IT Advertising against developers
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Most of IT advertisings seem to say the world, pressing a button or clicking the mouse or saying the computer "do it", your problems are solved, so ignorant executives believe it and in an incredible way!! But the do not imagine that for pressing, clicking or "saying" a lot of work must be done previously (analysis, implementation, hardware requirements, development, tests, etc), IT advertisings do not say that, of course why to say that!!! nobody would buy. And these executives do not listen to the people that will implement it, they think it can be done in one day, not in three months. And after implementing, they are never happy so IT people are always looked upon with disapproval. !What an injustice!
hehe. Every IT man/programmer reading this will be saying 'Yes, thats IT for you'. But look at the possitive side, 1. Because your likely the only person in your company that knows the nuts-n-bolts of it you get a slap on the back for doing something as simple as a macro to sort a list in Excel. 2. Because they often don't know what your doing, you are fairly free to experiment (hopefully not on the live systems). 3. Useing '2' you can work late on some obscure item of IT so that you can reclaim the hours on a friday afternoon and have that long weekend you've been wanting. So you see, its not all bad. We do it for the joy of seeing the users struggle.
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Most of IT advertisings seem to say the world, pressing a button or clicking the mouse or saying the computer "do it", your problems are solved, so ignorant executives believe it and in an incredible way!! But the do not imagine that for pressing, clicking or "saying" a lot of work must be done previously (analysis, implementation, hardware requirements, development, tests, etc), IT advertisings do not say that, of course why to say that!!! nobody would buy. And these executives do not listen to the people that will implement it, they think it can be done in one day, not in three months. And after implementing, they are never happy so IT people are always looked upon with disapproval. !What an injustice!
Oh dear, here I go again making myself unpopular but anyways... That is how it should exactly be Anonymous (wow, cool real name there btw ;) ). If I bought a new car tomorrow and I had to first install an engine, diagnose some hardware conflicts, install a bunch of applications, set them up, figure out how to get the bleedin modem to dial up and then only be able to drive away I would be highly pissed. Yet I have to do that when I get a new computer. Ludicrous! Computers and software need to be seamless. You should be able to click once and get what you want. You should be able to sit down and do what you want with it when you want without hassle. A fatal crash is NOT acceptable. A conflict is NOT acceptable. Audi, BMW, VW... they all FIRE the guy who misaligned an axle or did not tighten a nut properly. Audi recently had some problems with their A3's. They found the guy responsible and kicked him out. Peoples lives were at stake, as will peoples lives be at stake when using computers in the very near future. Imagine if that happened in the computing world! My god we would all be out of jobs. Yet, harsh as it seems, we should be working towards that. So don't complain when the boss has a wobbly when your app malfunctions. Don't complain when they wanted it yesterday. Do something about it. Write bugless code or find a way to write an app in three days flat. Sure I know this won't be found in a day or night. But still that is no excuse to moan when we are expected to prove all the hype about computers. As I said before the IT industry needs to become a professional industry. my 2 cents :) regards, Paul Watson Bluegrass Cape Town, South Africa Do you Sonork? I do! 100.9903 Stormfront "The greatest thing you will ever learn is to love, and be loved in return" - Moulin Rouge
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Oh dear, here I go again making myself unpopular but anyways... That is how it should exactly be Anonymous (wow, cool real name there btw ;) ). If I bought a new car tomorrow and I had to first install an engine, diagnose some hardware conflicts, install a bunch of applications, set them up, figure out how to get the bleedin modem to dial up and then only be able to drive away I would be highly pissed. Yet I have to do that when I get a new computer. Ludicrous! Computers and software need to be seamless. You should be able to click once and get what you want. You should be able to sit down and do what you want with it when you want without hassle. A fatal crash is NOT acceptable. A conflict is NOT acceptable. Audi, BMW, VW... they all FIRE the guy who misaligned an axle or did not tighten a nut properly. Audi recently had some problems with their A3's. They found the guy responsible and kicked him out. Peoples lives were at stake, as will peoples lives be at stake when using computers in the very near future. Imagine if that happened in the computing world! My god we would all be out of jobs. Yet, harsh as it seems, we should be working towards that. So don't complain when the boss has a wobbly when your app malfunctions. Don't complain when they wanted it yesterday. Do something about it. Write bugless code or find a way to write an app in three days flat. Sure I know this won't be found in a day or night. But still that is no excuse to moan when we are expected to prove all the hype about computers. As I said before the IT industry needs to become a professional industry. my 2 cents :) regards, Paul Watson Bluegrass Cape Town, South Africa Do you Sonork? I do! 100.9903 Stormfront "The greatest thing you will ever learn is to love, and be loved in return" - Moulin Rouge
You are dead nuts right. I wish more people had your attitude.
