Myth or not?: Ken Decker is a government shill. ;-D

Have a "nice" day. 31 left.

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), November 30, 1999.

LINK

-- cpr (buytexas@swbell.net), September 09, 2000

Answers

Same thread got "ever so much deeper":

Ken -- In reply to Jollyprez you stated "Remediation does not equal development. By traditional metrics, the progress thus far is impossible." In this statement, you are 100% correct. Remediation, like *ALL* maintainance work, is *HARDER* than development. (Usually, what you get is 'total code rewrite' if the individual doing it has any creativity at all.) Thus, I didn't really expect the metrics to hold up. I have believed all along that the estimates based on metrics were *way* too optimistic. And I suspect that your own argument shoots down myth #10. Which, of course, kind of obviates all the rest. The problem with the date rollover is that there is an awful lot of code that won't work in its present state when it runs into dates in a range greater than 1999. This won't change, regardless of polls, opinions, or myths. It will change if and only if the remediation is done, on time, and correctly. This is what worries me, as I do not, and have not, seen it done. My own personal take on the 'bad news' is the 'only news' issue is that it is not so much 'lies' by intent, as believing their own status reports. (And if you aren't in the industry, allow me to clue you in: the writing of status reports has *MUCH* more to do with a course in 'Creative Writing' than with a course in 'Technical Writing'. Take it from one who is on both ends of this particular topic. I not only write 'em for my higher ups, I get to do it partially by synopsis of the ones I get from the rest of the group. And I can guarantee you that better fiction was never writ.) -- just another (another@engineer.com), November 30, 1999. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- JustAnother --- ROFLMAO. You are so right about progress reports and I have penned some melodramas and science fiction myself. Ditto metrics. I had a good buddy who was a testing genius (you build it, he'll find a way to break it). He and his team used to provide metrics to upper IBM mgmt by using the "magic number" from Hitchhiker's Guide as the multiplier. Hey, youse guys out there, you can think we're the exception on talking about this kind of stuff but the techies know it's real. Yeah, software has been cool, I love it. But Y2K progress is a tissue of hopes piled on a bed of PR (welll, I was gonna say ....). We're still back to this teensy-weensy little problem with Y2K that is unique, no matter how many times Hoffy says it ain't -- 12/31/99 is the immovable deadline and we won't know how remediation went (can't know) until we move in Jan, Feb, March of 2000. -- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), November 30, 1999. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- The Dog, Applause! Excellent post. -- Deb M. (vmcclell@columbus.rr.com), November 30, 1999. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- BigDog -- "Science Fiction" That's good. Or in this case, most likely to be "Science Fixtion". ;-) As for the accuracy of the reports and metrics, I once had a manager who measured weekly progress by printing out everybodys home directory on Friday afternoon and weighing the result on a postal scale. This gave him an 'objective measure' of progress for the week. (Man, we had some of the best documented code in the *universe* after about 2 weeks. Most white space, eminently readable, went into *exhaustive* detail about the most trivial of algorithms. But, By Gosh, it was *OBJECTIVE*!) -- just another (another@engineer.com), November 30, 1999. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- By traditional metrics, the progress thus far is impossible. -- Ken Decker (kcdecker@worldnet.att.net), November 30, 1999. Absolutely correct. Therefore, we have two possibilities to consider: 1. All the metrics have suddenly been overturned; 2. The managers are lying or misinformed. Having worked for a lot of managers, I know which one of these I prefer. -- Steve Heller (stheller@koyote.com), November 30, 1999. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- Wow! An actual post about Y2K near the top of the new answers. Thanks for supplying a little balance there Ken. -- Lurking on the sidelines (Alw@ys lurking.com), November 30, 1999. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- This raises an interesting question. When a software project will not be ready in time, typically how long is it before the expected completion date that it becomes obvious it won't be ready? Becomes obvious to whom? The programmers can tell you months in advance, sometimes even the minute they get the project schedule. The managers, however, will just look at you like "How do you know you aren't going to make a date that is four months away?" As far as they are concerned, it isn't late until it actually is late. Often they have pressure from above to be finished in time for a certain event, for example a military exercise or something that can't be rescheduled. So it becomes pointless to debate the schedule, and programmers just plod along the best they can, agreeing among themselves that they are never going to make it. Sometimes they agree among themselves to develop the most important functionality first, or if it isn't clear what is the most important, then the easiest part first. This is for the point of having something done by the deadline. If you can't satisfy them, then partially satisfy them, is the goal of belegeared programmers everywhere. -- Amy Leone (leoneamy@aol.com), December 01, 1999. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- So true and we always do the easy parts first, which gets us to 90% or so. It isn't even intentional, just a result of not being able to focus clearly on the hardest "10%", which is, of course, really 40%. We're talking good programmers here, not bad ones. The Michael Jordan programmers breeze through the entire 100%. The minoir leaguers, and there are many, never get past 50%. -- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), December 01, 1999.

-- cpr (buytexas@swbell.net), September 09, 2000.

I just love it, when you supposedly ,expert programmers talk dirty. If you were a car mechanic, you would be fired in a heartbeat. Accountability, for all.

-- Church Fan (hand@waver.com), September 09, 2000.

By the way, you who have dredged up past quotes, can you tell me why pertol is so expensive, meat too? Some said effect might be economy. Look around you.

-- Church Fan (hand@waver.com), September 09, 2000.

Petrol, Petrol

-- Church Fan (hand@waver.com), September 09, 2000.

Why DO you church folks wave your hands in the air like that? Is it some sort of mass hypnosis? Or are you showing God "Hey, look, nothing up my sleave"? Do your fingers become lighter than air or something? I don't get it.

-- Uncle Deedah (unkeed@yahoo.com), September 10, 2000.