Re: help persuading/reassuring a client that I should use Lisp



Ron Garret wrote:
In article <MO_dh.8$XE3.6@xxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Ken Tilton <kentilton@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:


BTW, you proudly tout the fact that you did this all on your own and you were still making changes at 2 AM. To me that just shows that you don't know how to manage a project, even one where the only person you had to manage was yourself.

Well, we were not demonstrating nor claiming to have a finished system, so it was still in development and everyone (management, potential partners, and I) knew it. Now normally what happens in timid (and often wisely so) shops is that a week before a demo, development gets frozen lest there be some catastrophe during the demo. In my case, I had noticed that the software for some reason never broke. The only failures came from what I had just changed, and after one clean run, it never broke. I did marvel at this, because it was nothing like my experience when doing an equally intense C application. In that case, the only thing that /did/ work was the module (say the math editor) on which I was working. Everything else (the math engine, the visual display) would be in shambles.

What you want to spin as bad management was simply me making an executive decision that I could add functionality up until 1am, test until 2am, and then run a better, full demo flawlessly the next day. And I was always right. Nice try, tho.

Speaking of which, your suggestion that I might be lying is really charming, but I have twice had managers imply the same after i reported finishing a task inconceivably fast (too them, not me), so I understand your ignorance.


You may be a studly hacker, Kenny

Well, I keep telling people that, but you seem to be the first person I have fooled. Otoh, any time I pull something off and someone accuses me of lying, I realize I am so far out of /their/ particualr league that they end up inadvertently suggesting I might be lying. Your suggestion seemed less inadvertent. Did I mention how charming that was?

... And your continued condescension towards people who have spent years of their lives in the aerospace trenches is extremely annoying.

Is that not the mistake that killed fourteen people for no reason? Drawing the wagons in a circle and refusing to analyze the process? That is all I did. What they found /both times/ was that the process failed. You paint my bug post mortem as antagonistic, hoping to stifle it. You are annoying yourself. I imagine such managerial annoyance is exactly how people were intimidated into not saying what needed to be said.

What NASA needs to do (if my guess at a post-mortem is right) is simply publish the post-mortem: "this problem might have been noticed if the coder was less robotic. Programmers still have to adhere to the spec religiously and push back on possible problems thru the proper channels, but they should not turn off their brains." This is a process fix, not --what was your spin?--condescension or blame.

Btw, if you have any friends left at NASA, I would be interested in knowing how often the coders look down and say, "This is away from goodness."* If it is commonplace, my hypothesis starts to crumble. It would be really great then if you could ask for the post mortem on the bug itself, since the article Paolo found mentioned they always review the process when something sneaks thru.

Of course your position is that they skipped testing the days field for end-of-year because it would have meant leaving off the landing gear, so you might not be the best investigator we could have on this case.

:)

ken

* Roger Boisjoly, a Thiokol staff engineer, arguing in vain against the final, fatal launch of the Challenger because of the precise problem that destroyed it: booster O-rings not sealing reliably when cold.

http://choo.fis.utoronto.ca/mgt/DM.case.html

--
Algebra: http://www.tilton-technology.com/LispNycAlgebra1.htm

"Well, I've wrestled with reality for thirty-five
years, Doctor, and I'm happy to state I finally
won out over it." -- Elwood P. Dowd

"I'll say I'm losing my grip, and it feels terrific."
-- Smiling husband to scowling wife, New Yorker cartoon
.

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