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Oh dear, here I go again making myself unpopular but anyways... That is how it should exactly be Anonymous (wow, cool real name there btw ;) ). If I bought a new car tomorrow and I had to first install an engine, diagnose some hardware conflicts, install a bunch of applications, set them up, figure out how to get the bleedin modem to dial up and then only be able to drive away I would be highly pissed. Yet I have to do that when I get a new computer. Ludicrous! Computers and software need to be seamless. You should be able to click once and get what you want. You should be able to sit down and do what you want with it when you want without hassle. A fatal crash is NOT acceptable. A conflict is NOT acceptable. Audi, BMW, VW... they all FIRE the guy who misaligned an axle or did not tighten a nut properly. Audi recently had some problems with their A3's. They found the guy responsible and kicked him out. Peoples lives were at stake, as will peoples lives be at stake when using computers in the very near future. Imagine if that happened in the computing world! My god we would all be out of jobs. Yet, harsh as it seems, we should be working towards that. So don't complain when the boss has a wobbly when your app malfunctions. Don't complain when they wanted it yesterday. Do something about it. Write bugless code or find a way to write an app in three days flat. Sure I know this won't be found in a day or night. But still that is no excuse to moan when we are expected to prove all the hype about computers. As I said before the IT industry needs to become a professional industry. my 2 cents :) regards, Paul Watson Bluegrass Cape Town, South Africa Do you Sonork? I do! 100.9903 Stormfront "The greatest thing you will ever learn is to love, and be loved in return" - Moulin Rouge
Well, for your example with the car to match the IT reality I would say that you expect from the car be able to drive by itself, and also when you crash your car by driving it into the off-road tree you would complain that it didn't work out very well. You would also complain that to drive from Moscow to Paris should take no more than a 5 minutes. When the engine breaks you would expext it to be fixed right there, not wanting to hear that to take the engine out and diagnose the problem might take some time. And you would expect the car factory to give you a new car design in three days, with no mechanical problems. Ah, and of course you would complain that for the car to drive you have to fill the tank with fuel first... I could go on and on... Well, different tools have different realities. The fact is that many people expect the computer to think for them and even read their minds. Unfortunately that ain't gonna happen any time soon, so learn your tools as they are now. Computers are a complex machines. Any complex machine requires the user to understand how it works and what it does. Be it a space shuttle, car or the computer... Your understanding of "proffesional insdustry" is wrong, it doesn't fit a complex machine that computer really is. You expect us to be able to change the tier or your car while you are driving it on the road and things like that. Get real, IT is totally different from handling the cars, there are no pre-made tiers and there never will be, because the world is changing and the IT people have to be creative and build a new things all the time. They need the time and certain freedom to do their jobs...
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Oh dear, here I go again making myself unpopular but anyways... That is how it should exactly be Anonymous (wow, cool real name there btw ;) ). If I bought a new car tomorrow and I had to first install an engine, diagnose some hardware conflicts, install a bunch of applications, set them up, figure out how to get the bleedin modem to dial up and then only be able to drive away I would be highly pissed. Yet I have to do that when I get a new computer. Ludicrous! Computers and software need to be seamless. You should be able to click once and get what you want. You should be able to sit down and do what you want with it when you want without hassle. A fatal crash is NOT acceptable. A conflict is NOT acceptable. Audi, BMW, VW... they all FIRE the guy who misaligned an axle or did not tighten a nut properly. Audi recently had some problems with their A3's. They found the guy responsible and kicked him out. Peoples lives were at stake, as will peoples lives be at stake when using computers in the very near future. Imagine if that happened in the computing world! My god we would all be out of jobs. Yet, harsh as it seems, we should be working towards that. So don't complain when the boss has a wobbly when your app malfunctions. Don't complain when they wanted it yesterday. Do something about it. Write bugless code or find a way to write an app in three days flat. Sure I know this won't be found in a day or night. But still that is no excuse to moan when we are expected to prove all the hype about computers. As I said before the IT industry needs to become a professional industry. my 2 cents :) regards, Paul Watson Bluegrass Cape Town, South Africa Do you Sonork? I do! 100.9903 Stormfront "The greatest thing you will ever learn is to love, and be loved in return" - Moulin Rouge
If you really want to compare computers with cars, then let's take a closer look at what you are saying, Paul. ;) Paul Watson wrote: If I bought a new car tomorrow and I had to first install an engine, diagnose some hardware conflicts, install a bunch of applications, set them up, figure out how to get the bleedin modem to dial up and then only be able to drive away I would be highly pissed. Yet I have to do that when I get a new computer. Ludicrous! Do you? Most people buy a computer with preinstalled software, they don't *have* to install anything. A lot of new computers today also have integrated modems, and can dial to an ISP out of the box. But no, people wants much more, they wants all kind of software that does different things, they want a faster modem, and a lot of other things. And people just install those things with out knowing anything about it, and then they complain when it doesn't work... If it was a car, people would change the tires to four different sizes, because they think it looks good, then they would change some things on the engine, because they think that would make them save some money on gas. But people don't do that with cars, because they realize that they can't. With computers people try, and then complain when they destroy the entire system. Paul Watson wrote: As I said before the IT industry needs to become a professional industry. I agree on that one, but people have to realize how complex software really is. I think the average quality of software is a whióle lot better today than it was 3 years ago. I can work full-time at my computer for a month without having to reboot or see a program crash. That was not possible some years ago... Think about that Paul. - Anders Money talks, but all mine ever says is "Goodbye!"
