Motivation of software professionals
in [Java Programming]
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From: LR on 13 Feb 2010 13:07 James Kanze wrote: > On Feb 11, 9:33 pm, Andy Champ <no....(a)nospam.invalid> wrote: >> Lew wrote: > >>> Andy Champ wrote: >>>> In 1982 the manager may well have been right to stop them >>>> wasting their time fixing a problem that wasn't going to be >>>> a problem for another 18 years or so. The software was >>>> probably out of use long before that. > >>> Sure, that's why so many programs had to be re-written in 1999. > >>> Where do you get your conclusions? > >> Pretty well everything I saw back in 1982 was out of use by >> 1999. How much software do you know that made the transition? > >> Let's see.. Operating systems. The PC world was... umm.. CP/M >> 80? Maybe MS-Dos 1.0? And by 1999 I was working on drivers >> for Windows 2000. That's at least two, maybe three depending >> how you count it, ground-up re-writes of the OS. > >> With that almost all the PC apps had gone from 8 bit versions >> in 64kb of RAM to 16-bit DOS to Windows 3.1 16-bit with >> non-preemptive multitasking and finally to a 32-bit app with >> multi-threading and pre-emptive multitasking running in >> hundreds of megs. > >> OK, so how about embedded stuff? That dot-matrix printer >> became a laserjet. The terminal concentrator lost its RS232 >> ports, gained a proprietary LAN, then lost that and got >> ethernet. And finally evaporated in a cloud of client-server >> computing smoke. > > The "standard" life of a railway locomotive is thirty or fourty > years. Some of the Paris suburbain trainsets go back to the > early 1970's, or earlier, and they're still running. Do you happen to know if they've undergone any engineering changes over those 40 years for safety or performance enhancements? With worn/damaged parts replacement how much of the original equipment remains? Wheel sets, motors, controls, seats, doors, couplers, windshields, etc. all get inspected and replaced on schedule. Not all locomotives last 40 years. Design flaws can contribute to a shorter life. For example the Erie Triplex. http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/LOCOLOCO/triplex/triplex.htm Although design flaws played a part in the death of the Jawn Henry, I've heard that N&W's business was undergoing changes and undercut the companies desire to invest in coal fired power. http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/LOCOLOCO/nwturbine/nflkturb.htm >> Where do you get your conclusions that there was much software >> out there that was worth re-writing eighteen years ahead of >> time? To continue with our locomotives, the replacement of coal fired steam by diesel and electric (No, no, not this one: http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/LOCOLOCO/swisselec/swisselc.htm ;) ) power was largely driven by maintenance cost, the sort that replaces the lubricating oil, not the kind that replaces faulty brake systems, although this played a role too. It's nice to be able to buy parts OTS if you need them rather than have a huge work force ready to make parts. I think ultimately the RRs asked themselves if they were in the locomotive business or the transportation business. LR
From: Leif Roar Moldskred on 13 Feb 2010 13:32 In comp.lang.java.programmer Seebs <usenet-nospam(a)seebs.net> wrote: > > Agreed. > > But it's crucial infrastructure, and any policy discouraging it would deal > immense damage to fundamental infrastructure. > > People *MUST* be free to give code away without any kind of liability. Why? We're not today, and the gears of the open source engine appears fairly well greased regardless. -- Leif Roar Moldskred
From: Seebs on 13 Feb 2010 13:34 On 2010-02-13, Leif Roar Moldskred <leifm(a)huldreheim.homelinux.org> wrote: > Why? We're not today, and the gears of the open source engine appears fairly > well greased regardless. In practice we are -- you can give stuff away labeled "WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY" and no one seems to feel this is a problem. The proposal that we should legislate that software CANNOT be distributed without warranty would be destructive. -s -- Copyright 2010, all wrongs reversed. Peter Seebach / usenet-nospam(a)seebs.net http://www.seebs.net/log/ <-- lawsuits, religion, and funny pictures http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Game_(Scientology) <-- get educated!
From: Keith Thompson on 13 Feb 2010 14:43 Seebs <usenet-nospam(a)seebs.net> writes: [...] > They might be hard to apply, but consider that a great deal of free > software is written without idiots saying "you need to get this done sooner > so we can book revenue this quarter to please shareholders". It's also > often written by particularly good developers, who care about their code. [...] I'm not convinced that the majority of free software is of particularly high quality. But I think that most free software that's sufficiently popular that you or I have heard of it does tend to be of high quality. There are (at least) two effects here: good free software tends to become popular, and useful free software attracts good developers. The latter effect is less pronounced in non-free software; however much I might like some proprietary software package, I'm not likely to switch jobs so I can work on it. But if you looked at the universe of free software, I'd be surprised if Sturgeon's Law didn't apply (90% of everything is crud). -- Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) kst-u(a)mib.org <http://www.ghoti.net/~kst> Nokia "We must do something. This is something. Therefore, we must do this." -- Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn, "Yes Minister"
From: Seebs on 13 Feb 2010 15:04
On 2010-02-13, Keith Thompson <kst-u(a)mib.org> wrote: > I'm not convinced that the majority of free software is of > particularly high quality. But I think that most free software > that's sufficiently popular that you or I have heard of it does > tend to be of high quality. There are (at least) two effects here: > good free software tends to become popular, and useful free software > attracts good developers. The latter effect is less pronounced > in non-free software; however much I might like some proprietary > software package, I'm not likely to switch jobs so I can work on it. > > But if you looked at the universe of free software, I'd be surprised > if Sturgeon's Law didn't apply (90% of everything is crud). Sure. But there's one other huge amplifying effect: You can read the source so you *know* whether or not it's any good. That helps a lot. The bad stuff tends to never go anywhere (see our spammer from last fall with his Unix daemon utility), while the good stuff tends to do quite well indeed (e.g., Rails). -s -- Copyright 2010, all wrongs reversed. Peter Seebach / usenet-nospam(a)seebs.net http://www.seebs.net/log/ <-- lawsuits, religion, and funny pictures http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_Game_(Scientology) <-- get educated! |