We don't have too many lazy managers. The ones that cause problems are the ones that push and don't listen to what you report back.
>> Their approach is to get something 'working'
Although there are certainly some people that never take pride in their craft, I believe otherwise skilled developers will often just get p*ssed off and hammer out crap to meet unreasonable requests. The only one to know will be the poor SOB that has to fix it later.
One: I take issue with being called a liar. I'm not. When I say "hide" mainly what I mean is that I make a point of finishing the interface on anything last. If they can't see it, they know it isn't done.
Two: The "face management head on" scenario doesn't work here. There are plenty of things I tell them "no" about and plenty of things I refuse to do, but It doesn't work if the project is more or less done, You just come in to work and find them using the project productively. Forget that all the testing isn't done, or it's writing to a test database, it's been pushed.
three: Are your manger's asleep?
>> He waits until he has a project almost completed before announcing it. Our PHB not only falls for it, but they think this guy is some sort of superman because has appears to finish projects so quickly,
I don't buy that. It makes no sense at all. What is the guy doing, writing code at home in his own time? If something takes 4 weeks to write, it takes 4 weeks. How could he hide it being worked on? Maybe he is just head and shoulders above you all productivity-wise. Either that or you work someplace where no one pays attention to what gets done on the clock, because when I get handed a job, it is on the clock from the get-go and saying "No it's not done" multiple times actually makes me look bad to PHB, not good.
What it does do is prevent them from releasing sh*tty code under my name or my team's name. IMHO, I'd rather have my boss think I'm slow than get a slew or 3 AM phone calls.
>> I wholeheartedly disagree with your approach.
feel free. YMMV
>> Humans make mistakes, but they also need to correct them. Sloppy code is not acceptable.
Have you ever written code for idiots?
When I'm creating software I have to hide my work in progress from management. By that I mean, show them chunks only. I can never let them see something that looks like an operational product till its' been up and running and tested six ways from Sunday, because if they see a working prototype, they'll try to force me to roll it out as productive immediately. Telling them it's "not done" doesn't work either - I've come it to work and found a demo project distributed as productive. I mean wtf? - Some PHBs just don't get it at all. You tell them its' running against a test database, needs 3 more weeks work and bang, its' out the door. - It's not on fire right now so it must be done, right?
In those circumstances, I don't really give a sh*t if it fails and costs them money, except the blame (and 3 am phone calls) fall to the team that wrote it.
You're %100 right, there is no exuse for buggy code, but there is tonnes of it out there, being used productively that was never really finished. Sometimes it's got less to do with the lazy developers than managers who don't listen.
These guys haven't built one. It sounds like they haven't even got anyone convinced to finance it yet. The sales pitch is great, but perhaps we should treat it with a little skepticism initially.
Forget the mod questions, why was this posted to/.?
So far there seem to be several posts to this thread basically saying "the article is shit". They're all modded troll, fair enough. Mod however you like but I gotta say I think they're right.
I went to read the article and learned on the first page about overclocking something called a C-P-U. Truly amazing. I would have hung around for more wisdom, but the pop-up ad in the center of my screen kind of pissed me off, so I left.
This article might be good for my Mom, or maybe my manager, but any regular/. reader? Give me one of those insightful Roland P. posts over this any day.
XP Pro - Bittorent - 0$
MS Office 2003 - Bittorent - 0$
Every game you can think of - Bittorent - 0$
Total - 0$
I find it amusing that your sig is slamming "steam".
Do you suppose there is a correlation between ripping of every f*cking piece of software you can and software companies creating intrusive systems to prevent piracy?
How many Visicalc stories do we need? There's one here , one here, and one here. What's new in this story that isn't covered in-depth in the others?
Posting stories about old technology allows us old guys to fill the aching need we have to tell you how l33t we were before most of the/. crowd was out of diapers.
You know; "The older I get, the better I was"
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to reminisce about wordstar, acoustic couplers and hard sectored 8 inch floppies.... oh the l33tness of it all.
