[lug] can't make this stuff up, folks...

[Carl Wagner]

Nate,

I would love to see a bridge built with the same sort of requirements 
that software engineers get:
   1)  It must look pretty.
   2)  It needs to be done in two weeks.
   3)  Your budget is $10K.

Sort of like asking to move a building 4 inches south.  In civil 
engineering they would laugh at you.  In software they give you 2 days 
to get it done.

The problem with software is it is too flexible.  What is the load 
capacity of a 36"x12"x60' prestressed concrete beam using 8000Lb cement 
with 8 #8's.  You look it up in a table.  What is the equivalent load 
table for software?
For that matter, what is the software equivalent of: wood, steel, 
concrete, glass, stone.

With software the is as many ways of doing something as there are 
people.  We traditional engineering (in this case Cival), you get to 
bend the rules a little bit, but you are still dealing with wood, 
concrete, steel, glass and stone, and you must live within the 
limitations of the materials being used.

No one is dieing, so there is no driver (lawsuits) to develop best 
practices and component-tize software.
And how long have people been building bridges, as apposed to the 
general population using software?

But I eagerly await your solution to the problem.  ;-)   And let me know 
when I can order a 'bunk' of software routines from the Home Depot!

Carl.



Nate Duehr wrote:
> Real RHEL bug report.  Numerous friends have hit it under the CentOS
> copy-cat release.
>
> http://kbase.redhat.com/faq/docs/DOC-19191
>
> Yup. You read that right.  All PS/2 keyboard support... busted... in
> RHEL 4.8.  
>
> Still continually shaking my head at the title of "Software Engineer"...
> if you engineer a bridge this way, it'd fall down.
>
> Who needs a keyboard? :-)
>
> Just thought I'd share. Keep a USB keyboard handy.  Obviously the RH
> folks don't have any more PS/2 keyboards in their test lab anymore. 
> Well, I'm generously assuming that they actually test anything, I
> suppose... LOL!
>
> The keyboard quits working.  Really?  Really.
>
> --
>   Nate Duehr, WY0X
>   nate at natetech.com
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