A Clock With Benefits

  • Comments posted to this topic are about the item A Clock With Benefits

  • "No one wants software written poorly, and no one wants deadlines missed."

    And even fewer people are willing to pay for it.

  • I've found that well written set based T-SQL requires less time to code, runs faster, and is easier to read and maintain than spaghetti code. Unfortunately most organizations hire half a dozen newbies to their write code in six months and then expect a master to come in afterward and make it all work in six days.

    "Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho

  • I like how xkcd explained it, http://xkcd.com/1425/

  • What an excellent editorial. I'm going to take the time to read the referenced article based solely on Steve's comments.

    Of course, nobody wants poorly-written code, but the triangle of quality, time and money will always be a triangle and the sides will always impact each other. I'm now thinking of how I would explain what goes into writing good database code to a layman and am having a hard time doing so. I think of past conversations with non-database people where their eyes glaze over - that's not the right way. This really has me thinking.

  • BTW, what exactly is a "Clock With Benefits" ?

    Is that like a Friend With Benefits?

    http://www.cafepress.com/+friends-with-benefits+clocks

    "Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho

  • An excellent article, Steve. Like others have said I'm going to read the Bloomberg article later; can't now as I'm at work. But your article reminds me of a problem my fellow developers had at a previous job. They were tasked with writing a new web application. It was going to be complex, requiring lots of database activity and business logic. So it was going to take several months to complete. Management wasn't happy at all with that estimate. Management said, "Why's it going to take so long? It's just a web page." Management thought it was basically like writing a Word document. You pump it out in an afternoon and your done. My co-workers were flabbergasted and had to spend a significant amount of time explaining that it wasn't just a simple Word document that Management was asking for.

    Kindest Regards, Rod Connect with me on LinkedIn.

  • ZZartin (8/26/2015)


    I like how xkcd explained it, http://xkcd.com/1425/

    I think the most telling part of that comic is what the cursor hovertext describes. I've learned to ALWAYS read the hovertext, he puts a lot of information in them.

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    [font="Arial"]Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves or we know where we can find information upon it. --Samuel Johnson[/font]

  • Wayne West (8/26/2015)


    ZZartin (8/26/2015)


    I like how xkcd explained it, http://xkcd.com/1425/

    I think the most telling part of that comic is what the cursor hovertext describes. I've learned to ALWAYS read the hovertext, he puts a lot of information in them.

    Regarding the cartoon, there are some tasks where the ROI for automation would not be worth the level of effort. We do have cameras now that where the photographer can annotate the subject with audio, and then voice recogition will capture meta tags with the image. One problem is how to scope and define the problem. For example a single geolocation code can identify where the photograph took place, but how do you define what is a "bird" in a photograph. There are 10,000 different species of bird, and they look completely different depending on if they are standing, flying, or dead.

    "Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise. Instead, seek what they sought." - Matsuo Basho

  • Read the side article, ending up spending an hour with it. Though a lot of good stuff and fun, I saw it as a story about a lazy programmer who the manager finally broke down and got him to actually work. As to code, it is complex, users will never understand that, and the software is never done (at least not on time). And most of all I love it when a programmer surprises me and proves me wrong.

  • Wow, what a confusing mess of test and pictures the article is! Imagine trying to explain what a surgeon or a civil engineer does and how to manage them in this style. :w00t:

    The main problem is that people, coworkers, managers, clients and family don't understand programming/computers because they don't want any spend any time in at all in learning even the basics. When touch screens and Google supply 90% of their answers, they will not work to get the remaining 10% unless significantly motivated.

  • I agree with the OP. In my experience software has only two jobs: it converts input into data and it converts data into information.

    Data though, that's where it gets interesting.

  • Wow, a 35,000 word article? That's a short story! It took me pretty much a full day to read it! (don't tell my boss)

    It had a lot of useful information, but I thought it was a weak in answering the base question of "Can you tell me what code is?" So many people think that 'any programmer = any programmer' and don't realize how specialized we are. To people in the public, I call myself a programmer. To computer people, I call myself a DBA/database developer because they know that a question about malloc() is probably not going to get a good answer if posed to me. While in a period of unemployment, I had an ex-girlfriend wanting me to sign up at a local school for a degree in game programming. It took a lot of explaining that game programming != the database work that I'd specialized in.

    Code is instructions telling the computer what to do and it can take so many forms that it requires focused discussion to really answer it more clearly than that. The article did a nice job of pointing out some of the advantages/disadvantages of different languages and explained frameworks well, but I don't think it would be very clear to someone who was just a computer user and didn't know anything about programming: using my parents as examples of this comes to mind. 😀

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    [font="Arial"]Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves or we know where we can find information upon it. --Samuel Johnson[/font]

  • Wayne West (8/31/2015)


    Wow, a 35,000 word article? That's a short story! It took me pretty much a full day to read it! (don't tell my boss)

    It had a lot of useful information, but I thought it was a weak in answering the base question of "Can you tell me what code is?" So many people think that 'any programmer = any programmer' and don't realize how specialized we are. To people in the public, I call myself a programmer. To computer people, I call myself a DBA/database developer because they know that a question about malloc() is probably not going to get a good answer if posed to me. While in a period of unemployment, I had an ex-girlfriend wanting me to sign up at a local school for a degree in game programming. It took a lot of explaining that game programming != the database work that I'd specialized in.

    Code is instructions telling the computer what to do and it can take so many forms that it requires focused discussion to really answer it more clearly than that. The article did a nice job of pointing out some of the advantages/disadvantages of different languages and explained frameworks well, but I don't think it would be very clear to someone who was just a computer user and didn't know anything about programming: using my parents as examples of this comes to mind. 😀

    I like the way you put it, that 'any programmer = any programmer' is a way of people not realizing our specialization. The way I explain it to people who aren't in IT or development is saying that IT/dev professions are like the medical field. Then I use the illustration that if you need heart surgery you go to a cardiologist, not a pediatrician. And just saying they're both doctors doesn't cut it. Their different types of doctors specializing in different areas. People tend to get that analogy.

    Kindest Regards, Rod Connect with me on LinkedIn.

  • That's a good analogy.

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