I get where you are coming from. The challenge for you is the improve your ability to convey your solution to the group in a manner that does not put them down. So while you are clearly smarter at getting to the technical solution you are not as smart with regard to expressing your ideas clear enough that the others understand your solutions. Also a campaign of trying to convince everyone that you are right is a path to eventual misery. Sometimes you have to take the committee solution even though it is less optimal than your own solution. It's a challenge, but if you can't clearly present your solutions as superior then you need to be part of the team and work towards the team solution. Some of this may not have been directly on point, but I hope you find some use of it. - Good Luck.

Beyond Compare is what I use at work. Kdiff is another favorite of some at my work.

I have to say that in the end you will likely need to make yourself comfortable driving the truck. BTW 5'6" is not too small to drive a truck like the one you describe. In my Army unit I had smaller men and women driving MUCH bigger trucks, including tractor trailers. It is all a matter of training and practice. Driving a vehicle does not require the inside rear view mirrors. Practice using the side view mirrors, they are effective for when you are driving. For backing out, one good practice is to use another person to help guide you out (called a ground guide - which are required in the military). If there is noone around to ground guide you, then there is also probably noone to run over. My experience is that accidents backing out are most often because of lack of attention. To me it seems that you will be hyper-attentive until you overcome your reservations and become comfortable with the size of the vehicle. Until you are comfortable, park far at the far ends of the parking lots where there is plenty of room. You will do just fine. Some of the suggestions for rear view vision (mirrors, video) are really good. Extra add-ons requested for safety sake are taken seriously (it would look really bad if you asked for help with rear vision, were denied, and in 6 months had an accident that could have been prevented if the request was full-filled). This means make the request in writing, formally, most likely through the maintenance department (with your manager's acknowledgement). More more thing, your manager is likely just the messenger. Approach him with these concerns and ideas as if he is your friend.

I have been using Visual Assist for years. I think it is great.

Just venting or looking for advice?

This is not an unusual situation. I have worked in this type of "matrix" organization for my entire career. It sounds like you need to ask some simple questions. First off, are these "bosses" functional managers, responsible for resource assignments, evaluations, promotions,etc. OR are they project managers responsible for schedules, milestones, resource determination (identifying what resources are needed and working to get those resources from the functional managers). Without knowing you situation in detail, I am fairly confident that you have just 1 functional manager that will be responsible for your evaluations, employee type issues, etc. You can easily have two or more project managers that you are required to work for, supporting each managers project. In that case, you do need to make it clear (or have it clarified for you) how much of your week is supposed to be spent working each project. Sometimes I find myself working 20% on 1 project and 80% on another. Typically you will have different charge numbers for your timecards so that this allocation of time can be properly billed to the corresponding project status. I would recommend that you do not jump ship for this reason. You are likely to encounter it again. If you have other reasons for leaving your company, then you have some decisions to make. Keep in mind that the additional project may bring some variety and greater satisfaction to your job. Just my two cents.

I get that every now and then, but in the end our IT department will install something if we explain the need and they get to handle the install. For us it is just a matter of not allowing users to install anything they want without justification.

IIRC The Constitution NEVER made slavery legal. It was very quiet about the subject of slavery because when it was written in the early, fragile, years of the Union, the Southern States were threatening succession if anything was done that would threaten the existance of slavery. There was no mention of it in the constitution, pro or con, and it was agreed that it would not even be discussed for the first 20 years after the constitution was approved. The subject was bothersome to several of the founding leaders (Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Franklin - even though all of them owned slaves(I am not sure if that is true of Adams)) because they felt that slavery violated the very principles of the revolution and the Declaration of Independence. They simply did not know how to resolve the problem (eliminate slavery).

What I am trying to say is that from a project management perspective it is easier to ensure that unit tests are being written and updated than it is to ensure that good comments are being written and updated. The difference between outdated unit tests and outdated comments is that if the outdated test no longer passes, that will be seen and fixed (if management requires it) on the next build. Outdated comments will be difficult to detect (if it is detectable at all)

El Corazon wrote:

I have heard this argument ad nauseam. You could easily say, "unit tests can easily be forced to succeed and therefore should never be used." or "peer reviews are too easily swayed by cliques and therefore should never be done." or even "software can too easily create bugs, so no software should ever be written."

