* Article: The shift away from user directed projects @ 2000-03-28 0:00 Myles Wakeham 2000-03-29 0:00 ` �puma 2000-03-29 0:00 ` Harlan Grove 0 siblings, 2 replies; 10+ messages in thread From: Myles Wakeham @ 2000-03-28 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) I have written an article entitled "The shift away from user directed projects" and would appreciate any feedback directly to my e-mail address. Please feel free to take a look at it, at: www.techsol.org/tsart.html Hope it is of interest. Regards, Myles Wakeham Sr. Consultant Tech Solutions Inc. Los Angeles, CA myles@techsol.org ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 10+ messages in thread
* Re: Article: The shift away from user directed projects 2000-03-28 0:00 Article: The shift away from user directed projects Myles Wakeham @ 2000-03-29 0:00 ` �puma 2000-03-29 0:00 ` Ted Edwards 2000-03-29 0:00 ` Harlan Grove 1 sibling, 1 reply; 10+ messages in thread From: �puma @ 2000-03-29 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) I feel you analysis pretty interesting but also as a kind of plea (?, word) to understand the industry's problematic situation when guessing or anticipating future directions in hardware and/ or software development. Maybe, a possible solution to these problems could be based on a different approach - transfering solutions from industries that are 'older' than computer indusrties, but still young enough to be comparable. In example, 70 (or so) years ago radios were built as 'all in one', like computers these days. Today, you still have the 'all in one' solution (cheap transistors), but you also have high end engines with tuners etc separated from ... till speakers which allows a much better planning for both, users and industries. Similar: Currently you let software (or the installation program) decide which 'type of computer' you will run in the end, a 'game computer' (i.e. win98), a server (i.e. freebsd), etc. (but you still have 'allround computers' with 'allround softwares'). Why not 'construct' computers that are specialized and optimized for a certain area/ usage (i.e. the 'secretary computer' etc). Then you might even offer 'cheap' to 'expensive' solutions within the intended area of use. Then-2, your 'only' problem could be 'reduced' to agree on general and international valid i/o standards (i.e. for interfaces, modules etc). In my mind, future computers (and softwares) should be based rather on modules, maybe even specialized modules, than on 'all in one' products. Sorry for my poor English. ---- On Tue, 28 Mar 2000 12:11:41 -0800, Myles Wakeham <myles@techsol.org> wrote: >I have written an article entitled "The shift away from user directed >projects" and would appreciate any feedback directly to my e-mail >address. > >Please feel free to take a look at it, at: > >www.techsol.org/tsart.html > >Hope it is of interest. > >Regards, > >Myles Wakeham >Sr. Consultant >Tech Solutions Inc. >Los Angeles, CA >myles@techsol.org ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 10+ messages in thread
* Re: Article: The shift away from user directed projects 2000-03-29 0:00 ` �puma @ 2000-03-29 0:00 ` Ted Edwards 2000-03-29 0:00 ` �puma 2000-04-13 0:00 ` Charles E. Bortle, Jr. 0 siblings, 2 replies; 10+ messages in thread From: Ted Edwards @ 2000-03-29 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) When making predictions of the future of computing, especially on a time frame greater than a few months, it is wise to consider a quote appearing in the sig of a young fellow learning to weld. " Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future by the year 2000 may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and weigh only 1.5 tons " -- Popular Mechanics, March 1949 Ted ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 10+ messages in thread
* Re: Article: The shift away from user directed projects 2000-03-29 0:00 ` Ted Edwards @ 2000-03-29 0:00 ` �puma 2000-04-13 0:00 ` Charles E. Bortle, Jr. 1 sibling, 0 replies; 10+ messages in thread From: �puma @ 2000-03-29 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Maybe you might want to download and read the pdf file - just like me ? -------------------- On Wed, 29 Mar 2000 08:06:58 -0500, Ted Edwards <Ted_E@bc.sympatico.ca> wrote: >When making predictions of the future of computing, especially on a time >frame greater than a few months, it is wise to consider a quote >appearing in the sig of a young fellow learning to weld. > >" >Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and >weighs 30 tons, computers in the future by the year 2000 may have only >1,000 vacuum tubes and weigh only 1.5 tons >" >-- Popular Mechanics, March 1949 > >Ted ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 10+ messages in thread
