March 14, 2013 at 9:22 pm
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Inconsistency
March 14, 2013 at 11:30 pm
That I just need more time to "get" the Win8 modern user interface. I now realise that the idea of passive touch was needed (and still believe that part), but not with a side scroller interface. The side effect of losing the dept hierarchy of data is the saddest part of all and a pain to search through.
Passive touch needs a kiosk or fixed screen area (eg. iOS android especially on small screens. On large monitors the top and bottom is wasted) with only paging and zoom in and out. Active touch (electrostatic that you feel which I like to call touchy-feely) works in both dimensions just like the mouse.
Passive touch = fat finger problems which is why I understand the design decisions, like not having a horizontal scroll bar, as then people would ask for a vertical one.
Active touch = pixel perfect interactive UI where you can feel the UI and potentially the data.
Active touch allows you to feel the close button without having to press it. Feel the window edge to know when you can resize it, etc.
March 14, 2013 at 11:52 pm
I've made my living through both consistency and change. I've been an advocate of and have made my living by doing many things in T-SQL that some folks may have never considered. I do things outside the proverbial box such as avoiding SSRS to do simple things like turn my automated morning server reports into HTML formatted wonders. I fight the tide of nay-sayers by locking down my systems well enough to be able to turn on and confidently use xp_CmdShell correctly through stored procedures to download from SFTP/FTP sites and even run Powershell from T-SQL to create my daily disk space report complete with different colored warning indicators.
My consistency is the power of T-SQL and the changes I've made to do different things have been an eye opener to even me.
I commissioned a friend of mine to build a bit of artwork that explains my mantra. It has the likeness of the "Cheshire Cat" comfortably laying belly down in a litter box, his arms folded over the side and bearing an ear to ear and very toothy grin, with several mice around him pointing and laughing. The sentence near the top of the work says it all for me...
[font="Arial Black"]"Before you can think outside the box, you must FIRST realize... you're in a box!"[/font]
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
March 15, 2013 at 3:06 am
I've changed my mind about the existence of superiority of one technology vs another.
If you look at the comments following a ZDNet article there is rabid hatred of Microsoft expressed on the Linux articles.
When I started in computing it was Atari 800 Vs Apple II, then Commodore Vs Sinclair and so on right through to iOS vs Android and Linux vs Windows. As if any of it matters or is relevant. It certainly isn't worth the venom and bile expended on posts.
Here is a tool to do a job. It is 1 million times better than you need to do the job. Here is another tool. Someone opines that it is 1 million times better than the one you have. Whether they are right or wrong I still have a surfeit of tool.
March 15, 2013 at 4:52 am
I think there's a difference between something you wholeheartedly believe and a strongly held opinion. There are lots of things I wholeheartedly believe, but none with a belief that can't scrutinised critically from time to time. And if that belief doesn't stand up, it is amended or discarded as necessary. I see nothing inconsistent in that; how could I have confidence in something that can't stand up to close examination?
Semper in excretia, suus solum profundum variat
March 15, 2013 at 6:16 am
I'm in a gradual process of transformation over enterprise virtualization- my initial belief was that people who intended VM servers to be business components in their environment were on a fool's errand for using a sandbox technology in live production. I'm still not fully convinced that MSSQL is fully portable to the virtual realm until the deltas of upper-scale performance are indistinguishable from VM to host system, but there's still time.
March 15, 2013 at 6:59 am
While it may not be exactly what is asked for in the question "What strong opinion did you hold that has been changed over time?", here's my input:
At my first assignment as a US Air Force comm officer, we developed the system that managed cargo and passenger movement for Air Mobility Command. It was written in COBOL and had an in-garrison version that ran on a Sun/UNIX environment and a "remote" version that ran in a PC/DOC environment. Our data was stored in an "advanced file management system". There was an API that we used to read/write data and behind-the-scenes the data was stored in huge text files. About a year or so before I left, our system admins wanted us to convert the system to use a relational database. The development team fought it tooth-and-nail and won - no conversion of the system was ever done.
I often think "if only I knew then what I know now...". 😉
March 15, 2013 at 7:14 am
I used to think that applying OO with rigid software engineering practices was always right but I now think that it is sometimes right.
Unfortunately not enough people make it an active choice.
Gaz
-- Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen...they're everywhere!!!
