Re: Fujitsu cobol debugging

Pete Dashwood wrote:
--
"In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found,
than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace
to the legislature, and not to the executive department."

- James Madison

Madison was wrong. Article II give the president the unrestricted right to
wage whatever war he wants against whomever he wants. The Congress only
"declares" war; it is the president who "wages" war.



I am just staggered by this. The fact that both you and Robert have
both experienced it shows there are sites (hopefully only in North
America; I have never encountered such nonsense in Europe or
Australasia) where process is more important than common sense.

This reminds me of ISO 9000 or BS 5750 which were/are systems of
procedure to ensure Quality Control. Procedures were devised with
forms for each process which required ticks in boxes and signatures.
(In fact, the IT part of this was called "TickIt"...) Of course
situations arise where the process simply can't complete - a key
signatory is ill or on holiday or unobtainable, or a situation arises
that was never foreseen at the time the procedure was formulated, so
everything grinds to a halt.
The way that sensible companies got round this was to write an
emergency override process into all key procedures, which allowed the
procedure to be bypassed with full documentation as to why and how
this was necessary. Common sense.

Sometimes common sense prevails. After 9/11, meetings were held by all the
stakeholders in the air transport industry (regulators like the FAA,
airlines, passenger advocates, law enforcement, etc.) with a view toward
developing a set of standard responses should a similar event occur in the
future.

After months of negotiations and meetings a decision was finally agreed to
by all.

Do nothing.

Should something like that happen again, let the people involved with the
situation make ad hoc decisions. Immediately. On the spot. Here's an actual
example of a decision made on 9-11:

FAA Assistant Director: "How many flights aloft over CONUS (continental
United States), real-world?
Worker: "About forty-eight hundred."
FAA guy: "Okay. This *** stops right now. I want ATC-Zero (all planes
grounded) nationwide, and I want it now."

No one asked it he had the authority to order such a drastic action (he
didn't). No one asked how we could divert several hundred incoming
international flights to Canada or Hawaii. The workers just got busy doing
their best.


What bothers me about people reverting spelling corrections as "out of
scope" is the "mind set" of such a person. It is a robotic compliance
with process and procedure, without the exercise of intelligence or
common sense. Action overriding thought.

I guess that explains a lot about the kind of problems encountered on
such sites. And the unhappiness of the people who work there.


It's a guy thing.

Men are genetically programmed to be process oriented. Organizations that
are predominately male have uniforms, funny hats (Shriners), a
chain-of-command, regalia, ceremony, status, etc. The "process" is more
important than the results. Witness memos announcing a pre-planning meeting
for the re-organization seminar (sometimes there's a pre-pre-planning
meeting).

In my view, the whole problem in the Middle East is that the "Peace Process"
is an end in itself. The "middle east problem" could probably be rectified
in one afternoon by a bunch of women getting together over coffee (after
complaining about their husbands).


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