This reminds me of another thing I have observed over the years...
Major projects are often started by one person who got this job by leaving the last one just before his identical project came to fruition and as this project is about to come to fruition he has found another higher paid job to do exactly thing on.
These people often say what (they think) is needed, it usually includes lots of buzz words, and charge a fortune to handle it all only to run away before completion when it becomes apparent it wont work as they said it would.
At their next interview... "Yes I've done this five time now." conveniently forgetting to say they never finished one or how well it worked for the company they did it for.
I know not all consultants are bad, but I often wonder about the motives of the bad ones, as a good consultant must look for best value solutions and not how many millions of pounds have been spent on their say so. Do they feel that their customer will complain of bad value and not pay if they just say "what you have is right for the job, I suggest minimal changes and ensure that future systems integrate with this."
The reason they stay so long is often simply down to inertia. The "We've started so we'll finish." coupled nicely to the "Why did we pay them so much if we are not going to listen to them?".
I used to work for a company that was taken over by an asset stripping industrial conglomerate, to make sure they got the best return for their money they sent in consultants for every department. Sadly, in the engineering department we used lots of fancy computers running non-industry standard programs. So, when the consultant came to look he had no idea what the system actually was doing or what it was capable of. His recommendation was to shift to industry standards, including AutoCad, which the company did despite my best efforts. The company lost its competitive edge as soon as the standard software was put in. I had 2 of the existing suppliers (one the main application provider, the other the hardware/os support company) they both submitted very similar suggestions for the way forward. The application provider, obviously, had a vested interest. The support company had no vested interest as they expected to continue to provide support regardless of the direction chosen.
I presented my own findings and pointed out several flaws in the consultants report, I also presented the reports from the 2 other companies. The only thing I was asked about the reports was who had authorised the spend on the additional reports and when I said they had been provided for no charge, I was told the company had spent thousands on the consultant and for that reason would be going ahead with his suggestions. I resigned at that point.
In case you are interested, the consultants suggestions were implimented in full at great cost and since the old systems were decommissioned the productivity of the company has dropped, which has had the obvious outcome of reducing it in size to about 10% the size it was when I left.
On a plus note, the consultant made me move into a much more enjoyable and profitable job.
Re:It's like nothing we've seen .. since Linux
on
A New Kind of OS
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· Score: 1
I would never describe myself as a programmer, I have created several programs and some monster scripts when I used to do a unix sys admin job full time. I never minded the complexity of the scripts and programs when they greatly simplified my daily tasks. This removed simple errors that could be made, but was only possible because the tools I created were for a precise task that I understood the process of completely. They also enabled others to take care of the system when I was on holiday. I do agree with you however, that now I am in a PC support role, most of the routine calls I get are because of inconsistant behaviour by programs. Changing menus and moving features between program revisions for no obvious (or valid) reason. With end users, consistancy is king.
I do have another problem with the way computers appears to be heading, the use of 4GLs to stitch together programs using standard modules is a bad idea. I remember when object orientated programming became the buzz word. Every programmer I know has always used objects and libraries, but they never just stuck them together to get a program finished quickly, they were the basis of the new program, they were modified to suit not added to to bloat.
To me, in the ideal world, the OS is invisible to the everyday user - like on most mobile phones. Then we have applications to fit our needs that happily interoperate because of open standards. There are lots of problems to overcome with this model, the first of which is to find the point at which we separate the OS from applications. It is not helped by Microsoft selling an OS that has a web browser, media player etc etc built in. The blurred line between what runs the computer and what runs on it only adds confusion and complexity.
Just my thoughts, and remember we were the computers originally and the machinery was just that a machine.
Free energy is possible, if just 4 percent of the worlds deserts were covered by solar panels (yes I know that is still a lot of panels) enough electricity would be generated to fullfil the worlds needs.
As most of us already know you can run vehicle engines on hydrogen and that does include jet engines. The hydrogen economy has to arrive sooner of later.
Most people dont know of a Cornish generator, this uses aluminium wire and water to produce hydrogen. The oxygen is bound to the aluminium creating aluminium oxide, the wire and the oxide are easy to transport around the world if people are worried about transporting hydrogen.
There is of course another knock-on effect from starting to cover the worlds deserts with solar panels, that being economy of scale. The panels themselves would become much cheaper making it possible for the average person to install them on their house. The figure I read was that production needed to be up 100 fold to bring the price down enough for true mass market.
A little political will would kick start this process, you dont actually need to cover 4 percent of the worlds deserts when you have every home generating some of its own power needs. Any excess created could be stored as hydrogen until needed. You would still need a power grid, but that power too could be based around hydrogen technologies.
We are so close, but it feels like it is still so far away. Clean, cheap energy without sacrificing the car or the plane.
