Paperwork is a fact of life. If you don't like paperwork you should have chosen another career. I'm serious. Defects, fixes, server changes, installations, backout plans, configurations... you name it. It needs to be documented. End of story, if for no reason other than; if for some reason you can't be doing your job in the near future how does the work get done? Not to mention there are legal implications all over the board now in the tech industry.
If you're burdened by your bureaucracy it's due to a failing in that process and not in the paperwork that needs to get done. Now if IT is slow to respond it's a bottleneck in their process and I'm certain a qualified analyst would be able to look at how things are done and understand the breakage in workflow. I'm talking process development, not software development now. Too often folks think they're the same when it's not. A solid process requires no tools to support it. I guarantee that the poster's IT dept has redundant data and double entry all over the map and no one has taken a good look at the workflow. Just my 2 cents.
X-com, MOM are two of my faves but Master of Orion 2 was one of my all time favourites!:D Ah, MOO2...
A great turn based game is unfortunately a dying animal which is too bad considering what folks could accomplish with it now. I recently got Civ 4 and I felt kind of let down. Just once I want to have a game where I decide a generic build queue and if I don't interfer with a locations current build it should just follow the defaut build queue and if they aren't building something then they should build whatever gets updated into the build queue. Anyways, it's just a minor grievance really; it's a flaw in all of these games that I was most of the time ok with dealing.
Also another game in a similar theme to this that keeps me coming back is Final Fantasy Tactics; another turn based great. It's not a PC game but it was so much fun on the playstation.
Ok, this pisses me off without a doubt. A game is a thing, it has no moral compass, no intent, no thought process. The people who make the game are depicting fictional event. It's not real. If depicting crime is motive to cause crime than frickin' outlaw the Godfather series.
Everyone should take the time to tell their goverments for the need to crack down on people who break the law and stop trying to redirect blame away from the individual.
And if anyone thinks that EA should be to blame somehow. Then blame the automotive industry FIRST. After all they made it so you could speed in the car in the first place.
...for the need to have media like film. It's alot harder to manipulate a piece of film than it is an image file. Sad to see film seems to be on the way out.
I absolutely agreee with you but... (there's always a but isn't there?) I have a bigger bone to pick with the whole thing.
As soon as you say "Intelligent Design" in a classroom you go from teaching science to teaching faith. The purpose of evolution (I think) is not to describe why things are the way they are but how.
When you get into the why it's a slippery slope going from science into philosophy/faith, in my opinion. That subject doesn't belong in a science classroom.
Oh wait, make it two bones... because "Intelligent Design" goes against my belief. God didn't create the universe, rather she inherited it from her sister fell in and lost the owners manual. (Free karma to anyone who has a clue what I'm talking about.)
A previous thread brings up the same thing. This "patent" covers so many different technologies it's stupid. Say it with me "Software Patents bad..." Seriously though, I'm all for protecting your product but there is a point when what you think of is so basic that any of us could have thought of it and trying to hold a patent to it just stiffles progress. (Aside: Note to self patent the bubble sort.) Now why isn't someone explaining that to the patent office?
Hmm, I'll have to try something different then... Any takers?
I'll partner with whoever comes up the most lucrative idea. How hard can it be to abuse this? Seems like everyone else is doing it and looks like so much fun!
I've got it! I'll patent the a method to take data and display it to a luser. Brilliant! I'm back in cha-ching land!
Man I read that patent and I couldn't help but wonder who you couldn't sue with that? Talk about vague!
That's it, I'm patenting the algorithm to add 1 + 1 electronically. Cha-ching!
You're absolutely correct and it's not just sarbox. You should always have clear segregation of duties in any organization. If you have a tester who also develops but is still pretty much a tester what do you pay him? A testers wage or a programmers wage? Usually an entry level tester makes less than a programmer. So will this guy stay when you pay him a testers wage? No, he can make more doing pure programming elsewhere. Are you paying him too much if he gets a programmers wage? Yes, because he's still doing programming which is now a waste of your dollar.
Finally, and this point always gets me flamed, a programmer should never, ever, ever, ever test his own code. Why's that? Because the temptation to shortcut is too great. Most testers won't shortcut because if they pass buggy software it's their ass.
So often an organization will have overlapping duties but that kills you eventually or limits your growth. And here come the but's...