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If you really want to compare computers with cars, then let's take a closer look at what you are saying, Paul. ;) Paul Watson wrote: If I bought a new car tomorrow and I had to first install an engine, diagnose some hardware conflicts, install a bunch of applications, set them up, figure out how to get the bleedin modem to dial up and then only be able to drive away I would be highly pissed. Yet I have to do that when I get a new computer. Ludicrous! Do you? Most people buy a computer with preinstalled software, they don't *have* to install anything. A lot of new computers today also have integrated modems, and can dial to an ISP out of the box. But no, people wants much more, they wants all kind of software that does different things, they want a faster modem, and a lot of other things. And people just install those things with out knowing anything about it, and then they complain when it doesn't work... If it was a car, people would change the tires to four different sizes, because they think it looks good, then they would change some things on the engine, because they think that would make them save some money on gas. But people don't do that with cars, because they realize that they can't. With computers people try, and then complain when they destroy the entire system. Paul Watson wrote: As I said before the IT industry needs to become a professional industry. I agree on that one, but people have to realize how complex software really is. I think the average quality of software is a whióle lot better today than it was 3 years ago. I can work full-time at my computer for a month without having to reboot or see a program crash. That was not possible some years ago... Think about that Paul. - Anders Money talks, but all mine ever says is "Goodbye!"
Anders Molin wrote: I think the average quality of software is a whióle lot better today than it was 3 years ago. I can work full-time at my computer for a month without having to reboot or see a program crash. That was not possible some years ago... Think about that Paul. Sure we have come a long way, we have done a lot to improve things. But if you take an advert or the latest marketing hype surrounding a release of a new OS you would think that computers are incredibly easy to use, virtually 100% reliable and can do everything you want with no hassle. Admit it, we tend to spout how great computers are a lot and clients and the public lap it up. Put them in front of that new OS and things are very different though aren't they? If I get on the plane this evening and the captain tells me "G'day passengers, for this flight we will be using Windows 2000/Linux as our main OS" I would be seriously worried, and I don't get worried on flights at all. Also as a developer not much has really changed. Sure now we have fancier tools but I still run into the same problems, have to do the same coding tasks and fix the same bugs as 5 years ago. Do you deny that? Anders Molin wrote: But people don't do that with cars, because they realize that they can't. So what is different with computers? Why don't people realise they can't? More importantly why do people feel the need to do these things to their computers? I have Toyota Tazz and while sure I would love for it to go faster and handle better I know fiddling around is a bad idea. Rather buy an Aston Martin for instance. Is the IT industry not educating users enough? Are we just throwing hardware and software at people and once we have the cash in the bag forgeting about them? Anyways bottom line we have come a long way but we still have a long way to go :) regards, Paul Watson Bluegrass Cape Town, South Africa Do you Sonork? I do! 100.9903 Stormfront "The greatest thing you will ever learn is to love, and be loved in return" - Moulin Rouge
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Anders Molin wrote: I think the average quality of software is a whióle lot better today than it was 3 years ago. I can work full-time at my computer for a month without having to reboot or see a program crash. That was not possible some years ago... Think about that Paul. Sure we have come a long way, we have done a lot to improve things. But if you take an advert or the latest marketing hype surrounding a release of a new OS you would think that computers are incredibly easy to use, virtually 100% reliable and can do everything you want with no hassle. Admit it, we tend to spout how great computers are a lot and clients and the public lap it up. Put them in front of that new OS and things are very different though aren't they? If I get on the plane this evening and the captain tells me "G'day passengers, for this flight we will be using Windows 2000/Linux as our main OS" I would be seriously worried, and I don't get worried on flights at all. Also as a developer not much has really changed. Sure now we have fancier tools but I still run into the same problems, have to do the same coding tasks and fix the same bugs as 5 years ago. Do you deny that? Anders Molin wrote: But people don't do that with cars, because they realize that they can't. So what is different with computers? Why don't people realise they can't? More importantly why do people feel the need to do these things to their computers? I have Toyota Tazz and while sure I would love for it to go faster and handle better I know fiddling around is a bad idea. Rather buy an Aston Martin for instance. Is the IT industry not educating users enough? Are we just throwing hardware and software at people and once we have the cash in the bag forgeting about them? Anyways bottom line we have come a long way but we still have a long way to go :) regards, Paul Watson Bluegrass Cape Town, South Africa Do you Sonork? I do! 100.9903 Stormfront "The greatest thing you will ever learn is to love, and be loved in return" - Moulin Rouge