My first exposure to "what a computer can do" was a big tractor-feed printout of ASCII porn -
naturally it was created on a highly expensive, tax-dollar funded university mainframe;-)
I bet ASCII porn was the one thing many early geeks brought home to show their non-tech buddies
I've had a P.S. die, fry the traces right off the mainboard & cook half the components in the computer. Made me an instant believer in buying decent P.S....
People will put serious money into their CPU, RAM, Video etc but insist on buying a $20 dollar piece of crap to run it all. Or worse yet a $80 dollar piece of crap that has LED fans. (Hint: If it doesn't weigh any more than the no name P.S. your replacing, it probably isn't any better. Like the russian dude in Snatch says: "The weight, it is sign of reliability")
I don't think market penetration == killer app. It is certainly popular though.
>> I use it even when developing for Linux.
I usually do things the other way around. compile first with GCC, then under VS 6.0. IMHO the editors in linux are better, the tools faster and it's easier to write to ANSI standard.
VS does some things well, especially with bigger projects, but for most stuff it's a distant second choice.
>> I could state the number is that low due to lack of interest rather than being cheap mofo's.
"cheap mofos" was kind of tongue-in-cheek. I agree there are many studious type that use linux. As well, the low price likely attracts a lot of people that just can't afford software as well. (and yes, I know, being broke not the same as being cheap) I think this makes developing any game for linux more a labour of love more than an intelligent business proposition.
>> I've been in a position many times where I've made promotion reccomendations based on candidates ability to work as part of a team.
In most situations, putting in unpaid time isn't teamwork. It's giving management something for free. They won't respect you for it and will come to expect it in the future.
>> If you regard the management as the enemy
I never said that. In fact I have people under me. Some of the time, I'm saying "no" on their behalf rather than mine. Any negative reaction falls on my head not theirs. I'm comfortable with that. Protecting your team is part of the job. My managers expect it from anyone in a leadership role.
So far as your initial comment about basing promotion on "team work" you should re-evaluate what you consider team work. Saying "yes" to everything isn't team work. I've seen promotions based on choosing the biggest ass-kisser for the job. They frequently end up being the ones short on skill and short on work ethic when the crunch hits.
There's this fantastic text editor I saw called "notepad.exe". I really like it, but you have to buy a bunch of utter crap that comes bundled with it...
>> Anyway, good luck to him but I think $20 for a game is above a reasonable Linux price point
I believe you are right. these guys sell indie games based on the torque engine (which they license to hoddyists/indie devs). Many of the games are win/Mac/Linux, but they sell something like 5% to linux users The rest being Win/Mac with lots of MAC sales - they buy. Apparently we (linux users) are a cheap bunch of mofos...
>> What's really so hard about porting it yourself? Really, if you'd written it properly the first time it should compile on Linux without issue.
AC followed a good point with a gratuitous Mac-slam and got modded to hell. The first point still has some value though.
If the author has the talent to write it under the MAC platform, he should take a stab at porting it himself. Failing that, try posting your project someplace like elance or guru. just don't take the lowest bid;-)
>>..cause I *have* to be concerned about my workplace 24/7/365 and available to immediately respond to a systems emergency.
There's a recipe for stress. If there is no one in your company who can handle your workload when sick/vacationing/sleeping, I'd say they have problems.
Is there no one else who could carry your pager for a week? What happens if you get hit by a bus?
If you're already in a position, and hold that position due to merit, surely you can afford a little backbone.
I've turned down numerous requests for both unpaid and paid work after hours. If my employer requests anything unreasonable, I feel free to refuse. I think if anything it engenders some respect.
If what they want really needs to be done, they'll lean on someone else to do it. There is always someone afraid to say no. - it just isn't me
>> But the fact that you nowadays could 'get flagged' or even get a very nasty visit by looking at such content is silly. More, it makes me both afraid and angry. Terrorists attacking our freedom. Oh yes, it seems that they are very effective now.