"But, what is the architect going to do while development is ongoing?" - Simple, architecting the next release and fielding questions and solve problems around the current product.
"But, what is the tester going to do before we have a build ready?" - Yet again, simple, preparing test cases, scripts, hardware, pre-requisite software, for the build to test.
And as for developers... come on they get beaten into the ground enough!:D
Not to knock Windows but Geez Louise why do they think we're calling it Black Tuesday??? Oh and let's have a show of hands from folks administrating systems that are behind in security updates because the shutdown window never comes? I can run out of fingers by counting the number of customers that we are dealing with that are using an old version (I mean real old) of a windows component that I depend on for my stuff!
Yeah, I thought the same thing. Lousy bastards, I bet you they won't send out anything to remove that stinking rootkit either. You can imagine that a class action will soon follow; especially without a recall.
Thinking about that though, does it matter if they recall the CD's if the DRM rootkits are already out there installed on computers?
OH man! I remember similar... I had the modem that was the next step up from the 9600 and trying to play doom II deathmatch with a buddy of mine. I remember I had to shrink my scrink down to less than half the size and my buddy did too. Even then we had so much latency it was insane! It made for some funny deaths.
"Oh! I'm outside... and falling now" Oh I miss that! In a masochistic beat-myself-up kind of way.
Too true, an auditor comes into an environment looks to see how secure it is. A lock on you door is not that great if half the office can get in and you don't lock your computer. Cubicles are fact of life in the industry.
And even more so...
So what if someone have financial information on your screen? It's a BUSINESS I bet the accounts all have access to financial info and they live in cubes too. This really sounds like someone who used to be in the IT "Elite" now whining about having to slum it with the rest of us.:P
We should give more thanks for the cubicle now that I think of it. Cubiclians unite and celebrate the cubicle and lack of individual space... with tequila!! Yee haa!
Sorry for a slow reply. I hadn't considered teaching creationism in the midst of all this. I should have figured there was some level of legal wrangling in all this. Amazing at how much can be reworked or revisited legally nowadays.
I am quite worried about this neo-conservative movement... oh I need to face facts. It's a reactionary movement.
What's worst is when I make arguements against things like this people start calling me all types of anti-faith names. Which is absurd because I'm catholic. I'm just not prescribing to it as hard line as others do.
Anyways, thanks for the comment I found it quite informative.
Cute but the creationists have "genericized" creationism into intelligent design. That way multiple faiths can jump on the intelligent design band wagon. It's become the lobby group for religion.
Now to be fair though. I'll fight for anyones right to promote intelligent design; provided its sufficiently backed with QUANTITATIVE evidence. So far I keep hearing about more qualitative points like "How likely is it for an intelligent species like man to evolve from protoplasm?" It's not a scientific arguing point rather a philosophical one. The reality is no one can scientifically debunk points like that because there is no other ruler to measure that against!!
I know, let's seed another planet with some single strand protiens that could say come from a comet. Add water, sunlight and several million years of evolution and observe... oh wait.
*Cue twilight zone music* Maybe we're the grand experiment???
Finally someone who was eloquently able to say what I've felt about this "revisionist media" movement. I was particularily disappointed by the editing in the DVD Release of ET. Granted, you can see the original edit in the DVD but you still have to buy the revisioned version (revisioned version??? What is that anyways?) but it's not fair to a consumer to sell them 2 movies in the guise of one when they only want the one. It's a packaging move. Anyways, the point I'm trying to make is that it's not fair to us as a consumer to keep taking the same thing, rework it and release it. It's like trying to sell you a book you just already read because 2 or 3 lines were changed. But you can't buy the original...
How is this fair?
Don't get me wrong. I've often enjoyed different editions of movies but there is a limit when this goes from enjoyment to nuissance. IE: The directors cut of Army of Darkness vs Greedo shooting first.
Regardless, you put into words what I've been feeling about this perfectly!
Ahh, but when something fails horribly with a car that puts end the customer at risk you best be assured that the auto-company will recall or repair the car to deal with the defect. Most cars are under warranty and most critical defects in new cars do raise liability issues with their manufacturers.
I think the average person expects that something they buy new out of a box shouldn't have it falling apart in days (and I think that belief is reasonably so). But when you buy Windows no one is obligated to give you service they just do it to keep you buying Windows.
