tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12347039Thu, 31 Dec 2009 14:58:56 +0000Cautionary tales about Information Technologyhttp://burningends.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.com (Bernard Dy)Blogger33125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12347039.post-5035877506595685834Tue, 07 Jul 2009 01:21:00 +00002009-09-15T12:17:17.680-05:00life lessons friendship softwareNo, this isn't a reprise of Nicholas Carr's controversial but revenue-earning published treatise that "IT doesn't Matter"...although I suppose it is in a far grander and abstract sense. It's actually a reprise of a Bill Murray line from the movie Meatballs.Murray, a summer camp counselor in the movie, is trying to inspire a rag tag collection of youths that, if I recall correctly, have either http://burningends.blogspot.com/2009/07/it-just-doesnt-matter.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Bernard Dy)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12347039.post-1662184683009368043Sun, 31 May 2009 14:13:00 +00002009-10-16T15:52:31.229-05:00free guide tips corporate cost cuttingAll right. I've had enough about this cost-cutting business. I've seen it cycle back and forth through my 20 year IT career, and I'm giving free advice here for anyone that cares. Although it's going to sound like a rant, there might be a couple crumbs of usable information. If anyone finds it valuable, you don't even have to credit me...just do something right in your organization to help your http://burningends.blogspot.com/2009/05/free-guide-to-corporate-cost-cutting.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Bernard Dy)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12347039.post-612829097323561090Wed, 24 Dec 2008 05:55:00 +00002008-12-24T00:02:59.146-06:00The truth is an important thing when you want to get to the bottom of something and having the truth is the most important part of making decisions. This isn't just about programming but everything in life. The problem is that the truth is often at odds with tact.Things to remember about the truth:Sometimes, the truth will make people laugh.Sometimes, the truth will hurt.Sometimes, the truth willhttp://burningends.blogspot.com/2008/12/truth.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Bernard Dy)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12347039.post-1362512135132192747Mon, 25 Aug 2008 04:58:00 +00002008-08-25T00:24:52.787-05:00best enemy of good continuous improvementContinuous ImprovementIt was encouraging to me that my company decided to host a continuous improvement activity for the development group in our IT shop. If you've never done one of these before, it's related to process improvement and such things as LEAN and Six Sigma.What I didn't understand before the activity was that LEAN is not about solving the root of the problem, it's about trying to http://burningends.blogspot.com/2008/08/best-is-enemy-of-good.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Bernard Dy)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12347039.post-8953284631133736303Sun, 29 Jun 2008 22:00:00 +00002008-06-29T18:28:51.671-05:00software project managementThe concept of project management is becoming more popular, thanks in part to the efforts of the Project Management Institute and some institutional desire to better organize and control projects. The concept isn't new, but classically the project manager in corporate projects was someone that was either part of the delivery team and was expected to manage everyone or was a manager that may have http://burningends.blogspot.com/2008/06/project-management-friend-or-foe.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Bernard Dy)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12347039.post-2636196326782070244Sat, 24 May 2008 12:31:00 +00002008-06-29T16:47:26.808-05:00refactoring challenge software riskI'm at a crucial moment in a developing project. Once again I've been tasked with planning changes to shaky software for a high-profile project with an expected due date that was set before developers were consulted. I am looking at our list of change requests and some are downright scary.The Best Kind of Programming is RefactoringOn one side I'm trying to use this opportunity to continuously http://burningends.blogspot.com/2008/05/tale-of-two-tenets.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Bernard Dy)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12347039.post-8913810994235154466Wed, 07 May 2008 02:14:00 +00002008-05-07T19:44:05.433-05:00InformationWeek and ComputerWorld both run annual salary surveys for IT. InformationWeek's was just published in the 28-Apr-08 issue. I like to read these because they have some interesting things to say, but you have to be careful about treating them as the truth. There was a famous thread a year ago at the JoelOnSoftware.com forums titled "How much do you make?" and it ran for weeks and got http://burningends.blogspot.com/2008/05/informationweeks-it-salary-survey.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Bernard Dy)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12347039.post-6869063691873460846Wed, 30 Apr 2008 06:22:00 +00002009-02-03T09:47:05.971-06:00business analysis training course class ASPE BA boot campTraining DayComputerworld's editor, Don Tennant, wrote a couple of interesting editorials last month. In one, he took IT workers to task for not being more active in developing their skills to stay competitive with the global marketplace. Actually, he's done that several times in the last few years. However, he was also good to follow up that editorial with some of the feedback he got, and agreedhttp://burningends.blogspot.com/2008/04/course-review-business-analyst-boot.