software design (was: Re: [geeks] perlish disgruntlement, java considered, sun hardware sought)

[alex j avriette]

> Must be nice to be able to tell the boss, effectively, "no, I wont do 
> that".
> When $boss says "I need it by five pm", I make damn sure I have 
> something
> "on his desk" by five PM, or have a DAMN GOOD excuse for why its not 
> done.

wouldnt work with a mechanic, carpenter, electrician, or anyone else. 
its foolish to expect the process of programming to conform to some 
arbitrary date. it is their job to manage, not to design. they dont have 
a clue what is involved on XYZ application.

sometimes it gets done by five, sometimes it doesnt. if at five it isnt 
done and i think i can get it done by nine, i usually stay. but cutting 
corners and making shitty code doesnt help anyone. least of all you.

> "Oh, I wanted to write nice finely-tuned pretty scripts/code" is NOT an
> acceptable excuse - if its quick, dirty, and does the job, its good 
> enough
> for right then.  You can make it pretty/efficient *later*, when in a 
> time
> crunch.

you must be one of those "sysadmin" types and not a "programmer" type. 
how long does it take to install a failover cluster on two e3500's and 
connect them to a SAN, with not so much as an OS installed? does it 
really matter if your boss thinks it *should* be done by the end of the 
day?

arbitrary dates are just that.

> Nah, I like web, I hate people who think Java is the be-all-end-all of
> programming languages.

who said that?

alex
--
alex j avriette, perl hacker
avriettea at speakeasy.net
http://envy.posixnap.net/