But to your point, nothing should last forever everything changes/deteriotes... unless it's maintained and maintenance costs $$$ and no one wants to pay when they can buy the next new thing right?:D Heck, no one wants to maintain anything because that ends up being an expense and everyone (businesses included), everywhere hates expenses.
I have been explaining (well trying to explain) that XP and most RAD methods don't scale well. It's an old problem - get too many people working on something or on too big of something and eventually communication breaks down.
There are really only so many things that can be kept track of and eventually someone makes an assumption in RAD. I have seen it. I'm not saying XP doesn't work but I think every XP advocate would agree that to make XP work you need a very focused scope, an on-hand "customer", and a team that's all located on site.
I don't think you could really develop an O/S this way. Maybe a module or function of the O/S but not the entire O/S or the kernel. I just couldn't see it.
If the O/S uses 256 MB of graphic RAM how much of that will get released by the O/S when I want to run a really high resolution game?
HL 2 looked fairly good on 128 MB (what I have now). I wonder if they are purposely bloating the req speculatively or if this is the ideal just to run the O/S. *shudder*
Oh and who wants to bet on the number of companies that will buy these insane-o high powered systems to run Vista because XP won't be supported at that point. JOY!
I'm not even going to get into the rest "Where's my HDCP?"... trust me I won't ask that I'll be saying "Where is my capability to fairly copy works that I own!"
You're 100% correct.
What distrubs me is how this trend of litigation towards opening a private viewing port into the private goings on of any individual without a record, without proof of just cause... oh hell without concern for individual rights.
I tend to be slow to act on these things but rest assured my MP, the privacy minister, and anyone else who is going to hear it will know my opinion on this matter and I suggest to any Canadian reading this who feels the same to do the same.
Slashdot Mirror
Paperwork is a fact of life. If you don't like paperwork you should have chosen another career. I'm serious. Defects, fixes, server changes, installations, backout plans, configurations... you name it. It needs to be documented. End of story, if for no reason other than; if for some reason you can't be doing your job in the near future how does the work get done? Not to mention there are legal implications all over the board now in the tech industry.
If you're burdened by your bureaucracy it's due to a failing in that process and not in the paperwork that needs to get done. Now if IT is slow to respond it's a bottleneck in their process and I'm certain a qualified analyst would be able to look at how things are done and understand the breakage in workflow. I'm talking process development, not software development now. Too often folks think they're the same when it's not. A solid process requires no tools to support it. I guarantee that the poster's IT dept has redundant data and double entry all over the map and no one has taken a good look at the workflow. Just my 2 cents.
X-com, MOM are two of my faves but Master of Orion 2 was one of my all time favourites! :D Ah, MOO2...
A great turn based game is unfortunately a dying animal which is too bad considering what folks could accomplish with it now. I recently got Civ 4 and I felt kind of let down. Just once I want to have a game where I decide a generic build queue and if I don't interfer with a locations current build it should just follow the defaut build queue and if they aren't building something then they should build whatever gets updated into the build queue. Anyways, it's just a minor grievance really; it's a flaw in all of these games that I was most of the time ok with dealing.
Also another game in a similar theme to this that keeps me coming back is Final Fantasy Tactics; another turn based great. It's not a PC game but it was so much fun on the playstation.
Oh hell yeah. Like Karateka!!! You can die in the ending. It was classic!
Ok, this pisses me off without a doubt. A game is a thing, it has no moral compass, no intent, no thought process. The people who make the game are depicting fictional event. It's not real. If depicting crime is motive to cause crime than frickin' outlaw the Godfather series.
Everyone should take the time to tell their goverments for the need to crack down on people who break the law and stop trying to redirect blame away from the individual.
And if anyone thinks that EA should be to blame somehow. Then blame the automotive industry FIRST. After all they made it so you could speed in the car in the first place.
...for the need to have media like film. It's alot harder to manipulate a piece of film than it is an image file. Sad to see film seems to be on the way out.
...Steve Jobs is planning on using this new found position for a chance to meet Minnie Mouse so he can try to impress her with the size of his nano. :P
I absolutely agreee with you but... (there's always a but isn't there?) I have a bigger bone to pick with the whole thing.
As soon as you say "Intelligent Design" in a classroom you go from teaching science to teaching faith. The purpose of evolution (I think) is not to describe why things are the way they are but how. When you get into the why it's a slippery slope going from science into philosophy/faith, in my opinion. That subject doesn't belong in a science classroom.