The focus of any act of terror is typically not to maim or kill a few dozens, but provoke reactionary policies by the government, inconveniencing millions. Look at the basque movement for classic example of this, where concilliatory gestures from the spanish government were met with increasing violence. Admittedly they were attacking targets within their own country, but the dynamic is identical.
No terrorist organization can do a fraction of the damage to a government that it will do to itself in reacting... How many lifetimes worth of hours have the American public lost in increased airport security checks alone? There are no bombs going off on US soil, but you're getting screwed every day to prevent it.
>> and the browser would lie to the webserver about what browser it is for the remainder of that session on that domain.
It's already really easy to spoof http_user_agent on Konqueror, firefox/mozilla and opera.
look here for a walk-through on spoofing UA strings. It doesn't cover IE, but it shows how to change FF in about 20 seconds, without using a plugin.
http_user_agent is useless for session level data. Web masters with any clue at all quit using it a long time ago. Explains why my bank insists on IE, I guess.
>> you can't predict ahead of time when they will happen.
WHy would you need to guess when? surely the seconds are added at arbitrary points as required, but I can't imagine it is done with no warning.
>> Imagine you make a very precise schedule in advance (e.g. scheduled events on a spacecraft) and then a leap second is announced and everything is then off by a second.
The industry I working does use highly complex systems where precise timing is critical. I can tell you from experience that you have to design for timing errors. They happen, not if but when.
Besides, assuming you've got a system that requires real-time function and accuracy to the second, why would you sync to outside time for anything but maintenance? Keep your timings relative to the system itself. Then you just need to worry about internal clocks...
Slashdot Mirror
>> If anyone did any investigation (which is often the case when buying servers)
not where I work....
>> lazy managers.
We don't have too many lazy managers. The ones that cause problems are the ones that push and don't listen to what you report back.
>> Their approach is to get something 'working'
Although there are certainly some people that never take pride in their craft, I believe otherwise skilled developers will often just get p*ssed off and hammer out crap to meet unreasonable requests. The only one to know will be the poor SOB that has to fix it later.
sort of lose-lose IMHO.
You answer your cell during meetings?
>> I have little respect for liars,
One: I take issue with being called a liar. I'm not. When I say "hide" mainly what I mean is that I make a point of finishing the interface on anything last. If they can't see it, they know it isn't done.
Two: The "face management head on" scenario doesn't work here. There are plenty of things I tell them "no" about and plenty of things I refuse to do, but It doesn't work if the project is more or less done, You just come in to work and find them using the project productively. Forget that all the testing isn't done, or it's writing to a test database, it's been pushed.
three: Are your manger's asleep?
>> He waits until he has a project almost completed before announcing it. Our PHB not only falls for it, but they think this guy is some sort of superman because has appears to finish projects so quickly,
I don't buy that. It makes no sense at all. What is the guy doing, writing code at home in his own time? If something takes 4 weeks to write, it takes 4 weeks. How could he hide it being worked on? Maybe he is just head and shoulders above you all productivity-wise. Either that or you work someplace where no one pays attention to what gets done on the clock, because when I get handed a job, it is on the clock from the get-go and saying "No it's not done" multiple times actually makes me look bad to PHB, not good.
What it does do is prevent them from releasing sh*tty code under my name or my team's name. IMHO, I'd rather have my boss think I'm slow than get a slew or 3 AM phone calls.
>> I wholeheartedly disagree with your approach.
feel free. YMMV
>> Humans make mistakes, but they also need to correct them. Sloppy code is not acceptable.
Have you ever written code for idiots?
When I'm creating software I have to hide my work in progress from management. By that I mean, show them chunks only. I can never let them see something that looks like an operational product till its' been up and running and tested six ways from Sunday, because if they see a working prototype, they'll try to force me to roll it out as productive immediately. Telling them it's "not done" doesn't work either - I've come it to work and found a demo project distributed as productive. I mean wtf? - Some PHBs just don't get it at all. You tell them its' running against a test database, needs 3 more weeks work and bang, its' out the door. - It's not on fire right now so it must be done, right?
