Unfortunately, one person's "busywork" is sometimes another person's critical need.
I think that many references to "busywork" in software dev are really "doing something that I'm too narrow to understand why it is needed". Sometimes this "something" is testing. Sometimes it's writing down a functional and architecture design on a critical piece of software so other devs can review it, so tester's can figure out how to test it, or so customers can figure out how to use it. Sometimes it's putting in sufficient diagnostics so "one in 1,000,000 hours of execution data corruption problems" can be tracked down and fixed.
In my experience, the odds of someone referring to "busywork" is inversely proportional to their breadth of experience in a variety of roles.
Of course, most of my experience is in fairly small growing companies where true busywork gets extinguished fairly quickly.
If a system is down which costs the company millions of dollars an hour, that system probably depends on the efforts of thousands of people - including the electrician who wired the data center two years ago, the kid in China who assembled the network switches, the security guard at the front door, the city building inspector who noted a fire code violation during plan review, the developer who wrote the web interface, and Linus.
Maybe this will help you understand why just because your job is to get a system back online doesn't mean that your hourly wage (even for the time you are working on the specific problem) should be the amount of money that system produces or saves the company an hour.
Of the programmers I've worked with in the last 20 years, I can only think of a handful that ever wore a tie to work - and usually that was because they were going to a traditional funeral later in the day.
The dress code everywhere I've worked was, well, that there was no dress code beyond what decency laws required. I suppose if someone had come in wearing just the barest of swimsuits every day, that might have prompted some "counseling" but it never happened so I don't know. I've never talked to anyone I've ever managed suggesting/urging/requiring that they dress differently or in any particular way.
Perhaps you're working at the wrong companies or in the wrong geographical area.
Although I've wisely successfully resisted the temptation to do so, I've always been tempted to answer: "How would I know? Since you don't seem to know, I assume I'm free to continue my journey now?"
The 401(k) wasn't about corporations not honoring their existing pension obligations - it was about not incurring future unsustainable pension obligations.
401(k)s also addressed a problem with an increasingly mobile and transient work force where people would change jobs every few years and never vest in any pension plan. 401(k)s, being portable, addressed this issue. Most developers I know would never have vested in any pension fund because they change jobs -- and that's healthy for the person and the economy.
Darn, and I didn't know I could get a tax credit for my first pocket calculator, first PC, first VHS player, first DVD player, first flat screen LED television, or my first cell phone. I just hadn't realized that these things were successful due to tax breaks or subsidies rather than because consumers wanted them. I wonder if I can file an amended 1040 from the 70's and 80's to capture those tax breaks I missed...
The Second Amendment prevents the Federal (and, via the 14th and recent incorporation decisions, inferior governments) from infringing on the right of an individual to keep and bear arms. Is it your position that therefore the federal government must actually supply arms to all people so they can exercise that right equally?
Similarly, Congress can't pass a law that inhibits the "the right of the people peaceably to assemble". However, surely, you don't think the government is obligated to somehow "level the playing field" so everyone finds it equally easy to "assemble" - esp. by actually restricting those most able to do so (such as unemployed bums those involved in OWS) because others (such as people who have a job) don't have time to camp out for weeks in a park.
You are quite confused about the US Constitution. The Bill of Rights is completely about restrictions on government, not about imposing restrictions on those governed (such restrictions mostly appear indirectly in Article I, Section 8).
The courts have established that any restrictions on what an individual spends on their campaigns would be unconstitutional, so that belies your claim about "everyone must spend equal amounts of money" or have "equal access".
The first amendment doesn't specify HOW one may petition the government for redress of grievances or guarantee equal access to that right - it just prohibits Congress from making laws abridging that right (which, campaign finance reform does in the opinion of some).
Consider, if you ban all money from such redress efforts as you seem to suggest would be "fair". That might require each individual to meet with their representative in person as stamps, paper, and internet access cost money and only those with sufficient resources could afford those. Of course, that creates an interesting unfairness in itself, as only those that can afford to pay for transport to the representative's office (Washington DC in the case of the President) could practically petition their government.
Almost all speech requires money -- either in form of direct/like kind costs (cost of paper, envelopes, stamps, posters...), opportunity costs (forgone wages), or indirect costs (petitioner paying someone to mow their lawn because they are too busy petitioning their representative to do so themselves).