Paul Watson wrote: you would think that computers are incredibly easy to use, virtually 100% reliable and can do everything you want with no hassle. I would like to point out that even the cars are not 100% reliable, will not go without the gasoline and you need a driver license to drive it. We have a long way to go with these as well :)
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Paul Watson wrote: you would think that computers are incredibly easy to use, virtually 100% reliable and can do everything you want with no hassle. I would like to point out that even the cars are not 100% reliable, will not go without the gasoline and you need a driver license to drive it. We have a long way to go with these as well :)
You are kidding me, right? My Toyota Tazz has done 100 000 kilometres. The only time it has EVER crashed is when I drove it through a brick wall. The engine has never been replaced. None of the lights have ever broken, the doors still open as do the windows. It starts first time every time and never stalls unless I drive like an idiot. The steering is still spot on and the clutch perfect. The gearbox is slick and works 100%. I can drive it like a maniac or a 90 year old grandmother and it does not break or come to a screeching halt. I once drove for 24 hours with a 15 minute break only every 4 hours straight (Cape Town to Tsumeb in northern Namibia. Cold wet and rainy to blistering dry heat). All I had to do was put some petrol in every 600 kilometres and it did not complain. No problems at all. On the other hand I have to reboot my computer at least once a day. Every week I have to defrag the disk and clean out the temporary files. Outlook and Visual Interdev crash at least twice a week. Lets not even talk about MSN Messenger, Word or Dreamweaver. Sometimes my CD-ROM refuses to register and I have to reboot. Sometimes it slows down for no reason or a programme hangs and I have to end task it. OMG cars need petrol? Wow! My compute needs electricity and has to be plugged into a fricking wall to work. If the electricity cuts out for longer than 100th of a second the computer dies on me and I loose all my work. If I run out of petrol I just pull over to the side of the road. I don't die, crash or even spill my coffee. As for drivers licenses you are driving a 2 ton machine which if you are an idiot can kill many people. Thank god we need licenses to drive! I cannot kill anyone with my computer, not unless I pick it up and drop it on my workmates head. I can do that with a brick as well, does not need any fancy electronics or software to do. I never said cars are 100% reliable, everyone knows they are not. But computer manufacturers tout their PCs as if they were 100% reliable. George wrote: We have a long way to go with these as well First off that does not give us developers any license to be forgiven when computers crash. No more excuses, that is part of being professional. Second off we as humans have a long way to go with everything. Even our bodies which have been in development for hundreds of thousands of years and have gone through many, many versions have a long way to go. Still no excuse. Anyways bottom line is that the IT industr
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You are kidding me, right? My Toyota Tazz has done 100 000 kilometres. The only time it has EVER crashed is when I drove it through a brick wall. The engine has never been replaced. None of the lights have ever broken, the doors still open as do the windows. It starts first time every time and never stalls unless I drive like an idiot. The steering is still spot on and the clutch perfect. The gearbox is slick and works 100%. I can drive it like a maniac or a 90 year old grandmother and it does not break or come to a screeching halt. I once drove for 24 hours with a 15 minute break only every 4 hours straight (Cape Town to Tsumeb in northern Namibia. Cold wet and rainy to blistering dry heat). All I had to do was put some petrol in every 600 kilometres and it did not complain. No problems at all. On the other hand I have to reboot my computer at least once a day. Every week I have to defrag the disk and clean out the temporary files. Outlook and Visual Interdev crash at least twice a week. Lets not even talk about MSN Messenger, Word or Dreamweaver. Sometimes my CD-ROM refuses to register and I have to reboot. Sometimes it slows down for no reason or a programme hangs and I have to end task it. OMG cars need petrol? Wow! My compute needs electricity and has to be plugged into a fricking wall to work. If the electricity cuts out for longer than 100th of a second the computer dies on me and I loose all my work. If I run out of petrol I just pull over to the side of the road. I don't die, crash or even spill my coffee. As for drivers licenses you are driving a 2 ton machine which if you are an idiot can kill many people. Thank god we need licenses to drive! I cannot kill anyone with my computer, not unless I pick it up and drop it on my workmates head. I can do that with a brick as well, does not need any fancy electronics or software to do. I never said cars are 100% reliable, everyone knows they are not. But computer manufacturers tout their PCs as if they were 100% reliable. George wrote: We have a long way to go with these as well First off that does not give us developers any license to be forgiven when computers crash. No more excuses, that is part of being professional. Second off we as humans have a long way to go with everything. Even our bodies which have been in development for hundreds of thousands of years and have gone through many, many versions have a long way to go. Still no excuse. Anyways bottom line is that the IT industr
