Post #48,094
8/5/02 2:43:12 AM
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Not like Clipper!
Look, I've done clipper programming (a little) and it also exposes and embeds SQL directly in the app which makes the app brittle and sensitive to database changes. It also encourages you to replicate your business logic in the screens. If you read what I wrote on my 2 steps forwards one step back piece I explain this. 2 tier is evil in a multiuser environment.
Example - some Sybase consultant thought it would be a good trick to get an organization I was working in hooked on PowerBuilder. So he wrote a little app for service reps to handle some business task. Of course it worked fine for him. Only you get no locking mechanism with these tools. Its just select into a widget, let the user play with the data in the widget, then write code to do updates back to the database based on what changed in the widget.
The OR mapping layers do optimistic locking by default. In fact you specify which fields are significant for locking in the model definition. So right there they save you significant work and prevent bugs.
As far as getting more done with less - we get a couple of top developers to do the schema and the object model, then get the drones to build UI on top of the business objects. I think you'd prefer to be the developer doing the model (its what I specialize in).
Regarding your big operations that have to be done in the database - yes you write stored procs for stuff like that and then expose them as methods in the object model (usually class methods for sweeping stuff like that). Its not a big deal and by putting that api on your database you avoid integrity issues, isolate apps from schema changes, minimize bugs, and still leverage the power of a cast of thousands (of screen painting dolts as management prefers).
I am out of the country for the duration of the Bush administration.
Please leave a message and I'll get back to you when democracy returns.
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Post #48,122
8/5/02 9:43:52 AM
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I'm Amazed
that management still thinks there is a "magic bullet".
I agree. Doing the schema, the database admin, and the object model is certainly more rewarding than the screens. It's rewarding professionally and it pays better.
It just pains me to run into managment (like my current administration), who believes that schemas, administration, and object models aren't important. Then, again, I'm getting paid really well to clean up his prior programmer's Delphi mess.
Glen Austin
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Post #48,128
8/5/02 10:13:18 AM
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(Mis)Management
Just out of curiosity - how did your management end up management?
Whats their background? Career path? Why is that guy in charge and not you?
Something about what that guy knows is important to the business owners.
Maybe.
This is one of the puzzles I'm trying to work out. How come the idiots end up on top? Why are the clueless defining the objectives *and* the means to reach them in the absence of any real skillset?
I wish I knew.
I am out of the country for the duration of the Bush administration.
Please leave a message and I'll get back to you when democracy returns.
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Post #48,139
8/5/02 10:57:54 AM
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Re: (Mis)Management
My boss IS the owner of the company. It's a small 50-60 employee company.
Glen Austin
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Post #48,150
8/5/02 11:44:01 AM
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This is an easy one
Either they are a major stock holder, or a friend or relative of one, or the owner of the company. Failing that, they are an employee that worked their way up the ranks by sucking the right d*cks, going to happy hour with the other management and getting sh*t faced, perticipating in spouse-swapping parties, attending those "adult" parties thrown by management (Getting into S&M, hardcore stuff), and bluffing their way into management by pretending that they know what they are doing (The Pointy haired Boss). That is why Idiots end up in management as the majority, they do these things because their job skills suck. They usually have an MBA or something that allows them to get promoted over other coworkers that don't have one. Nobody knows how they were smart enough to get an MBA, it is either fake, or they paid someone to take the classes for them to earn it. Or they were smart at one time, but burned out their brain on drugs after getting the degree?
I am free now, to choose my own destiny.
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Post #48,277
8/5/02 9:45:26 PM
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Sales skills.
There is a point above most technical positions that require a mix of sales and (people) management skills. Often there is actually a band where the positions also require technical skills. Hence the problems of managers who know enough to be dangerous but not enough to be truly useful.
I found the best explanation in, of all places, a Dungeons & Dragons guide about the structure of armies. At the very bottom, you will have Level 0 and Level 1 Fighters. You may have some Level-1 Fighters as Coporals but they'd probably be Level 2 or higher. As you get up towards Generals and Colonels, the levels get higher until you might have a Level 16 Fighter as your army's General. But if they're responsible to a king or prince, you may well have a Level 0 or 1 character as the General or who the General reports to - that's your prince or king. (And their most trusted advisors will be a mix of levels and classes, too.) Quite simply, there is a point where the skillset required changes.
In modern large company parlance, when you get to the top of the techs, you have one who is capable of managing other techs. He is not entirely a political animal, but he will play some of it. His boss will be less of a tech, or perhaps a tech with old knowledge, but will be capabe of managing and interacting with other managers who aren't techs. By this level, you find people with sales skills because either the people skills for sales and for management are very similar, or they are similar enough that sales people can learn them better than most.
Makes job advancement prospects poor for us techs, though.
Wade.
"Ah. One of the difficult questions."
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Post #48,357
8/6/02 10:29:19 AM
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Yeah well there's a problem here
I got a degree in petroleum engineering. So please bear in mind that I have been trained to bore holes up to 2 miles into the earth, guess how much stuff is down there by sucking carefully on one or two holes in cycles over a couple months, and figure out whether what we've found is gold or dust.
One of the more interesting classes was engineering economics. Basically, you're given a set of well test data, and are told to figure out how to maximize the return. You design the production plan, calculate the costs, returns, cash flows, etc. Its all about fiscal responsibility because if your plan is too risky or you don't budget your expenditures you end up sitting on a stack of gold bars too heavy to move. Not very valuable.
I think techies - and I *know* this holds for engineers - have had the business training to manage organizations and large projects effectively. But we're not considered for the roles - even if we lobby for them.
Something about a boys club I think. Shared ignorance yields camaraderie. That's what I'm finding.
I am out of the country for the duration of the Bush administration.
Please leave a message and I'll get back to you when democracy returns.
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Post #48,362
8/6/02 10:38:34 AM
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Fear factor
If you have the ability to promote you promote someone you are comfortable with, not nescessarily the one best suited for the job. It is a club in a way so schmoozing is a big part of getting and staying there.
thanx,
bill
."Once, in the wilds of Afghanistan, I had to subsist on food and water for several weeks." W.C. Fields
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Post #48,397
8/6/02 1:16:50 PM
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Yeah sort of like that
Norm is a good worker, hard working, honest, and his programs don't see to crash the system. Too bad he doesn't go to Happy Hour with us on Fridays and get sh*t faced.
Now Chris isn't that good of a worker, tends to joke around with the other coworkers a lot, his programs take down servers and are hard to debug. But he gets sh*t faced with us at Happy Hour.
I need to promote one of them to be a Project Leader, but which one? Well I feel more comfortable with Chris than Norman, besides Norman is such a good worker that it is most likely some other firm will hire him away in a year or two anyway. Let's promote Chris instead!
I am free now, to choose my own destiny.
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