Where in the U.S. Constitution do you see an obligation for the USPS to deliver everywhere?
The USPS isn't even mandated by the U.S. Constitution. One of the enumerated powers of Congress found in Article 1, Section 8 is
The Congress shall have Power [...] To establish Post Offices and post Roads;
Note there is no requirement that Congress exercise this power - any more than
The Congress shall have Power [...] To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;
requires Congress to borrow money if the Federal government had no debt.
As well, the USPS does not deliver to every address. I don't recall the criteria they use, but if you live in an area that is too sparsely populated the USPS won't deliver to your property and you may be required to go quite some distance to pick up your mail from another location.
The fact that tractor feed impact printers produce a lot of paper dust (I assume because of the perforations?) and continue to work may not be a good indicator that they work well in "dusty" environments in this sense. I suspect the dust being referred to here is basically fine wind blown soil and is likely much more abrasive than paper dust.
But, keeping three copies of the data on cheap hardware, one of which is hundreds of miles away and having a couple other data centers to which the data migrates in seconds and minutes is within the scope of a cloud provider -- just business as usual (the exact number of data centers and copies is irrelevant as they depend on this years stats for the low cost hardware - it's all statistics).
A business whose business isn't to maintain ten(s) of data centers and manage them for redundancy may not be willing (nor, probably, should they) to pay for that level of redundancy just for their own ten terabytes of important data (their business is making innovative widgets efficiently, not managing geographically distributed data centers, each with a connection to at least two independent power sources plus backup generators).
If a midsized business making drywall needed another car to transport a sale person, would they build an auto plant to build that car? No, they would lease the car from a business whose business was leasing cars (and providing replacement cars and maintenance) and who, in turn, bought them from a specialist in designing and making cars (Toyota for example).
Give power, budget, and secrecy to a government agency and they will abuse them all.
Increase their power and/or budget and/or secrecy and they will abuse them more.
Like them or not, like their actions or not, the likes of Fabjqra and Znaavat may be our best hope by crippling the secrecy leg of the triad at least a little.
I live near enough to San Quentin, a large maximum security prison in California. The lighting is interesting - it's not particularly bright, but it is amazingly even.
Actually, from the outside it doesn't look all that even. They probably just make it look that way from the inside to mess with your minds.
There are analogues in the commercial world (although employment law somewhat limits the option of abuse as a tool in that environment). Commercial businesses that abuse their developers have a hard time getting top developers to work for them. On the other hand, those who fire/rightsize/manage out the incompetents (also called "hiring mistakes") can do quite well at retaining great developers - and the remaining developers accept that because, while they don't like to see a likeable colleague sent out the door, they appreciate that they never again will have to explain something for the third time to that pleasant idiot.
I think to suggest that managing a volunteer community requires abuse simply because the workers are working for "free" makes little sense. People work on open source software for a variety of reasons (including enjoying the work, building a resume, lacking a life, maintaining a consultancy), all of which are "self serving" to some extent (else they wouldn't volunteer). Calm explanations as I described followed by, if necessary, demotions (removing committer status for example) or firing (banning patches from even being submitted) can be very effective. Most people fear shunning from their community more than they fear having to walk across the street and get a new commercial job.
It's much easier to fire a developer in the volunteer community than in the commercial world when the project is organized hierarchically (as Linux is rather than more consensus based as large Apache projects [typically] are). There's no HR to contact, no "performance improvement plan" with HR reviews, no requirement to "give the idiot six weeks to find another internal position", virtually no fear of a lawsuit.
In particular, I don't there's a need for Linus to be abusive to very senior members of the community in a public forum and I question that it's good for the environment as it turns off those considering joining the project. He could be more direct (and perhaps even more abusive if that gets his rocks off) in private email. Notice that at successful commercial companies, it's very rare for a CEO to yell and scream at a senior executive (or any employee) in a all-hand's meeting -- instead they do it in private or executive meetings. Linus might do well to learn from that - but it's his project, so he can do whatever he likes - if he pisses off enough people, Linux will fork and I don't see that happening soon. Eventually Linus will die, if that happens before Linux dies a natural death (either replaced or forked), someone else will take over who may have a different style.
I'm not offended by abusive language but if I was too offended, I wouldn't join a volunteer organization where I was subjected to such language.