March 15, 2013 at 7:58 am
I used to think people who had two monitors were just being ostentatious...now that I have two I want three.
I used to think Windows 7 was worse than XP...now I actually like it.
I used to think Facebook was a complete waste of time..still do. (Wish I'd have thought of it though.)
The three biggest mistakes in life...thinking that power = freedom, sex = love, and data = information.
March 15, 2013 at 8:10 am
I have been in the industry since 1984 and I remember when everything we did was "roll-your-own". My first job was at Naval Intelligence in Washington, D.C. and my first project was to write graphic primitives (what we called driver's back then) for our Calcomp plotter and our HP graphics terminals (slightly smarter than an original VT-100). So, over the years, I have greatly changed my mind about roll-your-own VS pre-built libraries.
I have also gone from Oracle to Adabas to Oracle to SQL Server to Firebird/IBPhoenix and back to SQL Server with a little MySQL thrown in for good measure. I wonder sometimes if that is why I seem a little schizophrenic?
I can remember arguing that C and assembler where the best languages to use because interpreted languages could never be fast enough. Now I enjoy using javascript/jquery/et al.
And of course, I remember thinking a 56K modem was all the speed anyone would need to connect to the internet.
I guess I have learned that as Heraclitus of Ephesus (c.535 BC - 475 BC) taught that the only real constant in life is change.
Jeff
March 15, 2013 at 8:13 am
IMHO (3/15/2013)
I used to think people who had two monitors were just being ostentatious...now that I have two I want three.I used to think Windows 7 was worse than XP...now I actually like it.
I used to think Facebook was a complete waste of time..still do. (Wish I'd have thought of it though.)
Same for all except Windows 7 - I realised you need bedding in time with 3.1->95 switch.
Gaz
-- Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen...they're everywhere!!!
March 15, 2013 at 8:14 am
David.Poole (3/15/2013)
I've changed my mind about the existence of superiority of one technology vs another.If you look at the comments following a ZDNet article there is rabid hatred of Microsoft expressed on the Linux articles.
When I started in computing it was Atari 800 Vs Apple II, then Commodore Vs Sinclair and so on right through to iOS vs Android and Linux vs Windows. As if any of it matters or is relevant. It certainly isn't worth the venom and bile expended on posts.
Here is a tool to do a job. It is 1 million times better than you need to do the job. Here is another tool. Someone opines that it is 1 million times better than the one you have. Whether they are right or wrong I still have a surfeit of tool.
And if you spend much time at all reading those silly Apple v. Microsoft, iOS v. Android, etc. forums, you quickly become aware of the surfeit of tools out there!
Jason Wolfkill
March 15, 2013 at 8:49 am
I appreciate process more. I used to hate it. I started out developing at a very large insurance company years ago. So many obstacles to get things done. Then I spent a number of years on the opposite end of the spectrum and have marveled at how little of it there seems to be outside of the financial sector. It's a tough balance for any IT shop, but I definitely see the value in it now if it's balanced right. I've always liked the definition of an information system as: people, processes, and technology (and in that order). I see a lot of "technology will solve all our problems" attitudes in big and small shops (mostly small), but without good people and processes (DR,Change Management,Security protocols,etc.) you won't get anywhere near your true potential organizationally.
March 15, 2013 at 9:22 am
I have watched the Star Trek series that have come out over the years for as long as I can remember, and I always thought that there is no way that the Starfleet Database could be populated with all that data about every person that you would want to look up data on. And today, with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and any other social media, along with data that companies, government and just video feeds capture, we actually could be at a point where you can search for information about an individual, and find out their hobbies, where their favorite restaurant is, or what contributions they have made to their field of work, or society in general are. We are all in one way or another posting our history out in the cloud for the generations to come, whether we want to or not.
March 15, 2013 at 9:44 am
I use to believe that it was not safe to purchase anything online and vowed to never, and I mean never risk that type of financial activity. Now both my wife and I buy what we need without a second thought.
I use to believe that 360 Assembler was a God given gift and that it was the end all language. Later I thought that PL/1 and the ability to manipulate anything in the machine at any time, for any reason was the way it had to be. Now after 40+ years of writing code I just love to still have the ability to write code and solve business problems. 🙂
M.
Not all gray hairs are Dinosaurs!
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