A recent thread on Linked In lead me to this site showing how many web sites there are: http://news.netcraft.com/archives/web_server_survey.html
Archive for the ‘Random Musings’ Category
I Love The Internet Thiiiiiis Much
Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009Software Project Failure
Sunday, October 18th, 2009I’m on a roll with the LinkedIn rants today 
Someone once said that failure can only occur when time and resources are limiting factors. In the case of software, all of the above are true, though the most consistent cause I see is that the process of doing the following in order:
1) Set a completion date
2) Define the requirements
3) Design the software
4) Develop the software
5) Change the requirements
6) Wonder what went wrong
Agile is a good step in preventing failure from the above process except that even shops that use Agile often face that the end date is set before work begins and that unrealistic expectations are set at the same time.
Another ongoing issue is that management’s reaction to bad news about meeting functionality or a date is to throw more people on the project and demand more frequent meetings which pull the people most capable of solving the issue away from solving the issue. This trains developers to not communicate issues until the last minute, which accelerates this vicious cycle.
As Dennis Miller used to say “But that’s just my opinion. I could be wrong”
Whatever Happened to the Promise of Java Beans?
Sunday, October 18th, 2009I ran across a question on LinkedIn today and gave a long-winded rant-like response that I thought I would post here, too.
Javabeans are hailed as reusabel software components. Is anybody aware of a market for these wigits?
My Answer: Yes, and it has been dominated by IBM and Oracle for the past decade. When the books were written that proposed business models around the technology the expectation was that Swing would win massive acceptance and that Applets would continue to be the key technology of rich web applications. None of this came to pass.
There was also the expectation of an open market of beans, which missed the fact that most developers would rather write their own and only reuse when directed, or until it becomes a habit from being directed to do so. The reuse is still mostly of internally developed beans or those that are part of vendor applications.
And the vendor applications mostly make the beans proprietary, i.e., they only run within their servers.
The exceptions to my cynical gut-reaction is the FOSS community, where many Java Beans and other reusable components can be found.
As Dennis Miller used to say “But that’s just my opinion. I could be wrong”
Links Be Gone
Wednesday, October 7th, 2009I often save web pages as Word documents for different reasons, and sometimes need to disable the links. Finding no help in Help, I did the usual search and found the trick elsewhere.
Here’s what I found:
If you just want to remove the hyperlink property of the entry, select the document—[Ctrl]A—and unlink the field—[Ctrl][Shift][F9].
Achieving Artificial Intelligence with the Reverse
Tuesday, October 6th, 2009I believe that AI is taking the wrong path. They are trying to work top down because that’s how humans who are generally successful at solving problems approach solving problems. Problems that are somewhat familiar are best served with a rigorous approach that leads to a planned conclusion. Still, many of the greatest break-throughs have come about by accident, i.e., not following the general path at first. Penicillin and Post-It Notes come immediately to mind.
But humans only solve most problems the usual way because they have a solid ground work to start from. The accidents create a new ground work for development. Accidents come about by not following the normal path, and I think the solution to AI is in taking a different path that will lead to a ground work that will support the entire field.
AI should take the approach of developing siloed expert systems. Make lots of them and keep refining until commoditized. Then start working on higher systems that can merge related systems together though interfaces like web services (but more efficient). Then build ever higher systems until a small set of controlling systems can leverage the legacy systems. The legacy systems, truly failures to create AI and the wrong accepted path will provide an infrastructure that will support a true AI solution.
Scott Adam’s Illustrates My Life As a Consultant
Sunday, October 4th, 2009
Developing Software in a Sauna
Tuesday, September 8th, 2009There are cynics amongst us (if you are reading this, you should know that by now) who say that the most pleasurable part of a sauna is getting out of it and being relieved from the heat.
Coding software is like that, sometimes. You will always run across a bug in your software, or poor documentation, or an upgrade or language shift where all the things you expect to be there aren’t. So you bang your head against the wall until a solution falls out it (hopefully your head, though the wall has contributed on occasion). And then you stop banging your head and give it a final slap as you solve the problem. Then it feels good. So good, you wind up banging your head again in a few months/days/hours over another problem.
Can I Told You So Be Retroactive?
Tuesday, September 1st, 2009I was part of the team at my former employer bidding for the re-work of the MBTA web site. Lo and behold (whatever that means), I get around to reading /. for the first time since then and I run across this little item that talks about how the new-and-improved site didn’t support Opera and has been rolled back to it’s earlier version.
So, if they had gone with my former company and if I had stayed, they wouldn’t be having these issues. But, then, I probably wouldn’t have time to read about them
Whether to Use Open Source or Windows Development Platform
Sunday, August 30th, 2009The following questions was on LinkedIn today:
How to decide whether to use Open Source or Windows development platform. we are working on creating a SAAS model for a payroll and HR software. The debate we currently having is to on what software to develop Open Source or Windows. Need some help to decide the parameters on which to compare so as to come up with a logical decision rather than the decision based on gut.
Here is my response:
I started typing a couple of different responses, and then stopped as it occurred to me that the world of the operating system has turned upside in the last ten years, because your choice for OS is literally Mircrosoft or Open Source. All of the other vendors have either gone open source or are too small to consider as real choices anymore.
So from the OS point of view, it is a choice of who your support vendor is now.
Once you choose your operating system, then you need to choose your software packages. This is where in-house skill is a big part of the equation, because if you don’t have people that will take complete ownership of both the framework and custom code, your open source options narrow. You have to look at which projects have the most solid team that will still be updating the product n years from now. Currently, those are products that either have vendor sponsorship (and you expect the vendor to be around n years from now) or are so wildly popular for so long that even if the current group gets rich and bored someone else will step in.
And, back to the Windows or something else question: For a web-based application, if software doesn’t run on both (at least a version that runs on both), I wouldn’t consider it.
But (as Dennis Miller used to say every week), that’s just my opinion. I could be wrong.
Scott Adams Nails it Again
Sunday, August 16th, 2009This will be considered a classic. It is relevant at least every three years… (Click the post title to see properly until I get around to customizing this blog more)