That said, my view of Linus overall is reduced by his apparent inability to express himself effectively and influence without using abusive language.
My view of Jobs was much reduced by his bullying of his employees - it was probably his right to do so, but bullying just isn't effective. It's more effective to explain calmly and clearly what the employee is doing incorrectly and what the correct behavior is. If a person isn't smart enough to understand a calm explanation, you don't want them working for you and you should just fire/demote/transfer them - bullying won't solve the problem.
SQL has nothing to do with how data is stored or accessed. The storage and access are many levels below the language.
It's like saying that car A is superior to car B because car A is painted pearl purple and car B has a CVT held together with 12mm bolts instead of a manual trans.
Give them a break - perhaps it's not their fault. They may be a product of modern education where they were taught to revel in how they feel about their conclusion that 2+2=5 and how creative that process was rather than focus on the fact that the answer is wrong (in the traditional number system we use every day).
Why would you ever remove the pilot? -- you still need a pilot on the ground to do this -- so it is not saving money?
It seems like it could save a fair percentage of the money spent on pilots.
With this approach, pilots could work from anywhere in the world (think "flight centers" instead of "call centers" based in India) on regular shifts from fixed locations.
A pilot and two copilots would not be required for long flights -- there could be one pilot per plane for 100 planes and a couple extras on standby if one of the first 100 croaks or needs assistance.
Pilots could work a standard 8 hour workday (albeit, some would be stuck on graveyard shifts) which addresses many pilot fatigue problems (which can contribute to crashes). Pilots can be relieved by other pilots for coffee breaks and lunch.
As well, there would be no need to house pilots on layovers and compensate them for time when they are not flying.
Indeed, it's not clear that when in boring cruising phases on autopilot, that a one-to-one ratio of pilot to plane is really required. Perhaps a pool of eleven "cruise certified" (vs. "takeoff/landing certified") pilots could handle twenty such planes at any instant in time with one pilot designated as standby to take over the "good" plane if one of the pilot's planes begins to have problems requiring full attention.
However, I'm picking the flight with on-board pilots and co-pilots until it's been proven by real-life experience and analysis that remote piloted flights are safer. If this happened, I think I'd rather have an on-board pilot to respond to the situation!
And this makes me wonder why we still build refrigerators, and the place they sit in within homes, the way we do.
In some parts of the country, there are several months of the year when we try to remove heat from our homes. But the refrig goes to all the trouble (i.e., energy use) to "separate" heat from already air conditioned air. Then, what does it do with the heat? It dumps the "heat" back in to the conditioned air in the house to repeat the cycle!!! Stupid...
Why not put an exhaust vent (and maybe fan) to the exterior and an outside air intake, perhaps with remote actuated dampers, by the refrig in new homes (and kitchen remodels). Hook that to a new class of "integrated climate control" refrig that takes its condenser cooling input air from either the room or the outside source and exhausts it either to the room or outside -- all depending on input from the thermostat controlling that zone of the house. Obviously input/exhaust dampers would be closed except when the refrig was running (in case of failure, it would default to taking house air in and exhaust the hot air back into the house).
Seems more efficient - a bit of up front cost (and, unfortunately, a need for some simple standardization between architects, the HVAC industry, and appliance manufacturers) but over the years it seems like it would pay for itself in areas with much hot weather.
(Sorry for my likely abuse of the word "heat" et al)
I give a glowing reference to any ex-employee who asks for one. Why should I care if you hire a turd?
Because, if I were to hire the person and find that they were not what you said, I would remember that for years -- and when your resume came around, I'd toss it. Yes, I've done that - it's a small world even in the high tech areas -- mostly because people tend to specialize so have overlapping networks with others in the same areas of interest. Mostly, I assume that the reason you thought a train wreck was good was because you have low standards -- including for yourself.
That said, I don't pay attention to "glowing recommendations" unless I know the person giving the recommendation -- too many mangers and coworkers in tech are so uncomfortable with evaluations (of themselves or of others) that they just say good things about others. However, I do check references if I don't know the applicant - sometimes it becomes clear that the candidate's view of their role in a project is at odds with what really happened (and, coworkers/managers tend to be more honest about this - I think because they know they are slighting the real "key" people if they let a poser claim to be a key contributor). Of course, if I happen to know someone I trust who has worked with or near the candidate, I contact them instead of any references that are provided.
