On 11/14/2011 12:00 PM, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> On 14/11/2011 05:35 PM, Warp wrote:
>
>> I suppose I should be (and I *am*) very glad to be, at least at the
>> moment, in a job where I get to solve and implement real, interesting
>> programming problems (such as problems related to geometry,
>> combinatorics,
>> low and high level program optimization, and so on) with immediate
>> visible
>> results and payoff (namely: a playable computer game), where I make the
>> programming decisions and design.
>
> I love how when I did my "computer science" degree at uni, the entire
> course was predicated around the idea that you will be writing large
> enterprise systems which consist of a database backend, and a Java or
> HTML front-end, possibly with some middleware in the center. Because,
> seriously, that's all there is, isn't it? It's not like anybody writes
> device drivers, or industrial control software, or computer games, or
> compilers and interpretters, or anything that isn't an enterprise CRUD
> system...
>
> ...oh, wait. :-P
>
Sounds like you went to damn near the same place I did. Note however 
that there where three other courses:

Electronic Engineering Technology- The people expected to write device 
drivers, and build shit that used something vaguely microprocessor like.
Electronics - The guys that built simple shit that didn't do more than 
use basic circuits, like switches.
Telecommunications - Where the people that couldn't, for some 
incomprehensible reasons "grasps" databases, or programming, and found 
all the stuff in the 'Computer Information Systems' course, "to hard!", 
despite the fact that, at the time, we didn't even need to deal with 
middleware, Java, HTML, or all that other stuff, just Dummy Terminals, 
some basic commands to the mainframe's file stores, to execute jobs, and 
COBOL, the simplest, stupidest, and most "human friendly", in terms of 
syntax, of the languages, at that time, or likely since (for some reason 
making them understandable by humans makes them useless for computers... 
lol)

We started out with the largest class they had ever had, like 60-70 
people, and by the third trimester where down to like 20, of which maybe 
12-14 graduated. Many of the rest ended up in telecom, where I presume 
they struggled to grasp how to dial modems.

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On 11/14/2011 12:12, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Perhaps it's just because people don't argue about it quite so much?

I can't imagine knowing the one term and not the other. That's weird.

> (I also had to go look up WTF an MBA actually is, since I've never heard of
> one...)

Probably more of an americanism? I still haven't figured out how your 
universities or undergraduate classes are named. :-)

> That sounds pretty much like *exactly* how almost every company views
> programmers.

Well, that's what he's saying. You have to go to either a technical start 
up, or to someplace like Microsoft or Google or Facebook or something like 
that where what they're selling is what you're producing.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   People tell me I am the counter-example.

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On 11/14/2011 13:19, Jim Henderson wrote:
> Nook e-reader) when reading to make sure I understand what I'm reading.

That too.  Indeed, it's so easy to look stuff up on the Kindle that when I'm 
reading, if I see a word that I know what it means but I don't know the 
definition, I still look it up.  Plus, I read books with lots of big words 
now, too. :-)

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   People tell me I am the counter-example.

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On 11/14/2011 9:35, Warp wrote:
> I'm glad I didn't.

Heh. I've had a few of those. After a while, I figured out how to avoid them 
during the job interview.  For example, if the interviewer asks "What's a 
deadline", and expects the answer "it's when we promised to deliver it to 
the customer", then you're fucked if you take the job.

I still remember a conversation I had back in the MS-DOS days.

"How long do you think it'll take?"
   "I don't know. I never did anything like this before."
"Give an estimate."
   "On the order of months."
"What does that mean?"
   "More than week, less than a year."
"Can you be more specific?"
   "Do you want me to lie?"
"How about February 17th?"
   "If you already promised it, why are you asking me?
    Why February 17th?"
"It's the customer's birthday."

Feh.  Nowadays, if they ask you how long a multi-week/multi-month project 
will take and they won't accept "I'll get back to you in 2 days with the 
answer", you're fucked.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   People tell me I am the counter-example.

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On 11/14/2011 11:00, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Daft thing is, I imagine time and again it plays out like this:

Nah. It's more like the salesman tries to sell something to the customer. 
The customer doesn't want it, but either the salesman can't convince the 
customer or won't leave the customer alone. So the customer says "I'll buy 
it if you have this [9-month-feature] ready next month." And of course the 
salesman promises it.