Paul Watson wrote: Anyways bottom line is that the IT industry needs to either start walking the talk or talking the actual real life walk. The bottom line is that computers is and it will remain a complex tool. Even in "Star Trek", where the computer can actually be voice-controlled not every idiot on board knows how to use it to it's full power. And that's how it's going to be. As for crashes - my PC doesn't crash. The one before did and it was a hardware problem actually. I keep it running for quite a long time even if I crash my software during developemnt the OS is stable as hell (w2k). Your problems sound very severe - I know peoples who keep NT40 running for months without reboot, and Unix/Linux machines can run for monts if not years. For the power cut you should get yourself UPS and problem solved. I can garantie you that if you invest similiar money in your computer as you did in your car it will also be a nice experience. :)
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Anders Molin wrote: I think the average quality of software is a whióle lot better today than it was 3 years ago. I can work full-time at my computer for a month without having to reboot or see a program crash. That was not possible some years ago... Think about that Paul. Sure we have come a long way, we have done a lot to improve things. But if you take an advert or the latest marketing hype surrounding a release of a new OS you would think that computers are incredibly easy to use, virtually 100% reliable and can do everything you want with no hassle. Admit it, we tend to spout how great computers are a lot and clients and the public lap it up. Put them in front of that new OS and things are very different though aren't they? If I get on the plane this evening and the captain tells me "G'day passengers, for this flight we will be using Windows 2000/Linux as our main OS" I would be seriously worried, and I don't get worried on flights at all. Also as a developer not much has really changed. Sure now we have fancier tools but I still run into the same problems, have to do the same coding tasks and fix the same bugs as 5 years ago. Do you deny that? Anders Molin wrote: But people don't do that with cars, because they realize that they can't. So what is different with computers? Why don't people realise they can't? More importantly why do people feel the need to do these things to their computers? I have Toyota Tazz and while sure I would love for it to go faster and handle better I know fiddling around is a bad idea. Rather buy an Aston Martin for instance. Is the IT industry not educating users enough? Are we just throwing hardware and software at people and once we have the cash in the bag forgeting about them? Anyways bottom line we have come a long way but we still have a long way to go :) regards, Paul Watson Bluegrass Cape Town, South Africa Do you Sonork? I do! 100.9903 Stormfront "The greatest thing you will ever learn is to love, and be loved in return" - Moulin Rouge
Don't confuse the marketing people with anyone who knows the realities of the products. If adverts were true women could all lose any excess weight and look like the models on tv within 14 days (or what ever there say), all us men could have bodies like charles atlas in a month (erm. I mean when he was alive rather than now as some of us have). And Daz would get your clothes whiter than white, which isn't even a logical sentance. Windows is a good product. We used to have loads of different computers each with a different operating system and programming languages, on sites like CodeProject we would all moan about having to re-write all our code libs for each BIOS we came across. We eventually got macro cross assemblers/compilers that would compile for several systems, but never the combination you happened to be working on. With MS/Linux/UNIX we have three main systems, our compilers can be used for any or all. Programmers for a long time now, whether in utilities or applications, write as far as possible to hide the actions of the code from the user. As much automation as possible, in order to fit into the document based Windows/Linux (Linux within a WinX front end I mean here). Windows works. Its meant to be a document based system, and it is, it could be more so and probably will be. It is a system made for end users who should have little or no contact with the background system. We are programmers/IT people, its our job to sort the nuts and bolts out, its up to us to do the studying of systems to ensure users can simply 'get on with their job'. We do it for the joy of seeing the users struggle.