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Unfortunately, one person's "busywork" is sometimes another person's critical need.
I think that many references to "busywork" in software dev are really "doing something that I'm too narrow to understand why it is needed". Sometimes this "something" is testing. Sometimes it's writing down a functional and architecture design on a critical piece of software so other devs can review it, so tester's can figure out how to test it, or so customers can figure out how to use it. Sometimes it's putting in sufficient diagnostics so "one in 1,000,000 hours of execution data corruption problems" can be tracked down and fixed.
In my experience, the odds of someone referring to "busywork" is inversely proportional to their breadth of experience in a variety of roles.
Of course, most of my experience is in fairly small growing companies where true busywork gets extinguished fairly quickly.
If a system is down which costs the company millions of dollars an hour, that system probably depends on the efforts of thousands of people - including the electrician who wired the data center two years ago, the kid in China who assembled the network switches, the security guard at the front door, the city building inspector who noted a fire code violation during plan review, the developer who wrote the web interface, and Linus.
Maybe this will help you understand why just because your job is to get a system back online doesn't mean that your hourly wage (even for the time you are working on the specific problem) should be the amount of money that system produces or saves the company an hour.
Of the programmers I've worked with in the last 20 years, I can only think of a handful that ever wore a tie to work - and usually that was because they were going to a traditional funeral later in the day.
The dress code everywhere I've worked was, well, that there was no dress code beyond what decency laws required. I suppose if someone had come in wearing just the barest of swimsuits every day, that might have prompted some "counseling" but it never happened so I don't know. I've never talked to anyone I've ever managed suggesting/urging/requiring that they dress differently or in any particular way.
Perhaps you're working at the wrong companies or in the wrong geographical area.
Although I've wisely successfully resisted the temptation to do so, I've always been tempted to answer: "How would I know? Since you don't seem to know, I assume I'm free to continue my journey now?"
The 401(k) wasn't about corporations not honoring their existing pension obligations - it was about not incurring future unsustainable pension obligations.
401(k)s also addressed a problem with an increasingly mobile and transient work force where people would change jobs every few years and never vest in any pension plan. 401(k)s, being portable, addressed this issue. Most developers I know would never have vested in any pension fund because they change jobs -- and that's healthy for the person and the economy.
Darn, and I didn't know I could get a tax credit for my first pocket calculator, first PC, first VHS player, first DVD player, first flat screen LED television, or my first cell phone. I just hadn't realized that these things were successful due to tax breaks or subsidies rather than because consumers wanted them. I wonder if I can file an amended 1040 from the 70's and 80's to capture those tax breaks I missed...
What is this "carburetor" you speak of?
The Second Amendment prevents the Federal (and, via the 14th and recent incorporation decisions, inferior governments) from infringing on the right of an individual to keep and bear arms. Is it your position that therefore the federal government must actually supply arms to all people so they can exercise that right equally?
Similarly, Congress can't pass a law that inhibits the "the right of the people peaceably to assemble". However, surely, you don't think the government is obligated to somehow "level the playing field" so everyone finds it equally easy to "assemble" - esp. by actually restricting those most able to do so (such as unemployed bums those involved in OWS) because others (such as people who have a job) don't have time to camp out for weeks in a park.
You are quite confused about the US Constitution. The Bill of Rights is completely about restrictions on government, not about imposing restrictions on those governed (such restrictions mostly appear indirectly in Article I, Section 8).
The courts have established that any restrictions on what an individual spends on their campaigns would be unconstitutional, so that belies your claim about "everyone must spend equal amounts of money" or have "equal access".
The first amendment doesn't specify HOW one may petition the government for redress of grievances or guarantee equal access to that right - it just prohibits Congress from making laws abridging that right (which, campaign finance reform does in the opinion of some).
Consider, if you ban all money from such redress efforts as you seem to suggest would be "fair". That might require each individual to meet with their representative in person as stamps, paper, and internet access cost money and only those with sufficient resources could afford those. Of course, that creates an interesting unfairness in itself, as only those that can afford to pay for transport to the representative's office (Washington DC in the case of the President) could practically petition their government.
Almost all speech requires money -- either in form of direct/like kind costs (cost of paper, envelopes, stamps, posters...), opportunity costs (forgone wages), or indirect costs (petitioner paying someone to mow their lawn because they are too busy petitioning their representative to do so themselves).
