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11 Oct 2024 09:18:33 EDT (-0400)
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From: Warp
Subject: Re: Why???
Date: 7 Dec 2007 11:56:14
Message: <47597b2d@news.povray.org>
Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> Oh, I've seen reports of managers who won't believe that a particular 
> task actually takes 20 minutes, and "can't you just change it to only 
> take 3 seconds?"

  True. Completely unrealistic expectations is another phenomenon among
programming-illiterate bosses...

  OTOH, I partially understand them: If they know nothing about programming,
how can they know how much time a certain task requires? And depending on
the trustability of the programmer, how can they know if what he says is the
truth or not?

> I guess the root of all this is people who have no concept of what is or 
> isn't possible with a computer. But it's more than that - people who 
> have no clue but *think* they do.

  "Hey, I took a 4-hour programming course in 1984. I know everything
about programming!"

-- 
                                                          - Warp


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From: Gail Shaw
Subject: Re: Why???
Date: 7 Dec 2007 17:28:31
Message: <4759c90f@news.povray.org>
"Tom Austin" <taustin> wrote in message news:47596e0a@news.povray.org...

> The I hope that you have an understanding boss who is willing to work
> with you.
>

My boss is understanding, the users on the other hand...

I enjoy the job. I just wish the developers didn't keep on creating work for
me. I have quite enough as it is.


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From: Gail Shaw
Subject: Re: Why???
Date: 8 Dec 2007 03:41:28
Message: <475a58b8@news.povray.org>
"Invisible" <voi### [at] devnull> wrote in message
news:47596a5f$1@news.povray.org...

> True. But finding out 2 weeks ago would have been even better, no?

The ideal would have been finding out at design time. But is wishes were
horses...

> Ah, but can your boss actually do anything about this mess? That's the
> crucial question... ;-)

He can't stop it going in, it's too late and too many people have been
promised, etc, etc. IT's getting a bad rep for late delivery as is.

He is middle-upper management and he has enough authority to demand a
redesign (which he has) and to decide who does that (which he has) and to
'suggest' an examination of the way the developers work, to ensure this
doesn't happen again.

I foresee a lot of meeting next week.

> Yeah, cos after all, it's not like normal form is *important* or
> anything, is it?
>
> *weeps softly in the corner*

To C# developers it probably isn't, just as the patterns for app design
aren't that important to me. But in that case, they should keep their
fingers out of the DBs

> By the way... what *is* 4th normal form?

It's one I've seldom come across and doesn't apply often. Has to do with
multiple unrelated dependent attributes in a table.

Say we're writing a teaching management system. We need to store what
languages a teacher speaks and what courses they teach. We come up with
something like this

Teacher  Language  Course
Mr X      English      Account 1
Mr X      French      Account 1
Mr X      English      Ethics 1
Mr X      French      Ethics 1
Mrs S     English      Maths 1
Mrs S     English      Maths 2
Miss Z    English      History 1
Miss Z    German    History 1

It is in B-C normal form, however if we needed to indicate that Miss Z
starts teaching Archaeology 1, we need to add 2 rows.
4th normal form indicates that the two attributes should be split out into
selerate tables, so that there's one table that has the teacher's languages
and one that has the courses they teach.

That said, if the table stored the courses that the teacher offers and the
language that they are offered in, the above table would not be in violation
of 4th normal form.

Wiki has (as usual) a section on it
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_normal_form


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From: Sherry Shaw
Subject: Re: Why???
Date: 8 Dec 2007 13:46:29
Message: <475ae685@news.povray.org>
scott wrote:
> 
> And here's what happens when you mess with stuff:
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyatt_Regency_walkway_collapse
> 

I used to live roughly in the KC area, and a friend of mine used to go 
to the "tea dances" at that place--thank goodness she wasn't there that day.

It definitely filled up the news for a while.

--Sherry Shaw

-- 
#macro T(E,N)sphere{x,.4rotate z*E*60translate y*N pigment{wrinkles scale
.3}finish{ambient 1}}#end#local I=0;#while(I<5)T(I,1)T(1-I,-1)#local I=I+
1;#end camera{location-5*z}plane{z,37 pigment{granite color_map{[.7rgb 0]
[1rgb 1]}}finish{ambient 2}}//                                   TenMoons


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From: Sherry Shaw
Subject: Re: Why???
Date: 8 Dec 2007 13:55:14
Message: <475ae892@news.povray.org>
Invisible wrote:
> 
> I guess the root of all this is people who have no concept of what is or 
> isn't possible with a computer. But it's more than that - people who 
> have no clue but *think* they do.