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Bernard Dy)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12347039.post-8624546854671884699Wed, 30 Apr 2008 03:17:00 +00002008-04-30T09:50:12.860-05:00business analysis analysts softwareGiving Props to the Business AnalystsI am taking a slight change in direction and will be reviewing a recent class I took. I'm fortunate to be working for a company that is willing to invest some funding into developing its people. I attended a Business Analyst Boot Camp offered by ASPE Technology. To preface that, this entry is to pay some respects to the business analyst (BA) world and explain http://burningends.blogspot.com/2008/04/vanguard.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Bernard Dy)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12347039.post-7991412962054267292Thu, 13 Mar 2008 13:53:00 +00002008-03-13T09:19:14.564-05:00code programming badPlease forgive what appears to be a regression in my language usage. But I'm working with more code written by an expensive contractor and I've just got to say this because bad code is definitely a source of more overtime. It's hard to manage and hard to decipher and suffers higher risk for defects. I'd told this individual several times to try and reduce the complexity of the code and several http://burningends.blogspot.com/2008/03/code-is-shit.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Bernard Dy)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12347039.post-2151925731217124462Mon, 03 Dec 2007 02:36:00 +00002007-12-02T21:05:49.862-06:00software developer training learningI took a sarcastic look at developer motivation to learn in the last post, but let's take a look at how developers learn. First, let's detour briefly to the realm of behavioral science, where David A. Kolb created a chart categorizing learning styles.I'm leery of the categorizations that social science tries to put on humans. You can't stick people in boxes because some parts of them won't fit http://burningends.blogspot.com/2007/09/how-developers-learn.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Bernard Dy)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12347039.post-7519715004203545793Sat, 08 Sep 2007 18:15:00 +00002007-09-22T21:45:04.072-05:00motivation learning education developerWhat Kind of Learning Developer are You?Getting to a place where a person calls himself a developer is just part of the story. The other half is really about how he develops himself once he's in his career.Ultimately, it depends on the kind of person the developer is. I've seen a couple scenarios in my experience:The Renaissance ManYou know the character that is always the nemesis of the everymanhttp://burningends.blogspot.com/2007/09/what-motivates-developers-to-learn.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Bernard Dy)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12347039.post-2643780262449233877Sat, 26 May 2007 01:53:00 +00002007-05-25T21:38:26.156-05:00I've done the very thing a blogger isn't supposed to do. I went nearly a year before posting. What happened?IT and HappinessA job change can always be a time sink. I made a decision last year to trade a little money for some intangibles. I've been busy as blazes trying to wrench a big project into order. Was the change worth it? I think so; as I tell my friends, you're not supposed to be able to http://burningends.blogspot.com/2007/05/difference-year-makes.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Bernard Dy)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12347039.post-114892665306596509Mon, 29 May 2006 17:28:00 +00002007-03-29T22:23:50.323-05:00Memorial Day (Observed) - May 29, 2006I'm going to take a quick break and just say a 'Thank you to our veterans.I continue to be impressed with members of The Greatest Generation. Whenever I talk to them at airshows or special events, they are always humble about the role they played in WWII. In particular, they avoid being pretentious about their achievements and are modest about them. What a http://burningends.blogspot.com/2006/05/job-to-do.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Bernard Dy)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12347039.post-114752294213129631Sat, 13 May 2006 18:30:00 +00002007-03-29T22:26:34.763-05:00Yes, this entry's title is a riff on Mitch Albom's book The Five People You Meet in Heaven. Largely inspired by the previous blog entry, here's a post about things typical developers ignore because they're either inexperienced, lazy, or plain stupid.These are the kinds of things that many developers don't want to think about; they just want to do the 'fun' part, the quick hacking together of a http://burningends.blogspot.com/2006/05/five-things-developers-forget-about-in.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Bernard Dy)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12347039.post-114752301148457976Sat, 13 May 2006 12:22:00 +00002008-03-13T08:52:58.528-05:00programming contractors crap maintenanceI'm working right now on something that should be fairly simple in most applications: adding two columns of data to a screen. I have to update the logic that retrieves and saves the data, and also modify the GUI to accept user input and display the new columns.The HorrorBut this task is taking me two or three times the normal amount of time because the original developer didn't understand the http://burningends.blogspot.com/2006/05/how-do-these-guys-find-jobs.