April 15, 2016 at 12:20 am
Gary Varga (4/14/2016)
Jeff Moden (4/14/2016)
...would be interesting to find out what percentage of the world's programmers rely on forums like SSC to actually do their job (sorry, have the job done for them). :sick:I keep having to suggest that giving a specific issue, as opposed to requirement, would be more likely to invoke a response.
Havent a problem with SSC because on the whole the answers are correct and generally there are enough voices of reasons to make this a successful place. Of course there are the odd threads of xp_cmdshell that turns into a religious war, but that is thankfully rare.
Forums like StackOverflow is a nightmare and the truth seems to be based on popularity of a thought not on the actual facts. I see too many developers who have Stackoverflow open on the screens 8 hours a day.
The other aspect of a non-successful project seems to be dominated by people who claim breath of knowledge is always better than depth of knowledge. One project that springs to mind is still suffering from deadlocks ( about 1+% of the transactions), but the response is "...but that's ok every database does!!!" :rolleyes:
April 15, 2016 at 12:59 am
Yet Another DBA (4/15/2016)
...The other aspect of a non-successful project seems to be dominated by people who claim breath of knowledge is always better than depth of knowledge...
Your typo (assuming that it is) of "breath of knowledge" is probably even accurate than "breadth of knowledge". :laugh:
Gaz
-- Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen...they're everywhere!!!
April 15, 2016 at 1:35 am
Gary Varga (4/15/2016)
Yet Another DBA (4/15/2016)
...The other aspect of a non-successful project seems to be dominated by people who claim breath of knowledge is always better than depth of knowledge...Your typo (assuming that it is) of "breath of knowledge" is probably even accurate than "breadth of knowledge". :laugh:
Point taken 😛
April 15, 2016 at 5:58 am
It would be interesting to find out what percentage of the world's programmers rely on forums like SSC to actually do their job (sorry, have the job done for them).
Jeff Moden, is that not that these forums are there for? I must tell you that I rely heavy on forums like this. I'd rather look for something in a forum than to have to battle my axle of to get something right.:hehe:
I remember my first project that I completed. The day we installed our software at the client's company and I saw how they are using a system that I helped to develop it felt like my heart jumped out of my chest. That is an awesome feeling and yes, we made many mistakes along the way and could have done things much better. We are two people, my brother and me and no testers. Haha, we used our family as testers to capture data on the screens as we developed them.
There is not a lot of people that can experience that and if you can go for it!
Manie Verster
Developer
Johannesburg
South Africa
I am happy because I choose to be happy.
I just love my job!!!
April 15, 2016 at 7:07 am
manie (4/15/2016)
It would be interesting to find out what percentage of the world's programmers rely on forums like SSC to actually do their job (sorry, have the job done for them).
Jeff Moden, is that not that these forums are there for? I must tell you that I rely heavy on forums like this. I'd rather look for something in a forum than to have to battle my axle of to get something right.:hehe:...
Yes but some people abuse others goodwill. The following, in my opinion, is unaccaptable:
Forum post: Sending email via Powershell with Attachment
HelloPlease draft the script to send mail to recipients with attachment.
Regards
Thanks.
Gaz
-- Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen...they're everywhere!!!
April 15, 2016 at 10:46 am
Steve Jones - SSC Editor (4/14/2016)
Agile isn't about just coding whatever. Many of the successful projects are engineered well, with thought about what they will do, and won't do, in a sprint. If you try to treat Agile like it's just a meeting every 2-3 weeks to check progress, it fails.Waterfall fails, IMHO, because we can't get enough of the details and specs up front. Clients don't know, and we don't know what to ask. Things come up in development.
.
I agree. The Mythical Man Month book is Fred P Brooks look back over a 25 year career in 1975. In that you can clearly see the emergence of the seeds of Agile. Chapters such as There ain't no silver bullet" and "Second system syndrome" are poignant.
Waterfall is good for building bridges but struggles with software. It's a use of something that works reliably in one world being applied in the new world. In the absence of anything else it does at least bring discipline to the enfant terrible.
It's no different to looking at the first cars. There was no need to make them look like horseless carriages but in the absence of a precedent the design was based on what was known. We are seeing this repeated with the look of the Tesla's.
April 15, 2016 at 11:11 am
Waterfall can work for embedded software when you are building your own hardware, for example. Probably not for most business applications.
Gaz
-- Stop your grinnin' and drop your linen...they're everywhere!!!
April 16, 2016 at 9:44 pm
All my projects prior to working with data exclusively have been delayed. This is mainly because they were projects that took anywhere between 3 to 5 years to launch with dev costs equating the same as blockbuster movies (100M+).
If you want to talk about having it rough. Imaging having to plan out a project with a launch date 5 years from now with a large-scale development team across multiple time-zones and the risk of actually sinking the studio in dev costs is a pretty high percentage. Welcome to the industry of AAA game development!