Oh wait, make it two bones... because "Intelligent Design" goes against my belief. God didn't create the universe, rather she inherited it from her sister fell in and lost the owners manual. (Free karma to anyone who has a clue what I'm talking about.)
A previous thread brings up the same thing. This "patent" covers so many different technologies it's stupid. Say it with me "Software Patents bad..."
Seriously though, I'm all for protecting your product but there is a point when what you think of is so basic that any of us could have thought of it and trying to hold a patent to it just stiffles progress. (Aside: Note to self patent the bubble sort.) Now why isn't someone explaining that to the patent office?
Hmm, I'll have to try something different then... Any takers?
I'll partner with whoever comes up the most lucrative idea. How hard can it be to abuse this? Seems like everyone else is doing it and looks like so much fun!
I've got it! I'll patent the a method to take data and display it to a luser. Brilliant! I'm back in cha-ching land!
Man I read that patent and I couldn't help but wonder who you couldn't sue with that? Talk about vague! That's it, I'm patenting the algorithm to add 1 + 1 electronically. Cha-ching!
How about Global Warming, Punky Brewster, and rayon?
You're absolutely correct and it's not just sarbox. You should always have clear segregation of duties in any organization. If you have a tester who also develops but is still pretty much a tester what do you pay him? A testers wage or a programmers wage? Usually an entry level tester makes less than a programmer. So will this guy stay when you pay him a testers wage? No, he can make more doing pure programming elsewhere. Are you paying him too much if he gets a programmers wage? Yes, because he's still doing programming which is now a waste of your dollar.
:D
Finally, and this point always gets me flamed, a programmer should never, ever, ever, ever test his own code. Why's that? Because the temptation to shortcut is too great. Most testers won't shortcut because if they pass buggy software it's their ass.
So often an organization will have overlapping duties but that kills you eventually or limits your growth. And here come the but's...
"But, what is the architect going to do while development is ongoing?" - Simple, architecting the next release and fielding questions and solve problems around the current product.
"But, what is the tester going to do before we have a build ready?" - Yet again, simple, preparing test cases, scripts, hardware, pre-requisite software, for the build to test.
And as for developers... come on they get beaten into the ground enough!
To quote Homer "It's funny because it's true".
Not to knock Windows but Geez Louise why do they think we're calling it Black Tuesday??? Oh and let's have a show of hands from folks administrating systems that are behind in security updates because the shutdown window never comes? I can run out of fingers by counting the number of customers that we are dealing with that are using an old version (I mean real old) of a windows component that I depend on for my stuff!
Yeah, I thought the same thing. Lousy bastards, I bet you they won't send out anything to remove that stinking rootkit either. You can imagine that a class action will soon follow; especially without a recall.
Thinking about that though, does it matter if they recall the CD's if the DRM rootkits are already out there installed on computers?
OH man! I remember similar... I had the modem that was the next step up from the 9600 and trying to play doom II deathmatch with a buddy of mine. I remember I had to shrink my scrink down to less than half the size and my buddy did too. Even then we had so much latency it was insane! It made for some funny deaths.
"Oh! I'm outside... and falling now" Oh I miss that! In a masochistic beat-myself-up kind of way.
Too true, an auditor comes into an environment looks to see how secure it is. A lock on you door is not that great if half the office can get in and you don't lock your computer. Cubicles are fact of life in the industry. :P
And even more so...
So what if someone have financial information on your screen? It's a BUSINESS I bet the accounts all have access to financial info and they live in cubes too. This really sounds like someone who used to be in the IT "Elite" now whining about having to slum it with the rest of us.
We should give more thanks for the cubicle now that I think of it. Cubiclians unite and celebrate the cubicle and lack of individual space... with tequila!! Yee haa!
Sorry for a slow reply. I hadn't considered teaching creationism in the midst of all this. I should have figured there was some level of legal wrangling in all this. Amazing at how much can be reworked or revisited legally nowadays.
I am quite worried about this neo-conservative movement... oh I need to face facts. It's a reactionary movement.
What's worst is when I make arguements against things like this people start calling me all types of anti-faith names. Which is absurd because I'm catholic. I'm just not prescribing to it as hard line as others do.
