Re: Just say no to threads [Was: Software architecture]

From: CTips (ctips_at_bestweb.net)
Date: 11/01/04 

Date: Mon, 01 Nov 2004 06:38:41 -0500

Rich MacDonald wrote:
> CTips <ctips@bestweb.net> wrote in news:10ob2cmhbirgtc6@corp.supernews.com:
>
>
>>Andrew McDonagh wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Its not about checking your knowledge or brain in at the door when you
>>>start work everyday on your XP project.
>>
>>I know this is going to sound offensive, and I apologize the response
>>sounds like a personal attack - it isn't meant to be.
>
>
> Granted.
>
>
>>The problem that I have with XP is that the practitioners sound like, at
>>best, middling programmers working on low-complexity problems.
>
>
> LOL. The only XPers I know are precisely the opposite: Top-level
> programmers working on high-complexity problems.
>
> I'd be interested to know how you got that impression.
>
>
>>The rules
>>of XP may (or may not) improve the productivity of groups of such
>>programmers. However, when applied to the teams/problems I am used to
>>working with, they would severly retard productivity and very likely
>>increase the bug-rates.
>
>
> I assure you that XP can be a breakthrough thing for top-level programmers,
> especially small teams of them. I cannot speak to larger team issues. What
> kinds of teams/problems are you used to dealing with?
>

Lets see: we're currently working on a multiprocessor vectorizing
compiler, a multiprocessor RTOS, a full system simulator, plus a bunch
of other stuff, including support for other groups, and customers.

The system software team is at most 8 strong (5 Ph.D.s, 3 M.S.), ranging
in experience from 0 years of prior work experience up. Everyone is at
least a decent coder, with at least half the team being good, and maybe
a couple hitting excellent. [A more quantative description would be: if
their sole responsibility was to develop some system software project,
then I would expect a decent programmer to deliver 25kloc/year of
shippable, product code, a good programmer 50klocs/year, and an
excellent programmer 100klocs/year; of course in real life, things like
week long customer trips etc. tend to interrupt :( ]

Our compiler is (probably) better than gcc, and approaching Open64 in
capability. It was done with less than 10 man-years. Its been deployed
in a few customer sites, with less than 20 bugs from the field and a max
turn-around time for bug resolution of under 3 business days.

The second most junior engineer in our group [the most junior has only
been with us for 6 months, so he's not going to be a good example] has
in the past 2.5 years done the following:
- added software pipelining to the compiler
- ported Java KVM to our hardware
- added a RISC ISA to our system simulator
- ported Linux to our hardware [did not involve a new processor, but did
require getting the peripherials right]
- helped the hardware guys debug a USB macro [he had to learn VHDL]
- acts as system admin for our linux boxes.
He was a fresh Ph.D. with 0 prior work experience.

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