Actually, I worked with a developer who actually did something along these lines... only he'd take the projects he was given at work and assign them as homework to his students... and submit them at work, as his own.
I remember, rather fondly I must admit, some team meetings where "his" stuff didn't work and he had absolutely no idea how to get "his" stuff working again... and it was clear to everyone what was going on.
I've been running Sophos on both my Macs for a year or so... Not so much because I felt I needed them... but because I come from the PC world and felt nekked without an AV program... and my work covers the license costs which made the decision a no brainer.
Interestingly enough... to date, they have only detected MS based viruses.
The site is acting like it is soon to be slashdotted...
Anatomy of a runaway IT project
By bfwebster on Jun 16, 2008 in Main, Management, Project Failure
[Welcome to reddit and FARK visitors!]
The following document is the actual text -- carefully redacted -- of a memo I wrote some time back [i.e., several years ago] after performing an IT project review; names and identifying concepts have been changed to preserve confidentiality (and protect the guilty). The project in question was a major IT re-engineering effort for a mission-critical system; at the time I did this review, the project had been going on for several years and had cost millions of dollars; it would eventually be canceled and the work products abandoned. The memo itself provides an interesting glimpse into just how a major IT project can go so far off the tracks that nothing useful is ever delivered.
Note that the "ABC" consultants were a small part of the overall project team and had been brought in relatively late by "BigFirm" in an attempt to get the "FUBAR" project into production; they neither initiated nor managed the project. [NOTE for those of you who have written or done Google searches: "Bob Winsom", like all the other names in the memo as transcribed below, is a pseudonym.]
CONFIDENTIAL MEMORANDUM -- EYES ONLY
Over the past two weeks, I've conducted confidential off-site group interviews with all of the ABC consultants working on the FUBAR project. I did this at [ABC manager's] request, after a few of these consultants spoke privately about FUBAR with him. The feedback was consistent and raises serious doubts about whether the FUBAR project, as currently pursued, can ever yield a successful production deployment.
This report groups those comments into several broad areas. It is relatively unfiltered and extremely direct (no withholding). It represents the private comments of ABC consultants who have little to gain and possibly much to lose by being so blunt. These are not the whinings of purists picking nits. These are the grounded assessments of top-notch IT professionals who have among them a century or two of experience bringing projects to completion -- particularly those involving [specific IT] technology -- and who are down in the FUBAR trenches every day.
QUALITY OF WORK AND EFFORT
ISSUE: Several consultants said -- and the rest pretty much agreed -- that far too many of the deliverables, artifacts, and activities (e.g., algorithms, source code, system configuration, design/architecture documents, testing, defect tracking, scheduling etc.) are substantially below any acceptable professional standards and represent a profound threat to FUBAR ever going into production.
EXAMPLES: The code base is very fragile. A lot of it is bad old code that BigFirm didn't have time to rewrite two years ago, but now is five times its original size and even worse. One consultant said he took a code listing, picked pages at random, and found problems on every page he selected. There is pervasive hard coding of what should be adjustable parameters or at least meaningfully named constants (e.g., # of [key items] hard-coded throughout with the literal value '3, a constant named 'ninety_eight'). Builds take all night. App releases don't run acceptably, if at all, in a production environment. Developers check in files that won't even compile.
RISKS: The FUBAR project keeps being touted as a world-class development team, but it is not producing world-class, or even minimally-professional, results. This already shows up in the project delays and quality issues of the releases to date. What the team is producing will not only be very difficult to support and modify, it will in all likelihood be unusable, resulting in a complete failure of the FUBAR project.
PROJECT PLANNING AND EXECUTION
ISSUE: Project planning and execution is all to often poor or missing completely. Milestone dates, usually unrealistic if not impossible, are based on p
Why, when (insert some inventor/writer/anybody in particular) gets their life's work (jacked up by Nazis/eaten by elephants/some other horrible fate) are they always "broken"? Why not "pissed off for a couple of weeks" while they get really drunk, recover from the hangover and then update their resume so they can find a new job? Or, relieved that they can finally get on with their life and other things... like the honey do list the missus has been pestering them with since shortly after their honeymoon?
FWIW, about 90% of our e-mail has been spam... and we've seen a solid 50% increase in traffic over the past quarter. The numbers aren't that out of whack.
quote: Personally I'd prefer to teach people how to avoid spam/virus infection...
Good luck with that. Particularly with the avoiding spam part. If you come up with a foolproof method that actually involves using e-mail... I'm sure you'll be a lot richer than I am.
I haven't seen any bug spies, but I'm pretty sure I have seen those unmanned planes more than once. Somewhere, some CIA spook has a picture of me with a beer in hand and flying the bird at the camera.
Slashdot Mirror
"I hope the data reported will be impartially selected, honestly gathered, clearly explained, and perfectly accurate."
Good luck with that, this is the government we're talking about...
emperior
Potential pronunciations
EEm-pear-EE-ear
ehm-pur-ree-AR
ehm-pee-rear
Or perhaps my Frenchish favorite,
ehm-pe-wah
Man, I need to get away from my desk and get some fresh air or somethin'.
"What if that player had a tendency to explode after 25 hours of use. Would you want to be notified of the recall? "
That all depends on who I bought it for.
Actually, I worked with a developer who actually did something along these lines... only he'd take the projects he was given at work and assign them as homework to his students... and submit them at work, as his own.
I remember, rather fondly I must admit, some team meetings where "his" stuff didn't work and he had absolutely no idea how to get "his" stuff working again... and it was clear to everyone what was going on.