Salesman comes back and asks for it. Even *if* you pull off the amazing 
impossible, the salesman goes back to the customer, who *still* doesn't want 
the product, and the dev team is of course "spinning their wheels working on 
useless features."

I can't tell you the number of times I worked on urgent rush features that 
never ever got used.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   People tell me I am the counter-example.

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>> Perhaps it's just because people don't argue about it quite so much?
>
> I can't imagine knowing the one term and not the other. That's weird.

I'm surprised too. The only thing I can think of is that if you sell a 
widget, that *obviously* goes to the widget profit center. But if you 
have to buy 10 more PCs, does that go to the admin office cost center? 
Or does it go to the IT cost center? Or perhaps it goes to the project 
planning cost center, because it was them that wanted more admin staff? 
Or...

>> That sounds pretty much like *exactly* how almost every company views
>> programmers.
>
> Well, that's what he's saying. You have to go to either a technical
> start up, or to someplace like Microsoft or Google or Facebook or
> something like that where what they're selling is what you're producing.

As I understand it, a "technical startup" is a polite way of saying "you 
will be paid peanuts and in three months' time you will be unemployed 
again because the company has been liquidated".

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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On 16/11/2011 9:56 PM, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> I'm surprised too. The only thing I can think of is that if you sell a
> widget, that *obviously* goes to the widget profit center. But if you
> have to buy 10 more PCs, does that go to the admin office cost center?
> Or does it go to the IT cost center? Or perhaps it goes to the project
> planning cost center, because it was them that wanted more admin staff?
> Or...

If the PCs are bought on a project the costs will be credited to the 
project. (To make things even more transparent financial bods view 
things from a banks point of view. So when you pay out from a cost 
centre or WBS that is a credit and pay in is debiting.) As long as you 
are within budget all is well. If the purchasing department buys the PCs 
they will charge the IT department who in turn will charge the Admin 
department the cost of the PCs plus labour and maybe an overhead. It is 
simple if your mind is wired like an accountant.

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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On 16/11/2011 10:22 PM, Stephen wrote:
> On 16/11/2011 9:56 PM, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
>> I'm surprised too. The only thing I can think of is that if you sell a
>> widget, that *obviously* goes to the widget profit center. But if you
>> have to buy 10 more PCs, does that go to the admin office cost center?
>> Or does it go to the IT cost center? Or perhaps it goes to the project
>> planning cost center, because it was them that wanted more admin staff?
>> Or...
>
> If the PCs are bought on a project the costs will be credited to the
> project. (To make things even more transparent financial bods view
> things from a banks point of view. So when you pay out from a cost
> centre or WBS that is a credit and pay in is debiting.) As long as you
> are within budget all is well. If the purchasing department buys the PCs
> they will charge the IT department who in turn will charge the Admin
> department the cost of the PCs plus labour and maybe an overhead. It is
> simple if your mind is wired like an accountant.

Except that it seems to have a lot more scope for people to argue over 
who gets to actually pay for stuff. Which would perhaps be why I've 
heard plenty of people argue about cost centers, but I've never ever 
heard anybody use the phrase "profit center".

Alternatively, maybe my employer just doesn't *have* any profit centers? :-P

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On 17/11/2011 9:03 AM, Invisible wrote:
> Except that it seems to have a lot more scope for people to argue over
> who gets to actually pay for stuff. Which would perhaps be why I've
> heard plenty of people argue about cost centers, but I've never ever
> heard anybody use the phrase "profit center".
>

Your company probably does not need profit centres as from what I can 
gather it is a service company. That is, it provides a service not a 
product.

> Alternatively, maybe my employer just doesn't *have* any profit centers?
> :-P

Scary!

-- 
Regards
     Stephen

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Le 2011-11-17 04:43, Stephen a écrit :
> On 17/11/2011 9:03 AM, Invisible wrote:
>> Except that it seems to have a lot more scope for people to argue over
>> who gets to actually pay for stuff. Which would perhaps be why I've
>> heard plenty of people argue about cost centers, but I've never ever
>> heard anybody use the phrase "profit center".
>>
>
> Your company probably does not need profit centres as from what I can
> gather it is a service company. That is, it provides a service not a
> product.
>

If it bills customers for that service, there there is technically a 
porift center somewhere.  Even if his employer was a government entity 
or a non-profit organization.

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