Where in the U.S. Constitution do you see an obligation for the USPS to deliver everywhere?
The USPS isn't even mandated by the U.S. Constitution. One of the enumerated powers of Congress found in Article 1, Section 8 is
Note there is no requirement that Congress exercise this power - any more than
requires Congress to borrow money if the Federal government had no debt.
As well, the USPS does not deliver to every address. I don't recall the criteria they use, but if you live in an area that is too sparsely populated the USPS won't deliver to your property and you may be required to go quite some distance to pick up your mail from another location.
The fact that tractor feed impact printers produce a lot of paper dust (I assume because of the perforations?) and continue to work may not be a good indicator that they work well in "dusty" environments in this sense. I suspect the dust being referred to here is basically fine wind blown soil and is likely much more abrasive than paper dust.
But, keeping three copies of the data on cheap hardware, one of which is hundreds of miles away and having a couple other data centers to which the data migrates in seconds and minutes is within the scope of a cloud provider -- just business as usual (the exact number of data centers and copies is irrelevant as they depend on this years stats for the low cost hardware - it's all statistics).
A business whose business isn't to maintain ten(s) of data centers and manage them for redundancy may not be willing (nor, probably, should they) to pay for that level of redundancy just for their own ten terabytes of important data (their business is making innovative widgets efficiently, not managing geographically distributed data centers, each with a connection to at least two independent power sources plus backup generators).
If a midsized business making drywall needed another car to transport a sale person, would they build an auto plant to build that car? No, they would lease the car from a business whose business was leasing cars (and providing replacement cars and maintenance) and who, in turn, bought them from a specialist in designing and making cars (Toyota for example).
It's not "hacking" when the government just uses the access codes to your pacemaker that the manufacturer so thoughtfully gave to them.
Give power, budget, and secrecy to a government agency and they will abuse them all.
Increase their power and/or budget and/or secrecy and they will abuse them more.
Like them or not, like their actions or not, the likes of Fabjqra and Znaavat may be our best hope by crippling the secrecy leg of the triad at least a little.
There are ads on /.?
Actually, from the outside it doesn't look all that even. They probably just make it look that way from the inside to mess with your minds.
Ask Trayvon Martin about how that strategy might work.
There are analogues in the commercial world (although employment law somewhat limits the option of abuse as a tool in that environment). Commercial businesses that abuse their developers have a hard time getting top developers to work for them. On the other hand, those who fire/rightsize/manage out the incompetents (also called "hiring mistakes") can do quite well at retaining great developers - and the remaining developers accept that because, while they don't like to see a likeable colleague sent out the door, they appreciate that they never again will have to explain something for the third time to that pleasant idiot.
I think to suggest that managing a volunteer community requires abuse simply because the workers are working for "free" makes little sense. People work on open source software for a variety of reasons (including enjoying the work, building a resume, lacking a life, maintaining a consultancy), all of which are "self serving" to some extent (else they wouldn't volunteer). Calm explanations as I described followed by, if necessary, demotions (removing committer status for example) or firing (banning patches from even being submitted) can be very effective. Most people fear shunning from their community more than they fear having to walk across the street and get a new commercial job.
It's much easier to fire a developer in the volunteer community than in the commercial world when the project is organized hierarchically (as Linux is rather than more consensus based as large Apache projects [typically] are). There's no HR to contact, no "performance improvement plan" with HR reviews, no requirement to "give the idiot six weeks to find another internal position", virtually no fear of a lawsuit.
In particular, I don't there's a need for Linus to be abusive to very senior members of the community in a public forum and I question that it's good for the environment as it turns off those considering joining the project. He could be more direct (and perhaps even more abusive if that gets his rocks off) in private email. Notice that at successful commercial companies, it's very rare for a CEO to yell and scream at a senior executive (or any employee) in a all-hand's meeting -- instead they do it in private or executive meetings. Linus might do well to learn from that - but it's his project, so he can do whatever he likes - if he pisses off enough people, Linux will fork and I don't see that happening soon. Eventually Linus will die, if that happens before Linux dies a natural death (either replaced or forked), someone else will take over who may have a different style.
I'm not offended by abusive language but if I was too offended, I wouldn't join a volunteer organization where I was subjected to such language.