Slashdot Mirror
This reminds me of another thing I have observed over the years ...
... "Yes I've done this five time now." conveniently forgetting to say they never finished one or how well it worked for the company they did it for.
Major projects are often started by one person who got this job by leaving the last one just before his identical project came to fruition and as this project is about to come to fruition he has found another higher paid job to do exactly thing on.
These people often say what (they think) is needed, it usually includes lots of buzz words, and charge a fortune to handle it all only to run away before completion when it becomes apparent it wont work as they said it would.
At their next interview
I know not all consultants are bad, but I often wonder about the motives of the bad ones, as a good consultant must look for best value solutions and not how many millions of pounds have been spent on their say so. Do they feel that their customer will complain of bad value and not pay if they just say "what you have is right for the job, I suggest minimal changes and ensure that future systems integrate with this."
The reason they stay so long is often simply down to inertia. The "We've started so we'll finish." coupled nicely to the "Why did we pay them so much if we are not going to listen to them?".
I used to work for a company that was taken over by an asset stripping industrial conglomerate, to make sure they got the best return for their money they sent in consultants for every department. Sadly, in the engineering department we used lots of fancy computers running non-industry standard programs. So, when the consultant came to look he had no idea what the system actually was doing or what it was capable of. His recommendation was to shift to industry standards, including AutoCad, which the company did despite my best efforts. The company lost its competitive edge as soon as the standard software was put in. I had 2 of the existing suppliers (one the main application provider, the other the hardware/os support company) they both submitted very similar suggestions for the way forward. The application provider, obviously, had a vested interest. The support company had no vested interest as they expected to continue to provide support regardless of the direction chosen.
I presented my own findings and pointed out several flaws in the consultants report, I also presented the reports from the 2 other companies. The only thing I was asked about the reports was who had authorised the spend on the additional reports and when I said they had been provided for no charge, I was told the company had spent thousands on the consultant and for that reason would be going ahead with his suggestions. I resigned at that point.
In case you are interested, the consultants suggestions were implimented in full at great cost and since the old systems were decommissioned the productivity of the company has dropped, which has had the obvious outcome of reducing it in size to about 10% the size it was when I left.
On a plus note, the consultant made me move into a much more enjoyable and profitable job.
I would never describe myself as a programmer, I have created several programs and some monster scripts when I used to do a unix sys admin job full time. I never minded the complexity of the scripts and programs when they greatly simplified my daily tasks. This removed simple errors that could be made, but was only possible because the tools I created were for a precise task that I understood the process of completely. They also enabled others to take care of the system when I was on holiday. I do agree with you however, that now I am in a PC support role, most of the routine calls I get are because of inconsistant behaviour by programs. Changing menus and moving features between program revisions for no obvious (or valid) reason. With end users, consistancy is king.
I do have another problem with the way computers appears to be heading, the use of 4GLs to stitch together programs using standard modules is a bad idea. I remember when object orientated programming became the buzz word. Every programmer I know has always used objects and libraries, but they never just stuck them together to get a program finished quickly, they were the basis of the new program, they were modified to suit not added to to bloat.
To me, in the ideal world, the OS is invisible to the everyday user - like on most mobile phones. Then we have applications to fit our needs that happily interoperate because of open standards. There are lots of problems to overcome with this model, the first of which is to find the point at which we separate the OS from applications. It is not helped by Microsoft selling an OS that has a web browser, media player etc etc built in. The blurred line between what runs the computer and what runs on it only adds confusion and complexity.
Just my thoughts, and remember we were the computers originally and the machinery was just that a machine.
Free energy is possible, if just 4 percent of the worlds deserts were covered by solar panels (yes I know that is still a lot of panels) enough electricity would be generated to fullfil the worlds needs.
As most of us already know you can run vehicle engines on hydrogen and that does include jet engines. The hydrogen economy has to arrive sooner of later.
Most people dont know of a Cornish generator, this uses aluminium wire and water to produce hydrogen. The oxygen is bound to the aluminium creating aluminium oxide, the wire and the oxide are easy to transport around the world if people are worried about transporting hydrogen.
There is of course another knock-on effect from starting to cover the worlds deserts with solar panels, that being economy of scale. The panels themselves would become much cheaper making it possible for the average person to install them on their house. The figure I read was that production needed to be up 100 fold to bring the price down enough for true mass market.
A little political will would kick start this process, you dont actually need to cover 4 percent of the worlds deserts when you have every home generating some of its own power needs. Any excess created could be stored as hydrogen until needed. You would still need a power grid, but that power too could be based around hydrogen technologies.
We are so close, but it feels like it is still so far away. Clean, cheap energy without sacrificing the car or the plane.
Simon.