you have a full understanding of the problem? Neither of the articles goes into what you are saying, but I'd appreciate more explanation.
Personally, I have a system with no password protected folders or files, but I do have forms authentication on them and the roles are defined within the folders (in the web.config per folder) and a custom handler checks the roles in the database based on a user ID in a scrambled cookie (hope that makes sense).
I basically define the roles at folder, not file level.
Am I safe? And can you explain why?
I support a web application, and it uses Role-Based authentication, database and cookies to store/process the roles (you have probably seen articles with such a thing)
Am I safe, or is this system affected (rather not have to do some unpaid work to fix Microsoft's fault if not really necessary).
Jimmy: "When you came posting security alerts, did you see a sign over my desk that said Large Software Firms Webserver Bug Resolution Team?" Microsoft: "Jimmy, you know..." Jimmy: "Did you see a sign over my desk that said Large Software Firms Webserver Bug Resolution Team?" Microsoft: "No. I didn't". Jimmy: "You know why you didn't see that sign?" Microsoft: "Why?" Jimmy: "Cause it ain't there. Because fixing Large Software Firms Webserver Bugs ain't my fscking business"
However, next time I'm going to take my chances with PHP, MySQL and Apache.
I'm not worried about 1 little bug, but it seems to me as an outsider that the people in charge of this should have put this in. This to me isn't something that looks like an overflow, but the equivalent of leaving a key under your door mat.
So what? It's simpler to have programmers building web pages, raising the network traffic and spending the saved development costs on more network traffic IMO.
I see more and more companies moving towards web applications, and don't think they'll go for the equivalent of a client/server solution.
I had the same argument with people when I was doing mainframe work and client/server was the new buzzword. There was all this "well, people can work locally and we can validate locally", and people like me were saying "validate all you want, we'll be validating for ourselves to protect the mainframe database". So then, any change to rules had to be reflected in the client application and in the mainframe, and sure enough, mistakes occurred. Things skipped through the client validation and hit our mainframe validation because there were differences.
So, regardless of the local validation and data, you have to communicate with the server.
Shipping multiuser applications to browsers generally counts as a stupid idea IMO, with a few exceptions of some nice little standalone helpers and things where users have control over their own data.
IMO a maximum of about 10% of the work is on the GUI, and the other 90% of the work is the code behind the GUI functions. Particularly on support - most work is on the behind, not on the front.
So, I can live without a GUI. It also often means that you understand the code written because you did it yourself, rather than having to examine code generated by a GUI.