In those circumstances, I don't really give a sh*t if it fails and costs them money, except the blame (and 3 am phone calls) fall to the team that wrote it.
You're %100 right, there is no exuse for buggy code, but there is tonnes of it out there, being used productively that was never really finished. Sometimes it's got less to do with the lazy developers than managers who don't listen.
Wait for the $200,000 price to climb.
These guys haven't built one. It sounds like they haven't even got anyone convinced to finance it yet. The sales pitch is great, but perhaps we should treat it with a little skepticism initially.
It might cost more and do less than advertised.
Forget the mod questions, why was this posted to /.?
/. reader? Give me one of those insightful Roland P. posts over this any day.
So far there seem to be several posts to this thread basically saying "the article is shit". They're all modded troll, fair enough. Mod however you like but I gotta say I think they're right.
I went to read the article and learned on the first page about overclocking something called a C-P-U. Truly amazing. I would have hung around for more wisdom, but the pop-up ad in the center of my screen kind of pissed me off, so I left.
This article might be good for my Mom, or maybe my manager, but any regular
>> Quaoar was discovered in 2002
>> In 2003 scientists discovered Sedna
But those names aren't nearly as cool as "Easter Bunny" or "Santa".
Too bad they're temporary.
>>Mining is all about return vs. investment
Even if we had the means to get there, the pay-off would have to be breath-taking to justify mining something 3 billion miles from earth.
Unless we dig up a stargate somewhere in the desert, I think this one's out of bounds..
I find it amusing that your sig is slamming "steam".
Do you suppose there is a correlation between ripping of every f*cking piece of software you can and software companies creating intrusive systems to prevent piracy?
How many Visicalc stories do we need? There's one here , one here, and one here. What's new in this story that isn't covered in-depth in the others?
/. crowd was out of diapers.
.. oh the l33tness of it all.
Posting stories about old technology allows us old guys to fill the aching need we have to tell you how l33t we were before most of the
You know; "The older I get, the better I was"
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to reminisce about wordstar, acoustic couplers and hard sectored 8 inch floppies..
Don't laugh, I think you're right.
;-)
My first exposure to "what a computer can do" was a big tractor-feed printout of ASCII porn - naturally it was created on a highly expensive, tax-dollar funded university mainframe
I bet ASCII porn was the one thing many early geeks brought home to show their non-tech buddies
>> Get a good PSU for your PC today!
pretty good advice, I'd say.
I've had a P.S. die, fry the traces right off the mainboard & cook half the components in the computer. Made me an instant believer in buying decent P.S....
People will put serious money into their CPU, RAM, Video etc but insist on buying a $20 dollar piece of crap to run it all. Or worse yet a $80 dollar piece of crap that has LED fans. (Hint: If it doesn't weigh any more than the no name P.S. your replacing, it probably isn't any better. Like the russian dude in Snatch says: "The weight, it is sign of reliability")
Two things;
(mine have it, I don't pay for it though. much better to just call and talk to them...)
>> Microsoft's ultimate killer app
I don't think market penetration == killer app. It is certainly popular though.
>> I use it even when developing for Linux.
I usually do things the other way around. compile first with GCC, then under VS 6.0. IMHO the editors in linux are better, the tools faster and it's easier to write to ANSI standard.
VS does some things well, especially with bigger projects, but for most stuff it's a distant second choice.
>> I could state the number is that low due to lack of interest rather than being cheap mofo's.
"cheap mofos" was kind of tongue-in-cheek. I agree there are many studious type that use linux. As well, the low price likely attracts a lot of people that just can't afford software as well. (and yes, I know, being broke not the same as being cheap) I think this makes developing any game for linux more a labour of love more than an intelligent business proposition.
>> I've been in a position many times where I've made promotion reccomendations based on candidates ability to work as part of a team.
In most situations, putting in unpaid time isn't teamwork. It's giving management something for free. They won't respect you for it and will come to expect it in the future.