* Re: Article: The shift away from user directed projects 2000-03-29 0:00 ` Ted Edwards 2000-03-29 0:00 ` �puma @ 2000-04-13 0:00 ` Charles E. Bortle, Jr. 2000-04-13 0:00 ` Lou Zher 1 sibling, 1 reply; 10+ messages in thread From: Charles E. Bortle, Jr. @ 2000-04-13 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Hello All, Interesting quote Ted :-) Reminds me of the quote about how nobody would ever need more than 4k of memory (I think that was Bill Gates, but I cannot remember...I need more memory ;-) Interesting article Myles. -- Charles cbrtjr@ix.netcom.com "For God So Loved The World, That He Gave His Only Begotten Son, That Whosoever Believeth In Him Should Not Perish, But Have Everlasting Life"John3:16 * http://pw2.netcom.com/~cbrtjr/wrdthing.html * Ted Edwards <Ted_E@bc.sympatico.ca> wrote in message news:38E1FFF2.7342@bc.sympatico.ca... > When making predictions of the future of computing, especially on a time > frame greater than a few months, it is wise to consider a quote > appearing in the sig of a young fellow learning to weld. > > " > Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and > weighs 30 tons, computers in the future by the year 2000 may have only > 1,000 vacuum tubes and weigh only 1.5 tons > " > -- Popular Mechanics, March 1949 > > Ted > ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 10+ messages in thread
* Re: Article: The shift away from user directed projects 2000-04-13 0:00 ` Charles E. Bortle, Jr. @ 2000-04-13 0:00 ` Lou Zher 2000-04-13 0:00 ` Charles E. Bortle, Jr. 2000-04-14 0:00 ` Tarjei Tj�stheim Jensen 0 siblings, 2 replies; 10+ messages in thread From: Lou Zher @ 2000-04-13 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Charles E. Bortle, Jr. <cbrtjr@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message news:8d5l1b$603$1@slb3.atl.mindspring.net... > Hello All, > > Interesting quote Ted :-) Reminds me of the quote about > how nobody would ever need more than 4k of memory > (I think that was Bill Gates, but I cannot remember...I need > more memory ;-) "Nobody will ever need more than 640KB of memory" - IBM engineers, when deciding to top-load the adapter area to 0xA0000 on the PC. If you are thinking of the 64KB limit, that is only a limit of what a 16-bit register can index. That's Intel. Bill Gates _can_ be blamed for the 32MB HD limit (pre DOS 4). That certainly seemed short-sighted. -LZ [ Do not try to e-mail me. - It is a spam trap. ] ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 10+ messages in thread
* Re: Article: The shift away from user directed projects 2000-04-13 0:00 ` Lou Zher @ 2000-04-13 0:00 ` Charles E. Bortle, Jr. 2000-04-14 0:00 ` Tarjei Tj�stheim Jensen 1 sibling, 0 replies; 10+ messages in thread From: Charles E. Bortle, Jr. @ 2000-04-13 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Hello Lou, Good ones too, but no, I _was_ thinking of the 4k comment. In the early S100 8bit 8080 / Z80 CP/M days someone made a comment that nobody would ever need more than 4k of memory. Those machines could use up to a whopping 64k ;-) I actually recieved comments similar to the 4k comment when I wanted to upgrade from 32k to 64k on my S100 machine. (By the way, I had set up a bank switching system on that machine well before the PC was a gleam in Phil Estridge's (sp?) eyes and, of course, before LIMS EMS. I had 64k RAM plus a 32K EEPROM board.) Sorry for the off-topic :-( -- Charles cbrtjr@ix.netcom.com "For God So Loved The World, That He Gave His Only Begotten Son, That Whosoever Believeth In Him Should Not Perish, But Have Everlasting Life"John3:16 * http://pw2.netcom.com/~cbrtjr/wrdthing.html * Lou Zher <abuse@127.0.0.1> wrote in message news:cOsJ4.48135$U4.219264@news1.rdc1.az.home.com... > Charles E. Bortle, Jr. <cbrtjr@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message > news:8d5l1b$603$1@slb3.atl.mindspring.net... > > Hello All, > > > > Interesting quote Ted :-) Reminds me of the quote about > > how nobody would ever need more than 4k of memory > > (I think that was Bill Gates, but I cannot remember...I need > > more memory ;-) > > "Nobody will ever need more than 640KB of memory" - IBM engineers, when > deciding to top-load the adapter area to 0xA0000 on the PC. > > If you are thinking of the 64KB limit, that is only a limit of what a 16-bit > register can index. That's Intel. > > Bill Gates _can_ be blamed for the 32MB HD limit (pre DOS 4). That certainly > seemed short-sighted. > > -LZ > [ Do not try to e-mail me. - It is a spam trap. ] > > > ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 10+ messages in thread