Never underestimate the power of managerial cluelessness.  As far as I 
can tell, most bosses think of programmers as something like peasant 
beet farmers.  We know how to do something they don't--not because we're 
  trained professionals or anything, but because bosses don't dirty 
their hands with that sort of thing.

Well, going to go scrub some code out from under my fingernails now.

--Sherry Shaw


-- 
#macro T(E,N)sphere{x,.4rotate z*E*60translate y*N pigment{wrinkles scale
.3}finish{ambient 1}}#end#local I=0;#while(I<5)T(I,1)T(1-I,-1)#local I=I+
1;#end camera{location-5*z}plane{z,37 pigment{granite color_map{[.7rgb 0]
[1rgb 1]}}finish{ambient 2}}//                                   TenMoons


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From: Orchid XP v7
Subject: Re: Why???
Date: 8 Dec 2007 14:17:22
Message: <475aedc2$1@news.povray.org>
Sherry Shaw wrote:

> Never underestimate the power of managerial cluelessness.  As far as I 
> can tell, most bosses think of programmers as something like peasant 
> beet farmers.  We know how to do something they don't--not because we're 
>  trained professionals or anything, but because bosses don't dirty their 
> hands with that sort of thing.
> 
> Well, going to go scrub some code out from under my fingernails now.

Well, it could be worse. Ever read the daily WTF articles about the MDs 
who think they can program but actually can't? ("Stand back you clueless 
fools and let me show you how a *real* programmer does it!" "Yes boss.")

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/


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From: Phil Cook
Subject: Re: Why???
Date: 10 Dec 2007 06:44:07
Message: <op.t24aubi0c3xi7v@news.povray.org>
And lo on Fri, 07 Dec 2007 09:48:12 -0000, Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> did
  

spake, saying:

> I'll never be able to find the link now, but there was one company who
  

> phoned up some web design consultants and said they wanted them to bui
ld  

> a website that shows DVD-quality fullscreen video but loads in under 1
  

> second on a 56k modem.

http://www.clientcopia.com/
http://clientcopia.com/quotes.php?id=15 perhaps.

-- 

Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com


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From: Orchid XP v7
Subject: Re: Why???
Date: 10 Dec 2007 08:30:17
Message: <475d3f69@news.povray.org>
Phil Cook wrote:
> And lo on Fri, 07 Dec 2007 09:48:12 -0000, Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> did 
> spake, saying:
> 
>> I'll never be able to find the link now, but there was one company who 
>> phoned up some web design consultants and said they wanted them to 
>> build a website that shows DVD-quality fullscreen video but loads in 
>> under 1 second on a 56k modem.
> 
> http://clientcopia.com/quotes.php?id=15 perhaps.

Yeah. That one.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/


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From: Gail Shaw
Subject: Re: Why???
Date: 10 Dec 2007 15:32:17
Message: <475da251@news.povray.org>
Update:

2/3 of the change was pulled out on friday night, due to bugs. Some more was
pulled out on sunday when it didn't work right.

And business people were demanding (and getting) changes made to the spec
(and to the code) right up to and after the time it was deployed.

*sigh* I dunno why I bother....


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From: Stefan Viljoen
Subject: Re: Why???
Date: 11 Dec 2007 00:24:41
Message: <475e1f18@news.povray.org>
Gail Shaw wrote:

> Update:
> 
> 2/3 of the change was pulled out on friday night, due to bugs. Some more
> was pulled out on sunday when it didn't work right.
> 
> And business people were demanding (and getting) changes made to the spec
> (and to the code) right up to and after the time it was deployed.
> 
> *sigh* I dunno why I bother....

Teehee - we don't work at nearly the same scale that you apparently do, but
this is about par for the course.

Boss: "I PROMISE this is the spec, the only spec and nothing but the
spec..."

Client: "Hey! I saw this somewhere else, and it would be so cool if..."

You know the rest.
-- 
Stefan


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