What I think makes a project successful is communication, knowing at least somewhat of what you want, a good team and a good leader. Methodologies like Agile only enhance or diminish those characteristics. There is no one-sized fits all approach. Agile is not for everyone. Anyone who pushes methodologies on you without understanding the situation is likely going to do more harm than good.
Good communication is going to help the team and the stakeholders. Knowing at least somewhat of you want is going to give you a direction. Having a good team is going to help you develop that direction. Having a good leader is going to keep the team moving forward and hopefully make the right assumptions to fill in the gaps.
April 17, 2016 at 10:05 am
manie (4/15/2016)
It would be interesting to find out what percentage of the world's programmers rely on forums like SSC to actually do their job (sorry, have the job done for them).
Jeff Moden, is that not that these forums are there for? I must tell you that I rely heavy on forums like this. I'd rather look for something in a forum than to have to battle my axle of to get something right.:hehe:
I remember my first project that I completed. The day we installed our software at the client's company and I saw how they are using a system that I helped to develop it felt like my heart jumped out of my chest. That is an awesome feeling and yes, we made many mistakes along the way and could have done things much better. We are two people, my brother and me and no testers. Haha, we used our family as testers to capture data on the screens as we developed them.
There is not a lot of people that can experience that and if you can go for it!
Sorry, Manie... The meaning of my post was apparently lost in the brevity of it. Perhaps this will clarify my statement a bit.
As you well know, SQL Server is a tool and along with using such a tool, some knowledge of how to actually use the tool is required to... use the tool. What I meant by the section of my post that you quoted is that there are people that don't even know the basics of the tool. What tics me off is that they haven't even tried. A common example of such a thing are all the people that ask for help on doing something as simple as (for example), joining 3 tables and, yet, they're being paid well for supposedly knowing such a thing. They've apparently never cracked a book on the subject of the tool they're using and they apparently never Googled for such information.
This has really come to light for me over the last decade of me interviewing people for the positions of [font="Arial Black"]SENIOR [/font]DBAs, [font="Arial Black"]SENIOR [/font]Database Developers, and [font="Arial Black"]SENIOR [/font]Application Developers. I stopped counting fakers and posers when the counts started to get ridiculous. For example, I tell people that I'm interviewing that I ask no trick questions and certainly no esoteric questions during the interview and that I'm going to start with some easy questions just to break the ice (and to calm them down... most are incredibly nervous during an interview... and now I know why). Regardless of the position, my first question is always "How do you get the current date and time in T-SQL"? I stopped counting after 20 out of 22 supposedly SENIOR DBAs couldn't answer the question (there was a similar ratio in the other two job positions). Keep in mind that these are for SENIOR positions that require at least 5 years of experience!!! I even had one Application "developer" that rated himself as a "9 out of 10 in both Oracle and SQL Server [programming]" right on his resume that had more than 10 years of experience on his resume that failed to answer that simple question.
Of course, I ask other questions, as well, but the current date and time question is and has been a great litmus strip test of just how awful the rest of the interview will be. I see much of the same kind of absolute and total ignorance of the tool well mixed with a total lack of intellectual curiosity and a bit too much arrogance on the forums. Sometimes I want go all "Celko" on them but then realize that I'm talking to someone that doesn't actually care much to begin with.
Of course, all of these idiots have made the demand for over six figures, salary wise. The only thing I might pay then for is to never go near a computer again. I don't know how they survived in the market for so long except for possibly Googling for everything and that's what my point was all about. Actually, them Googling would make them much more intelligent than the people I'm actually talking about, who are so lazy they won't even spend the time Googling and want to be spoon fed what they should already know.
Seriously... if someone doesn't know how to do something like join 3 tables, they shouldn't be doing the job and I'm both offended and concerned for the company that hired them that they may have such a job.
I actually feel sorry for those folks (and some of the more intelligent folks that Google for a solution to more difficult problems) and the companies that they work for because of the other group of idiots that permeate the internet. There are a huge number of performance related articles out there where someone (for example) has written about a technique (pick one) and claimed how well it performs. These same people create a single row of test data and duplicate it using GO 10000 (not clever, folks, despite what you may think) or use a WHILE loop to have the same effect not realizing that such test data will horribly skew the performance towards those techniques that actually only work well for one row.
Then there are others that write how effective a given technique is and when you challenge them on it with code that can very effectively handle a million rows, they fall back on the ridiculous excuse that they only intended it for a smaller rowcount and the code is still good for that. Seriously??? I'm currently repairing multiple systems for multiple companies where people have had that same ridiculous notion and they got that from the internet, as well. Unfortunately, these moroffs have gained a reputation just because of the volume of crap they've published and well meaning Googlers in search of an effective solution for the problem don't know any better.