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Bernard Dy)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12347039.post-114633297366271488Sat, 29 Apr 2006 17:38:00 +00002006-04-29T12:49:33.673-05:00Hacking and methodologies and pointy-haired-manager busting and SQL and language wars and best practices and requirements gathering and testing and bugs and dealing with spaghetti code and arbitrary deadlines and corporate America and viruses and still trying to fit time in for family and gaming and reading. Whew. Take a break and enjoy a song from eccentric folk singer Johnathan Coulton. This http://burningends.blogspot.com/2006/04/time-for-song.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Bernard Dy)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12347039.post-114464631683875067Mon, 10 Apr 2006 05:11:00 +00002006-04-10T18:40:26.063-05:00If someone came to you and asked, "Are you happy with your IT job," how would you respond?Obviously, the person asking would have an impact. You might answer differently if a friend asked than you would if a manager asked.At the risk of sounding Clintonesque, I think you also have to clarify the question first, by saying, "Define happiness."If you spend time reading the mentally engaging http://burningends.blogspot.com/2006/04/define-happiness.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Bernard Dy)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12347039.post-114464512020938621Mon, 10 Apr 2006 04:48:00 +00002006-04-10T00:20:25.013-05:00My motto for a lot of this blog is, "Making software is easy, making it right is hard."Well, I was certain others had thought of that sentiment before me, and now I have proof. Donald Knuth had this to say in a lecture, captured in a document of the American Mathematical Society....my main conclusion after spending ten years of my life working on the TEX project is that software is hard. It’s http://burningends.blogspot.com/2006/04/software-is-hard.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Bernard Dy)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12347039.post-113604271580067014Sat, 31 Dec 2005 15:22:00 +00002005-12-31T09:26:16.436-06:00Here's a post to prove I'm a nerd. If you haven't seen Firefly or Serenity yet, and you're an SF fan that got tired of the Star Trek formula, you might want to give it a shot. Then the rest of this post will make some sense.-----Your results:You are Malcolm Reynolds (Captain)Malcolm Reynolds (Captain) 70%Zoe Washburne (Second-in-command) 65%Wash (Ship Pilot) 65%Kaylee Frye (Ship Mechanic) 65%Dr. http://burningends.blogspot.com/2005/12/happy-new-year-plus-nerdiness.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Bernard Dy)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12347039.post-113104287506487786Thu, 03 Nov 2005 18:29:00 +00002005-11-03T12:43:14.543-06:00I haven't been posting lately...getting settled into lots of new things. Had a job change just before the last post, and also on a bit of a different schedule now. But don't worry. I'm hardly out of ideas and rants.http://burningends.blogspot.com/2005/11/more-to-come.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Bernard Dy)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12347039.post-112163086087252856Thu, 11 Aug 2005 06:07:00 +00002008-02-25T19:35:50.511-06:00At the risk of alienating some of the readers, I will tell you about my favorite writer. It's this angry guy named Harlan Ellison. He's quite famous in the fiction circles, though it was his non-fiction that really won me. He has a cynical streak and is very intolerant of the incompetent. It's pretty refreshing stuff to read as you journey through this life and become frustrated with the reality http://burningends.blogspot.com/2005/08/anyone-can-become-developer-trick-is.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Bernard Dy)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12347039.post-111978926146499236Sun, 17 Jul 2005 19:18:00 +00002005-08-10T23:34:33.700-05:00I'm hardly the first person to gripe about this, but there's an unsettling trend in America to send work offshore. The proponents of this practice defend it by saying that manufacturing and industrial jobs also went overseas but didn't compromise American supremacy.Well, they're half right. There are some responses to this trend in the July 2005 Software Development magazine's feedback section (http://burningends.blogspot.com/2005/07/recent-outsourcing-horror-visions.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Bernard Dy)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12347039.post-111789143869951092Sun, 26 Jun 2005 12:46:00 +00002005-06-26T07:32:48.603-05:00I don't like the way many corporations use contract labor, especially in the IT market. I worked as a contractor and as a full-time employee, and my experience found that most contract programmers are mediocre. There are of course some good ones. The outstanding ones have a thorough understanding of the chosen tools and best practices, sport a respectable work ethic, deliver quality results (http://burningends.blogspot.com/2005/06/mind-your-contractors.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Bernard Dy)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12347039.post-111788915851616469Sat, 04 Jun 2005 11:54:00 +00002005-06-04T08:29:13.663-05:00It's sad to think about how the relationship between corporation and employee has changed in America. At one time, you rarely saw people switch jobs; they took care of their employer and the employer took care of them. There was a sense of duty and honor on both sides. Things are different in the present. It's common to see people switch jobs with great regularity.What changed, and what caused http://burningends.blogspot.com/2005/06/corporate-america-vs-american-dream.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Bernard Dy)0