>> If you regard the management as the enemy
I never said that. In fact I have people under me. Some of the time, I'm saying "no" on their behalf rather than mine. Any negative reaction falls on my head not theirs. I'm comfortable with that. Protecting your team is part of the job. My managers expect it from anyone in a leadership role.
So far as your initial comment about basing promotion on "team work" you should re-evaluate what you consider team work. Saying "yes" to everything isn't team work. I've seen promotions based on choosing the biggest ass-kisser for the job. They frequently end up being the ones short on skill and short on work ethic when the crunch hits.
>> the only good editor in the world?
There's this fantastic text editor I saw called "notepad.exe". I really like it, but you have to buy a bunch of utter crap that comes bundled with it...
>> Anyway, good luck to him but I think $20 for a game is above a reasonable Linux price point
I believe you are right. these guys sell indie games based on the torque engine (which they license to hoddyists/indie devs). Many of the games are win/Mac/Linux, but they sell something like 5% to linux users The rest being Win/Mac with lots of MAC sales - they buy. Apparently we (linux users) are a cheap bunch of mofos...
>> What's really so hard about porting it yourself? Really, if you'd written it properly the first time it should compile on Linux without issue.
;-)
AC followed a good point with a gratuitous Mac-slam and got modded to hell. The first point still has some value though.
If the author has the talent to write it under the MAC platform, he should take a stab at porting it himself. Failing that, try posting your project someplace like elance or guru. just don't take the lowest bid
>> ..cause I *have* to be concerned about my workplace 24/7/365 and available to immediately respond to a systems emergency.
There's a recipe for stress. If there is no one in your company who can handle your workload when sick/vacationing/sleeping, I'd say they have problems.
Is there no one else who could carry your pager for a week? What happens if you get hit by a bus?
>> And it is not about being brave
If you're already in a position, and hold that position due to merit, surely you can afford a little backbone.
I've turned down numerous requests for both unpaid and paid work after hours. If my employer requests anything unreasonable, I feel free to refuse. I think if anything it engenders some respect.
If what they want really needs to be done, they'll lean on someone else to do it. There is always someone afraid to say no. - it just isn't me
>> But the fact that you nowadays could 'get flagged' or even get a very nasty visit by looking at such content is silly. More, it makes me both afraid and angry. Terrorists attacking our freedom. Oh yes, it seems that they are very effective now.
The focus of any act of terror is typically not to maim or kill a few dozens, but provoke reactionary policies by the government, inconveniencing millions. Look at the basque movement for classic example of this, where concilliatory gestures from the spanish government were met with increasing violence. Admittedly they were attacking targets within their own country, but the dynamic is identical.
No terrorist organization can do a fraction of the damage to a government that it will do to itself in reacting... How many lifetimes worth of hours have the American public lost in increased airport security checks alone? There are no bombs going off on US soil, but you're getting screwed every day to prevent it.
Either way the terrorists win a little bit.
>> and the browser would lie to the webserver about what browser it is for the remainder of that session on that domain.
It's already really easy to spoof http_user_agent on Konqueror, firefox/mozilla and opera.
look here for a walk-through on spoofing UA strings. It doesn't cover IE, but it shows how to change FF in about 20 seconds, without using a plugin.
http_user_agent is useless for session level data. Web masters with any clue at all quit using it a long time ago. Explains why my bank insists on IE, I guess.
>> you can't predict ahead of time when they will happen.
WHy would you need to guess when? surely the seconds are added at arbitrary points as required, but I can't imagine it is done with no warning.
>> Imagine you make a very precise schedule in advance (e.g. scheduled events on a spacecraft) and then a leap second is announced and everything is then off by a second.
The industry I working does use highly complex systems where precise timing is critical. I can tell you from experience that you have to design for timing errors. They happen, not if but when.
Besides, assuming you've got a system that requires real-time function and accuracy to the second, why would you sync to outside time for anything but maintenance? Keep your timings relative to the system itself. Then you just need to worry about internal clocks...