ess (phil hunt) wrote:

:On 19 Dec 2003 15:38:09 GMT, Bertil Jonell wrote:
:In article ,
:phil hunt wrote:
:I've worked as a programmer for
:defense contractors (and for other large organisations), and believe
:me, there is a *lot* of waste and inefficiency. If the software was
:written right, it could probably be done with several orders of
:magnitude more efficiency.
:
: What competing method is there except for Open Source?
:
:Open source -- or rather, using some of the ideas from how OSS
rojects are btypically run -- is certainly useful. Employing the
:best people (the top 10% of programmers are probably 10 times more
roductive than the average, and 100 times more productive than the
:bottom 10%) is important, as is encouraging debate (in a
:non-threatening atmosphere) as to what can be done better.

But selecting those folks out and motivating them to work is much
harder.

:Extreme Programming has some very good ideas, as do other Agile
:techniques.

Many are 'good ideas' only if you don't have to maintain the final
product.

:Collaborative systems for discussing evolving software
rojects -- mailing lists, wikis, etc -- are good.

You think this isn't done?

:Usingn the right
rogramming tools is important, for example the right lasnguasge or
more likely) set of languages. On which lanugages to use, Paul
:Graham's essays on language design, and the way Lisp makes it easy
:for you to in effect write your own specialised language for the job
:in hand, are apposite.

Again, this is wonderful until someone has to enhance or maintain the
result. EVERY effort written in a 'one-off' special purpose language?
Ugh!

:Concentration on software quality involves lack of caring about
ther criteria, so forcing employees to wear strangulation devices,
r unnecessarily attending work at particular hours, are
:counterproductive in themselves as well as being symptomatic of
:wider PHB-ism.

I don't know how to break it do you, but the last time I wore a tie
was around a year ago (I was briefing an O-6 - even so, the tie was a
mistake, which I didn't repeat the last time I went to brief one). I
generally wear polo shirts to work (and pretty much work when I feel
like it - the problems which you find so easy seem to consume an awful
lot of time before they are acceptably solved, so they let me work as
many hours as I want (up to a limit where the company starts worrying
about burn-out)).

Get back to me when someone has obtained a clue for you, won't you?

--
"Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute."
-- Charles Pinckney