That said, my view of Linus overall is reduced by his apparent inability to express himself effectively and influence without using abusive language.
My view of Jobs was much reduced by his bullying of his employees - it was probably his right to do so, but bullying just isn't effective. It's more effective to explain calmly and clearly what the employee is doing incorrectly and what the correct behavior is. If a person isn't smart enough to understand a calm explanation, you don't want them working for you and you should just fire/demote/transfer them - bullying won't solve the problem.
SQL has nothing to do with how data is stored or accessed. The storage and access are many levels below the language.
It's like saying that car A is superior to car B because car A is painted pearl purple and car B has a CVT held together with 12mm bolts instead of a manual trans.
Give them a break - perhaps it's not their fault. They may be a product of modern education where they were taught to revel in how they feel about their conclusion that 2+2=5 and how creative that process was rather than focus on the fact that the answer is wrong (in the traditional number system we use every day).
Agreed, except for:
It seems like it could save a fair percentage of the money spent on pilots.
With this approach, pilots could work from anywhere in the world (think "flight centers" instead of "call centers" based in India) on regular shifts from fixed locations.
A pilot and two copilots would not be required for long flights -- there could be one pilot per plane for 100 planes and a couple extras on standby if one of the first 100 croaks or needs assistance.
Pilots could work a standard 8 hour workday (albeit, some would be stuck on graveyard shifts) which addresses many pilot fatigue problems (which can contribute to crashes). Pilots can be relieved by other pilots for coffee breaks and lunch.
As well, there would be no need to house pilots on layovers and compensate them for time when they are not flying.
Indeed, it's not clear that when in boring cruising phases on autopilot, that a one-to-one ratio of pilot to plane is really required. Perhaps a pool of eleven "cruise certified" (vs. "takeoff/landing certified") pilots could handle twenty such planes at any instant in time with one pilot designated as standby to take over the "good" plane if one of the pilot's planes begins to have problems requiring full attention.
However, I'm picking the flight with on-board pilots and co-pilots until it's been proven by real-life experience and analysis that remote piloted flights are safer. If this happened, I think I'd rather have an on-board pilot to respond to the situation!
Glad you figured it out. Before I had a chance to, my igloo melted and shorted out my laptop.
And this makes me wonder why we still build refrigerators, and the place they sit in within homes, the way we do.
In some parts of the country, there are several months of the year when we try to remove heat from our homes. But the refrig goes to all the trouble (i.e., energy use) to "separate" heat from already air conditioned air. Then, what does it do with the heat? It dumps the "heat" back in to the conditioned air in the house to repeat the cycle!!! Stupid...
Why not put an exhaust vent (and maybe fan) to the exterior and an outside air intake, perhaps with remote actuated dampers, by the refrig in new homes (and kitchen remodels). Hook that to a new class of "integrated climate control" refrig that takes its condenser cooling input air from either the room or the outside source and exhausts it either to the room or outside -- all depending on input from the thermostat controlling that zone of the house. Obviously input/exhaust dampers would be closed except when the refrig was running (in case of failure, it would default to taking house air in and exhaust the hot air back into the house).
Seems more efficient - a bit of up front cost (and, unfortunately, a need for some simple standardization between architects, the HVAC industry, and appliance manufacturers) but over the years it seems like it would pay for itself in areas with much hot weather.
(Sorry for my likely abuse of the word "heat" et al)
Because, if I were to hire the person and find that they were not what you said, I would remember that for years -- and when your resume came around, I'd toss it. Yes, I've done that - it's a small world even in the high tech areas -- mostly because people tend to specialize so have overlapping networks with others in the same areas of interest. Mostly, I assume that the reason you thought a train wreck was good was because you have low standards -- including for yourself.
That said, I don't pay attention to "glowing recommendations" unless I know the person giving the recommendation -- too many mangers and coworkers in tech are so uncomfortable with evaluations (of themselves or of others) that they just say good things about others. However, I do check references if I don't know the applicant - sometimes it becomes clear that the candidate's view of their role in a project is at odds with what really happened (and, coworkers/managers tend to be more honest about this - I think because they know they are slighting the real "key" people if they let a poser claim to be a key contributor). Of course, if I happen to know someone I trust who has worked with or near the candidate, I contact them instead of any references that are provided.