Anything can be abused by someone deliberately trying to get around the system or artificially improve metrics. If there are team members or a management style the promotes/condones/or allows that to happen then none of the practices in the original post should be first on the list. Given that management and developers are serious about what they are doing and doing the best that they can, I think unit testing is the way to go. When I deliver code that is used and then found to have a bug in it, we try to address the bug, and then we try to write tests that would have detected that bug in the first place (along with other similar bugs) if possible. Now take the scenario where the choice is between commenting ONLY or testing ONLY. When I make a change to address a bug, if I write a test or tests that only pass when the proper criteria is met before passing the fix back to acceptance testing, there is verifiable proof that what I intended to code is what is actually coded. If I do not do the testing, but simply update my comments, how do I know if the code is doing what the comments say they are doing? Only by testing can that be determined. Testing also ensures that future changes do not yield unexpected results (if the tests are thorough). I am not saying that commenting is not critical. But I am saying that commenting does not verify that the code works the way it was designed to work or the way that the requirements state that it should work. Now, switching to your example, when you put down a project for 6 months. Well, when I pick up that project 6 months later, I want to see that the code base is properly intact and that it passes all of the tests that it was supposed to pass. Comments can not tell me anything about what is broken, they only describe what the code is supposed to do and how it is supposed to be used (I said only, but again I agree that comments are necessary). Comments do not say anything about how the code actually works - because there is a bug and the code is obviously not doing what the comments indicate that they do. So from a project management perspective, my first opinion is t

I think working code will get them on track faster than well commented code. I find that comments are critical, but they also are easily outdated. Having tests that verify that code works and detects that it does not work when the new guy makes a change is most important. Some additional thoughts: I find that things that are not enforceable tend to be the most abouse/neglected. To make commenting and documentation the nmber 1 priority from a management perspective implies the need to track and verify that the comments are in place and accurate. Determining that comments are in place is easy enough with most (code coverage) tools available, but verifying that the comments are accurate requires code review as there are no tools that can do this for us. Unit tests provide a nice metric that is always up to date.

Shog9 wrote:

They realize that now. That's why every proposal to "withdraw troops now" dies a quiet death as soon as its done making noise.

I agree, but I do not think that their (Democratic party) concern is about the war at all. I think that their efforts are all calculated to improve their chances of winning the next presidential elections.

Shog9 wrote:

there has been just entirely too much manipulation of the press to take anything seriously from this administration

I am not convinced that one side or the other (Dems vs Reps) have manipulated the media more than the other. But I do agree that the common perception is exactly as you described it.

Shog9 wrote:

It's a bit late in the game to try honesty and still hope anyone believes you. Though of course, better late than never.

Thats why I think that this soldier's comments are so good. He is giving first hand accounts of his experiences. More of that is needed from the troops on the ground.

Great post. Thanks for putting that up. I think all of the democratic efforts are nothing more than politcal strategy. They know that Bush will veto the current funding bills. They will then use that in their presidential campaigns to get a democratic president elected. Once elected, the new president will "suddenly" realize (perhaps with "new" information) that we should continue the effort and that it would be irresponsible to withdrawl troops now. The problem is that the message that Iraq troops and civilians are standing up for themselves and turning in terrorists is not being made available to the public. I think that is what most of us want to see, the Iraqis doing the job for themselves with our help as needed. I am glad that soldier called in. We need more like him.

After you get married the remote is the only thing you have control of :sigh:

ouch - take it easy. Take it out on Captain SS not all of us.:^)

You are off to a good start. I see what you need, but there is a practice around here not to do homework for students. So you tell me what it does so far, and more importantly what still needs to be done.

I'll point you in the right direction to help you do it yourself. First off you clearly need a function to compute the aliquot divisor of a number. Second you need to decide how to find the pairs. (assume that you need to detect/avoid duplicates) I think a simple loop can handle this problem. You need to go through the thought process. You can get help for that here - maybe.

These were great. Thanks for the laugh.

I hope they lose this one. If Sagan is reproducing the items for sale, then he should be paying royalties, but to sell a t-shirt that was given out at the concerts seems fair to me. The bands were compensated for their images at that time.

Just download and build it. http://www.stlport.org/download.html[^]