Anyways, thanks for the comment I found it quite informative.
Cute but the creationists have "genericized" creationism into intelligent design. That way multiple faiths can jump on the intelligent design band wagon. It's become the lobby group for religion.
Now to be fair though. I'll fight for anyones right to promote intelligent design; provided its sufficiently backed with QUANTITATIVE evidence. So far I keep hearing about more qualitative points like "How likely is it for an intelligent species like man to evolve from protoplasm?" It's not a scientific arguing point rather a philosophical one. The reality is no one can scientifically debunk points like that because there is no other ruler to measure that against!!
I know, let's seed another planet with some single strand protiens that could say come from a comet. Add water, sunlight and several million years of evolution and observe... oh wait.
*Cue twilight zone music* Maybe we're the grand experiment???
Finally someone who was eloquently able to say what I've felt about this "revisionist media" movement. I was particularily disappointed by the editing in the DVD Release of ET. Granted, you can see the original edit in the DVD but you still have to buy the revisioned version (revisioned version??? What is that anyways?) but it's not fair to a consumer to sell them 2 movies in the guise of one when they only want the one. It's a packaging move. Anyways, the point I'm trying to make is that it's not fair to us as a consumer to keep taking the same thing, rework it and release it. It's like trying to sell you a book you just already read because 2 or 3 lines were changed. But you can't buy the original...
How is this fair?
Don't get me wrong. I've often enjoyed different editions of movies but there is a limit when this goes from enjoyment to nuissance. IE: The directors cut of Army of Darkness vs Greedo shooting first.
Regardless, you put into words what I've been feeling about this perfectly!
On sending data via an electronic mechanism... come on, if this doesn't get smacked down thoroughly I'll get royally pissed!
There is so much wrong with this I can't even begin!! Freakin' misuse of patents by doughheads who seek to make money on other people's efforts!
GRR!
Ahh, but when something fails horribly with a car that puts end the customer at risk you best be assured that the auto-company will recall or repair the car to deal with the defect. Most cars are under warranty and most critical defects in new cars do raise liability issues with their manufacturers.
:D Heck, no one wants to maintain anything because that ends up being an expense and everyone (businesses included), everywhere hates expenses.
I think the average person expects that something they buy new out of a box shouldn't have it falling apart in days (and I think that belief is reasonably so). But when you buy Windows no one is obligated to give you service they just do it to keep you buying Windows.
But to your point, nothing should last forever everything changes/deteriotes... unless it's maintained and maintenance costs $$$ and no one wants to pay when they can buy the next new thing right?
Is it possible to be more than 100% correct?
I have been explaining (well trying to explain) that XP and most RAD methods don't scale well. It's an old problem - get too many people working on something or on too big of something and eventually communication breaks down.
There are really only so many things that can be kept track of and eventually someone makes an assumption in RAD. I have seen it. I'm not saying XP doesn't work but I think every XP advocate would agree that to make XP work you need a very focused scope, an on-hand "customer", and a team that's all located on site.
I don't think you could really develop an O/S this way. Maybe a module or function of the O/S but not the entire O/S or the kernel. I just couldn't see it.
Pinky, are you thinking what I'm thinking?
If the O/S uses 256 MB of graphic RAM how much of that will get released by the O/S when I want to run a really high resolution game?
HL 2 looked fairly good on 128 MB (what I have now). I wonder if they are purposely bloating the req speculatively or if this is the ideal just to run the O/S. *shudder*
Oh and who wants to bet on the number of companies that will buy these insane-o high powered systems to run Vista because XP won't be supported at that point. JOY!
I'm not even going to get into the rest "Where's my HDCP?"... trust me I won't ask that I'll be saying "Where is my capability to fairly copy works that I own!"
You're 100% correct.
What distrubs me is how this trend of litigation towards opening a private viewing port into the private goings on of any individual without a record, without proof of just cause... oh hell without concern for individual rights.
I tend to be slow to act on these things but rest assured my MP, the privacy minister, and anyone else who is going to hear it will know my opinion on this matter and I suggest to any Canadian reading this who feels the same to do the same.
OMG, I'm snickering so loudly at this that the co-op near me must think I'm insane.
... Nevermind, somehow my brain just went south.
Would the script read something like:
ed finger perl man kill ed
perl man split
man grep perl tail