* Re: Article: The shift away from user directed projects 2000-04-13 0:00 ` Lou Zher 2000-04-13 0:00 ` Charles E. Bortle, Jr. @ 2000-04-14 0:00 ` Tarjei Tj�stheim Jensen 1 sibling, 0 replies; 10+ messages in thread From: Tarjei Tj�stheim Jensen @ 2000-04-14 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Lou Zher wrote: >Bill Gates _can_ be blamed for the 32MB HD limit (pre DOS 4). That certainly >seemed short-sighted. With hindsight it seems short sighted. I don't think anybody really knew at that time how cheap and large harddrives could become. If one only considers MSDOS, it was not a bad limit. When windows enters, then it becomes an entirely different ballgame. Greetings, ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 10+ messages in thread
* Re: Article: The shift away from user directed projects 2000-03-28 0:00 Article: The shift away from user directed projects Myles Wakeham 2000-03-29 0:00 ` �puma @ 2000-03-29 0:00 ` Harlan Grove 2000-03-30 0:00 ` �puma 1 sibling, 1 reply; 10+ messages in thread From: Harlan Grove @ 2000-03-29 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) You're spamming a lot of newsgroups, but I suppose that's unavoidable given you want a wide range of developer responses. There's an unavoidable tension between horizontal (generic, IT-directed development) and vertical (industry- specific/user-directed development) knowledge and technology. Accounting systems are a good example. Manufacturers, distributors, industrial and consumer service providers, banks, insurance and other financial service providers have significantly different needs when it comes to accounting systems. Manufacturers and distributors have much greater concern managing depreciation and inventories than the other types of business. Banks, insurance companies and to a lesser extent other finanical service providers have to have systems that support risk-based capital analysis, a concept pretty much foreign to the other types of business. It's not possible to design a one-size-fits-all accounting solution, at least not for large corporations. Once you have to design specific solutions for certain industrial sectors this nirvana of IT-directed, nonspecific development dies off. It may work reasonably well for the (horizontal) software foundation - examples: ODBC, OOP, RDBMSs, ftp and electronic data transmission in general, IEEE floating point math, image formats like GIF, TIFF and JPEG, etc. It doesn't work for satisfying (vertical) business needs like accounting, decision analysis and support, EIS, budgetting and forecasting. As for developers on their own anticipating business and private user needs, there are a lot of failed products that have come out over the last 15 years - Compaq's integrated phone and PC, integrated productivity applications, almost all 'paperless office' schemes. And arguably the most widely used programming language, perl, has been designed by its users (I'm not saying this was a good thing, but it was apparently a popular thing). The best model for software development is evolutionary change, and that's best served by as many design and development channels as possible. Both user-directed and ivory tower projects contribute to software progress. Maybe it's all boils down to answering the question: how much more could have been achieved in the last 15 years if software development had remained in IT departments and the entire shareware and open source phenomena hadn't occurred? I think my response would differ from yours. * Sent from AltaVista http://www.altavista.com Where you can also find related Web Pages, Images, Audios, Videos, News, and Shopping. Smart is Beautiful ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 10+ messages in thread
* Re: Article: The shift away from user directed projects 2000-03-29 0:00 ` Harlan Grove @ 2000-03-30 0:00 ` �puma 0 siblings, 0 replies; 10+ messages in thread From: �puma @ 2000-03-30 0:00 UTC (permalink / raw) Thank you for the clarifications. I've been leaning too much out of the window. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 10+ messages in thread
end of thread, other threads:[~2000-04-14 0:00 UTC | newest] Thread overview: 10+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed) -- links below jump to the message on this page -- 2000-03-28 0:00 Article: The shift away from user directed projects Myles Wakeham 2000-03-29 0:00 ` �puma 2000-03-29 0:00 ` Ted Edwards 2000-03-29 0:00 ` �puma 2000-04-13 0:00 ` Charles E. Bortle, Jr. 2000-04-13 0:00 ` Lou Zher 2000-04-13 0:00 ` Charles E. Bortle, Jr. 2000-04-14 0:00 ` Tarjei Tj�stheim Jensen 2000-03-29 0:00 ` Harlan Grove 2000-03-30 0:00 ` �puma
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