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* Posts by Samuel Jackendoff

2 publicly visible posts • joined 15 Aug 2006

An ode to rent-a-nerds and cable monkeys

Samuel Jackendoff
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WTF?

> Anyone in IT should consider US vs THEM as a solid mentality.

> WE fix things. THEY break things. Period.

You have forgotten that without USERS there is no need for US (the fixers and the builders).

Remember that:

Business + IT = Business++

Business - IT = Business (a store can still use a register and a cash drawer if necessary)

IT - Business = null (or games, but no need for all of us)

Also, remember that USERS usually break things that we design and build poorly. I am currently doing tech support + teaching in a poorly funded elementary school. The tech support problems that I am dealing/fighting with -- along with lack of resources -- more often than not can be traced to poor planning, poor implementation and/or poor programming by folks that assume that they understand the needs of their users without having spoken to a user about how the gizmo (hardware or software) needs to work in order to be of use. Oh yeah, the other big problem that we are fighting is to have enough network & hardware techs paid for (by the suits) to come to handle the problems that I am locked out of.

The USERS are a vital part of the equation. Without them, there are no jobs for techs/propeller heads/programmers/ etc.

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We only use above average programmers here...

Samuel Jackendoff

A general lack of understanding

Floating point vs. integer, etc.... A problem, yes.

But what about the ignorance of other factors that affect overall efficiency, such as how to avoid clogging up the "pipes" with useless data transmission? What about thinking about bloated and nonsensical loops? What about comments?

It seems that in that due to the increased speed and memory of the "standard" users' machine, as well as GUIs and OOPs, the training (or lack thereof) doesn't bother to teach/remind programmers that computing resources and time are finite.

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