Re: Clause "with and use"

[Vinzent 'Gadget' Hoefler <ada.rocks@jlfencey.com>]

Marin David Condic wrote:

>There isn't anything wrong with "marketing" per se. It serves a useful 
>purpose. But it isn't done by some manager getting into his head that 
>"XYZ is what the public will love, so let's make our product have XYZ in 
>it..."

Well, actually that is the impression I get when it boils down to what
tools (programming languages) someone should use. "The others use
Java? So let's use it, too. It must be good."

Well, the H&R-people are similar, instead of asking you "Are you able
to build and maintain a large software-system" they ask you "Do you
know $LANGUAGE"? This is as much idiotic as asking someone "Do you
have at least five years experience with the medium-size-hammer from
$BRANDNAME?" instead of asking "Are able to simply put a nail into the
wall?"

Answer_1: "Oh yes, I have been trying to put a nail into the wall with
that hammer for seven years. Now still every seconds nail gets bended,
but that doesn't matter, I have enough nails."

Answer_2: "Well, not with that particular thing, but I did that with
the small-sized one, it better fits the job to be done. But now I know
how to handle that I think I can quickly learn how to handle the one
you want me to use."

Guess, who gets hired.

>Marketing is done with research and statistics, among other 
>tools. You don't *assume* that your potential customers want XYZ - you 
>go find out for sure what they want by asking them.

Quite true. If you were talking about the ideal approach, I even would
agree with you. But even then: the decision to use a programming
language has seldom to do with *any* of that.

>A fair approach would be to have a survey of some sample set of 
>C/C++/Java users who had some familiarity with Ada

It might be hard to find enough people so one could claim statistical
significance. Literally spoken, almost every idiot out there on the
street claims to have knowledge of C/C++/Java but if you ask them
about Ada the best response I'd ever get was something like "oh that's
the language from the eighties?" ... The same guy told me that Jython
is something similar and I would like it, because it would fit my
needs for a programming language like Ada. Huh? WTF is he talking
about?

>Guesswork is interesting in a newsgroup, but deadly when trying to make 
>major decisions about a product in a business environment.

Yes. But reality says, hell a *lot* of (especially software) projects
just went dead, so there might be a lot of guesswork involved (either
in the requirements, the schedule, ...).

>You don't 
>guess at what is going to make your existing customers happy.

Well, the customer usually wants a product and doesn't care about the
tool you used to develop the product with. But the customer will
probably care about the final price, so you should be able to make a
good decision to keep this price low. And usually you shouldn't care
about some initial costs, you should look further and see what's
better in the long run. Well, statistically I still have some years of
my life left to actually find a manager who really thinks this way, so
I just keep my hope. :->

These days I still wonder why all my deadlines are already scheduled
for yesterday. Even those for the projects which didn't even start
yet. ;-)

>You also don't guess about what would attract new business from 
>potential customers. You ask them what they'd want in your product and 
>try to address the highest priorities they set.

Yes. But I'd assume that the decision which tools you use to be able
to actually deliver the product to the customer has at least
*something* to do with management, hasn't it? Well, I think it should.
Unfortunately, a bunch of managers ouside there seem to have no clue
of *what* they are managing.

>To do otherwise will have you bankrupt very quickly.

Indeed. :->


Vinzent.