From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=unavailable autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Path: eternal-september.org!reader01.eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!aioe.org!.POSTED.i0CtdS3+XN9gyds7RidlKA.user.gioia.aioe.org!not-for-mail From: russ lyttle Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: Ada in command / control systems Date: Tue, 5 Mar 2019 06:59:22 -0500 Organization: Aioe.org NNTP Server Message-ID: References: <2199b15b-d704-403f-a6c4-00fab29792d5@googlegroups.com> <72738cc8-3f65-4cc1-8c61-b1166cb5e3c2@googlegroups.com> <9807ec3a-4c34-4641-acfa-e9cf22de95ce@googlegroups.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: i0CtdS3+XN9gyds7RidlKA.user.gioia.aioe.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Complaints-To: abuse@aioe.org User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:60.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/60.5.1 Content-Language: en-US X-Notice: Filtered by postfilter v. 0.9.2 Xref: reader01.eternal-september.org comp.lang.ada:55787 Date: 2019-03-05T06:59:22-05:00 List-Id: On 3/5/19 4:28 AM, Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote: > On 2019-03-05 08:18, G. B. wrote: > >> Managers cannot see what programmers do. > > Need they to? I think the established view is that [mis]management is a > discipline of its own. A manager can manage a diary farm company or a > software house just same... > I have to disagree with the last statement. If the manager isn't skilled in a field, he can't manage it. For example, staffing a software company and a dairy farm are completely different. Having done both, I suggest looking up Watts S.Humpherey books for some thoughts. I once heard him say "It takes five years to go from CMM level 1 to level 5, and one day to go from level 5 to level 1. My personal experience confirms that. My MBA classes taught that the first thing a company should do to cut cost and increase profit is to lay off personnel. At the dairy farm, I could staff up and lay off pretty much at will. It wasn't difficult to find people to shovel up behind cows. So the first thing the manager of a ball team should do to increase profit is lay off the players. Same thing at a software company. I have some good horror stories about trying to staff software personnel. Staffing the dairy farm usually involved painting "Help Wanted" on a sheet of plywood by the road. >> But if there is a presentable pictogram of a software >> product, it creates a different idea. >> >> So, things to do to prove that source text is better than pictures is to >> (a) be able to answer, from source, questions satisfactorily and (b) >> extract, from source, a pictorial representation with which people can >> work. > > There is nothing to prove. Pictures are to convey a general idea or > concept. It is the best way to impress but also to fool an incompetent > manager, customer, buyer. But it is no way to analyze, design implement > things. You compare incomparable: marketing and engineering. >