Then there are the ones that say really stupid things like "performance doesn't matter". This and many other forums are littered with posts asking for how to improve performance, even in areas where they trying to join just 3 tables. 😉
So, that's what I meant by my implied suggestion that many people continue in a job that they don't actually deserve and continue to do so only by the good graces of total strangers that take pity on their question. 😀
--Jeff Moden
Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.
April 17, 2016 at 11:30 pm
Gary Varga (4/15/2016)
manie (4/15/2016)
It would be interesting to find out what percentage of the world's programmers rely on forums like SSC to actually do their job (sorry, have the job done for them).
Jeff Moden, is that not that these forums are there for? I must tell you that I rely heavy on forums like this. I'd rather look for something in a forum than to have to battle my axle of to get something right.:hehe:...
Yes but some people abuse others goodwill. The following, in my opinion, is unaccaptable:
Forum post: Sending email via Powershell with Attachment
HelloPlease draft the script to send mail to recipients with attachment.
Regards
Thanks.
Yes, Gary, I agree that that is just plain nasty. You don't get other people to do all the work for you.
Manie Verster
Developer
Johannesburg
South Africa
I am happy because I choose to be happy.
I just love my job!!!
April 17, 2016 at 11:41 pm
Jeff, my sincere apologies, I did not mean to take you on like this and I fully agree with you. You know, I have been a developer now for 17 years and about 3 years ago the company I work for threw me in on the deep side and told me that I am now responsible for the administration of the database and server and although I always thought I was proficient in SQL I suddenly realised that I have a mountain of stuff to learn. Even still I never expected anyone to just put something in my lap. So, if someone ask you to hand them a script already written like the example Gary used I won't blame anyone if they just plain ignore them.:w00t::w00t::w00t:
Manie Verster
Developer
Johannesburg
South Africa
I am happy because I choose to be happy.
I just love my job!!!
April 17, 2016 at 11:55 pm
xsevensinzx (4/16/2016)
What I think makes a project successful is communication, knowing at least somewhat of what you want, a good team and a good leader.
I agree, but the most important is a good team leader because a good team leader can cause communication and a good team to happen. I have seen a good team of developers with a bad team leader and they never got anything of the ground until the team leader resigned and someone else came in, a good team leader, and the project just flew of the ground.
I have in all my years of being a developer never worked in a big team (3+ team members). It has always been only me and my brother and I always said I would like to work in a team. I have to add that I have yet to see a team of 3+ to work like a well oiled machine. All the teams I have seen so far had problems working together. Now hang on, I am not saying I am anti team, I just say what I saw.:-D:-D:-D
Manie Verster
Developer
Johannesburg
South Africa
I am happy because I choose to be happy.
I just love my job!!!
April 18, 2016 at 7:16 am
A good community will create a positive way for making sure that other people don't waste their time on questions that don't benefit the group as a whole.
Doing so is an aspirational goal, not a documented process.
412-977-3526 call/text
April 18, 2016 at 8:14 am
manie (4/17/2016)
xsevensinzx (4/16/2016)
What I think makes a project successful is communication, knowing at least somewhat of what you want, a good team and a good leader.
I agree, but the most important is a good team leader because a good team leader can cause communication and a good team to happen. I have seen a good team of developers with a bad team leader and they never got anything of the ground until the team leader resigned and someone else came in, a good team leader, and the project just flew of the ground.
I have in all my years of being a developer never worked in a big team (3+ team members). It has always been only me and my brother and I always said I would like to work in a team. I have to add that I have yet to see a team of 3+ to work like a well oiled machine. All the teams I have seen so far had problems working together. Now hang on, I am not saying I am anti team, I just say what I saw.:-D:-D:-D
I'd say you need good leaders, not necessarily a team lead or manager. Someone has to inspire and motivate others, demand positive results. This could be the junior programmer. It's just that someone needs to provide leadership.
The manager/team lead certainly can cause things to proceed poorly if they have the improper skills for directing a team.
April 18, 2016 at 8:17 am
manie (4/17/2016)
Gary Varga (4/15/2016)
manie (4/15/2016)
It would be interesting to find out what percentage of the world's programmers rely on forums like SSC to actually do their job (sorry, have the job done for them).
Jeff Moden, is that not that these forums are there for? I must tell you that I rely heavy on forums like this. I'd rather look for something in a forum than to have to battle my axle of to get something right.:hehe:...
Yes but some people abuse others goodwill. The following, in my opinion, is unaccaptable:
Forum post: Sending email via Powershell with Attachment
HelloPlease draft the script to send mail to recipients with attachment.
Regards
Thanks.
Yes, Gary, I agree that that is just plain nasty. You don't get other people to do all the work for you.
I feel for you manie; been there, done that.
Kindest Regards, Rod Connect with me on LinkedIn.
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