I've been running Sophos on both my Macs for a year or so... Not so much because I felt I needed them... but because I come from the PC world and felt nekked without an AV program... and my work covers the license costs which made the decision a no brainer.
Interestingly enough... to date, they have only detected MS based viruses.
1. Get hired at Verizon.
2. Snoop president to be's call records.
3. ???
4. You're a bad toad. Fired! No profit for YOU!!!
I think recreational chemical hobbyist is the term you are looking for.
I considered suggesting using American politicians for testing instead of mice... what was I thinking?! Everybody knows they don't have brains.
The site is acting like it is soon to be slashdotted...
Anatomy of a runaway IT project
By bfwebster on Jun 16, 2008 in Main, Management, Project Failure
[Welcome to reddit and FARK visitors!]
The following document is the actual text -- carefully redacted -- of a memo I wrote some time back [i.e., several years ago] after performing an IT project review; names and identifying concepts have been changed to preserve confidentiality (and protect the guilty). The project in question was a major IT re-engineering effort for a mission-critical system; at the time I did this review, the project had been going on for several years and had cost millions of dollars; it would eventually be canceled and the work products abandoned. The memo itself provides an interesting glimpse into just how a major IT project can go so far off the tracks that nothing useful is ever delivered.
Note that the "ABC" consultants were a small part of the overall project team and had been brought in relatively late by "BigFirm" in an attempt to get the "FUBAR" project into production; they neither initiated nor managed the project. [NOTE for those of you who have written or done Google searches: "Bob Winsom", like all the other names in the memo as transcribed below, is a pseudonym.]
CONFIDENTIAL MEMORANDUM -- EYES ONLY
Over the past two weeks, I've conducted confidential off-site group interviews with all of the ABC consultants working on the FUBAR project. I did this at [ABC manager's] request, after a few of these consultants spoke privately about FUBAR with him. The feedback was consistent and raises serious doubts about whether the FUBAR project, as currently pursued, can ever yield a successful production deployment.
This report groups those comments into several broad areas. It is relatively unfiltered and extremely direct (no withholding). It represents the private comments of ABC consultants who have little to gain and possibly much to lose by being so blunt. These are not the whinings of purists picking nits. These are the grounded assessments of top-notch IT professionals who have among them a century or two of experience bringing projects to completion -- particularly those involving [specific IT] technology -- and who are down in the FUBAR trenches every day. QUALITY OF WORK AND EFFORT
ISSUE: Several consultants said -- and the rest pretty much agreed -- that far too many of the deliverables, artifacts, and activities (e.g., algorithms, source code, system configuration, design/architecture documents, testing, defect tracking, scheduling etc.) are substantially below any acceptable professional standards and represent a profound threat to FUBAR ever going into production.
EXAMPLES: The code base is very fragile. A lot of it is bad old code that BigFirm didn't have time to rewrite two years ago, but now is five times its original size and even worse. One consultant said he took a code listing, picked pages at random, and found problems on every page he selected. There is pervasive hard coding of what should be adjustable parameters or at least meaningfully named constants (e.g., # of [key items] hard-coded throughout with the literal value '3, a constant named 'ninety_eight'). Builds take all night. App releases don't run acceptably, if at all, in a production environment. Developers check in files that won't even compile.
RISKS: The FUBAR project keeps being touted as a world-class development team, but it is not producing world-class, or even minimally-professional, results. This already shows up in the project delays and quality issues of the releases to date. What the team is producing will not only be very difficult to support and modify, it will in all likelihood be unusable, resulting in a complete failure of the FUBAR project. PROJECT PLANNING AND EXECUTION
ISSUE: Project planning and execution is all to often poor or missing completely. Milestone dates, usually unrealistic if not impossible, are based on p
Why, when (insert some inventor/writer/anybody in particular) gets their life's work (jacked up by Nazis/eaten by elephants/some other horrible fate) are they always "broken"? Why not "pissed off for a couple of weeks" while they get really drunk, recover from the hangover and then update their resume so they can find a new job? Or, relieved that they can finally get on with their life and other things... like the honey do list the missus has been pestering them with since shortly after their honeymoon?
I'm just sayin'...
Ah. I had not thought of that. That's what I get for being a smart ass, I guess. : -)
Um, I think you meant hosts.deny
I've heard that AIX is Unix in the universe where Spock *has* a beard. Does that count?
The difference between a duck is that one leg and both the same.
If he's using the accounting system of the American government, he can borrow endlessly and get Hell to pay.
I'd say a more practical interface is to plug the lawyers into something electrical and then turn it on.
As long as they didn't create a real black hole.
That would suck.
Reading is easy when you don't sweat comprehension.
[quote]What about drink-addled over-50 year olds?[/quote]
Those would be Shriners.
That's because in Soviet Kansas, nothing evolves...
1. Google buys some somethin' or other. 2. OMG!!! It threatens your privacy. 3. ??? 4. Profit!
FWIW, about 90% of our e-mail has been spam... and we've seen a solid 50% increase in traffic over the past quarter. The numbers aren't that out of whack. quote: Personally I'd prefer to teach people how to avoid spam/virus infection... Good luck with that. Particularly with the avoiding spam part. If you come up with a foolproof method that actually involves using e-mail... I'm sure you'll be a lot richer than I am.
I haven't seen any bug spies, but I'm pretty sure I have seen those unmanned planes more than once. Somewhere, some CIA spook has a picture of me with a beer in hand and flying the bird at the camera.
They aren't a laughing stock because it just isn't funny anymore.
I can use my middle finger for the print.