Comments on: Low Standards, Stupidity, or Both? http://stuffthathappens.com/blog/2008/02/18/low-standards-stupidity-or-both/ Technology and Geek Stuff by Eric Burke Thu, 04 Nov 2010 22:37:00 -0400 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 By: JR http://stuffthathappens.com/blog/2008/02/18/low-standards-stupidity-or-both/comment-page-1/#comment-6584 JR Wed, 20 Feb 2008 23:14:08 +0000 http://stuffthathappens.com/blog/2008/02/18/low-standards-stupidity-or-both/#comment-6584 It's surprising what people push out the door in order to just get something out, regardless of how shoddy it is. I look at the explosion of websites that overuse ajax and have no degradation plan in place or don't handle error conditions properly as a real pain. If you install Firebug in Firefox, you'd be amazed how many sites you'll visit where you'll see errors pile up. The "fireman" role you described is pretty common, it was described in a seminar I went to years ago on being able to effectively manage multiple tasks. It comes down to you being the "go to" guy for answers or problem solving and being too nice (or unable) to turn people down. People in this role generally have a high burnout rate. It’s surprising what people push out the door in order to just get something out, regardless of how shoddy it is. I look at the explosion of websites that overuse ajax and have no degradation plan in place or don’t handle error conditions properly as a real pain. If you install Firebug in Firefox, you’d be amazed how many sites you’ll visit where you’ll see errors pile up.

The “fireman” role you described is pretty common, it was described in a seminar I went to years ago on being able to effectively manage multiple tasks. It comes down to you being the “go to” guy for answers or problem solving and being too nice (or unable) to turn people down. People in this role generally have a high burnout rate.

]]> By: Brad http://stuffthathappens.com/blog/2008/02/18/low-standards-stupidity-or-both/comment-page-1/#comment-6578 Brad Wed, 20 Feb 2008 20:39:53 +0000 http://stuffthathappens.com/blog/2008/02/18/low-standards-stupidity-or-both/#comment-6578 I think the reason I am using RAD is what I call the "airplane seatback magazine" syndrome. Your VP goes on a flight and reads a propoganda based article talking all about how such and such software tool solved all their problems and saved a bajillion dollars from the IT budget. Then the VP goes home and "impresses" his underlings at the next staff meeting by saying "Why aren't we using [insert product name]? It could save us big money! Picture him/her holding the wadded up magazine in one hand and pointing at it with the other. Of course, no one in the room has written a line of code in 10 years.. When I went to the "training session" for using RAD on our team I was astonished. Here were the most respected, most technical members of our team saying things like.. Did you remember to uninstall patch 321? Did you swap out the WAS 6.1 resource bundles for the 6.0 ones? Did you select the project in the control tree, right click on it, then select "Build Path", then select "configure build path", then press "add external JAR file"? My response was.. "I don't see the control tree. They respond.. "you are in Java Browsing perspective you fool! Select the Java perspective!" I am hiding under my desk until the pendulum swings back to using Ant. I think the reason I am using RAD is what I call the “airplane seatback magazine” syndrome. Your VP goes on a flight and reads a propoganda based article talking all about how such and such software tool solved all their problems and saved a bajillion dollars from the IT budget. Then the VP goes home and “impresses” his underlings at the next staff meeting by saying “Why aren’t we using [insert product name]? It could save us big money! Picture him/her holding the wadded up magazine in one hand and pointing at it with the other. Of course, no one in the room has written a line of code in 10 years..

When I went to the “training session” for using RAD on our team I was astonished. Here were the most respected, most technical members of our team saying things like.. Did you remember to uninstall patch 321? Did you swap out the WAS 6.1 resource bundles for the 6.0 ones? Did you select the project in the control tree, right click on it, then select “Build Path”, then select “configure build path”, then press “add external JAR file”? My response was.. “I don’t see the control tree. They respond.. “you are in Java Browsing perspective you fool! Select the Java perspective!”

I am hiding under my desk until the pendulum swings back to using Ant.

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