Drew Kime – Page 79 – The Food Blogging Technician

The program is not the product

Managers want programs to be like the output of a factory. Install the right robots and tooling, start the process, and good software comes out the end.

WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG!!!!!! (Can you tell I disagree?)

Nearly everyone who makes the factory analogy misses a very fundamental point: the program is not the product. For one thing, unless you work for a software company selling shrink-wrapped software products you aren’t ever selling the program. Conventional wisdom says most programmers actually work for internal IT, so it’s safe to say most programs are never sold.

Businesses don’t want programs, they want credit reports … and loan contracts … and title searches … and purchase orders … and claim forms …

So what is the right analogy? The program is the assembly line! So measuring bugs in the program is wrong. Even comparing compiling to manufacturing — which is still better than comparing programming to manufacturing — is wrong. What you should be looking at is the output produced by the program. Is your program a website? Measure the number of pages it can produce per unit time, without error. Is it an editor? Measure the number of pages it can spell-check per unit time, and with what accuracy.

When measuring the output of a manufacturing process, you literally shouldn’t care what the process looks like, nor what tools are used, so long as it consistently produces the same output. This is not to say the process and tools don’t matter. A bad process may be prone to unexpected failure. Tools may be harder to maintain or have a shorter service life. You may be locked into a service contract with the manufacturer. And coincidentally [ahem] all these factors apply to software.

So yes, programming can be compared to manufacturing. As long as you remember that the program is not the product, the program is the assembly line.

Can the FSF “Ban” Novell from selling Linux?

Novell Could Be Banned From Selling Linux: Group Claims

BOSTON – The Free Software Foundation is reviewing Novell Inc.’s right to sell new versions of Linux operating system software after the open-source community criticized Novell for teaming up with Microsoft Corp.

The problem is that the FSF wants all code to be free. Period.

That’s their preference, yes.

They want to make the GPL so darned viral that no one can include any copyrighted or patented components Period.

No, they want all the components on which they hold the copyrights to be protected by those copyrights. And they want those components to be freely available to anyone who agrees to make their modifications available under the same terms.

You can’t modify and distribute Microsoft’s code without permission.	You can’t modify and distribute GPL code without permission.
The way you get permission to distribute Microsoft’s code is to pay them a lot of money, or cross-license your own code.	The way you get permission to distribute GPL code is to release your modifications under the GPL.
Microsoft can destroy your business model by bundling a version of what you make.	GPL-using authors can destroy your business model by releasing a free version of what you make.
If you don’t want to be bound by Microsoft’s terms, write your own code.	If you don’t want to be bound by the GPL, write your own code.

How is GPL viral while Microsoft is business?

How can the FSF “ban” Novel from selling “Linux” when Linux itself is not wholely licensed under the GPL and not wholely owned by FSF? Sure, there are many GPL components within the typical Linux distro, but not all of them have to be.

According to Answers.com:

More Than a Gigabuck: Estimating GNU/Linux’s Size, a 2001 study of Red Hat Linux 7.1, found that this distribution contained 30 million source lines of code. … Slightly over half of all lines of code were licensed under the GPL. The Linux kernel was 2.4 million lines of code, or 8% of the total.

So the first point is that no, the FSF can not ban Novell from selling a GNU/Linux-based distribution, as long as all the current license terms are followed.

However, the holder of the Linux trademark, Linux Torvalds, could choose to prohibit them from using that mark to describe what they’re selling. (See Micosoft / Sun / Javaâ„¢) Though I haven’t seen anything suggesting he plans to do so.

Next, the Linux kernel is covered under the GPL, so even if the the FSF doesn’t hold the copyright it’s entirely possible the kernel authors could ask the FSF to pursue any violations on their behalf. And I suspect Stallman and Moglen would be more than happy to do so.

The bottom line, I think, is that business people who don’t understand the technicalities will either see a deal with Microsoft as a reason to choose Novell for any Linux plans, or they will see the controversy as a reason to avoid Linux plans altogether. Either conclusion benefits Microsoft.

People who do understand the details will see that Novell offers them a conditional, time-limited right to use a specific version of Linux, which may or may not interoperate better with Windows systems, which can be effectively “end-of-lifed” at any time by Microsoft.

And this is bad why?

If you try hard enough, I suppose it’s possible to spin anything into an attack on your pet target. But the consistency with which Neil McAllister sounds the call of doom and gloom for all things open source is really quite astonishing. Especially when you consider he writes the Open Enterprise column for Infoworld.

Take his January 29th column about the formation of the Linux Foundation for example:

On the surface, the union of Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) and the Free Standards Group (FSG) seems like a natural fit. Open standards and open source software are two great ideas that go great together.

But wouldn’t it make more sense to call the merged organization the Open Source and Standards Lab, or the Free Software and Standards Group? Why did they have to go and call it the Linux Foundation?

On the one hand, it seems a shame that the group should narrow the scope of its activities to focus on a single project. Linux may be the open source poster child du jour, but it’s hardly the only worthwhile project around.

If Neil had bothered to read his own magazine’s newsletter the previous week, he would have known that:

With Linux now an established operating system presence for embedded, desktop and server systems, the primary evangelizing mission that the OSDL and FSG embarked upon in 2000 has come to an end, Zemlin said. The focus for the foundation going forward is on what the organization can do to help the Linux community more effectively compete with its primary operating system rival Microsoft.

The combination of the two Linux consortiums was “inevitable,” said Michael Goulde, senior analyst with Forrester Research. “The challenge Linux faces is the same one Unix faced and failed — how to become a single standard.”

So what’s wrong with focusing on Linux, anyway?

But then again, maybe it’s not so strange — not if you conclude that the Linux Foundation isn’t any kind of philanthropic foundation at all. It’s an industry trade organization, the likes of which we’ve seen countless times before. Judging by its charter, its true goal is little more than plain, old-fashioned corporate marketing.

As such, the Linux Foundation is a unique kind of hybrid organization, all right — but it’s not the union of open source and open standards that make it one. Rather, it stands as an example of how to combine open source with all the worst aspects of the proprietary commercial software industry. How noble.

This is really amazing. No one ever claimed that the partners in this merger were anything other than industry trade organizations, but the fact that the new foundation will continue the work of it’s members is somehow un-noble. And nobility is the standard by which we should judge those who are trying to make Linux more competitive in the market.

His grammar and spelling may be better than that of the stereotypical Linux fanboys, who famously attack less-rabid supporters for their lack of purity. Or maybe he just has a better editor. But all the craft in the world doesn’t disguise the fact that Neil’s opinions are rarely more useful than the ramblings of an anonymous Usenet troll.

Geeks still don’t know what normal people want

If you listen to geeks, locking out development of third-party applications will doom the iPhone in the market. But remember the now-famous review when the iPod was released:

No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.

The market quickly decided they didn’t care about wireless and bought the things in droves. And current versions have more space than the nomad did when the iPod came out. Now that the iPhone has been shown, geeks are again claiming that it’s going to fail. This time because it’s not going to be open to third-party applications.

Apple doesn’t care if you can extend it because they believe their target customer doesn’t want it extended. They want something that works well, the same way, every time. The iPod wins because it does pretty much what people want, close enough to how they want, without making them think about how to do it.

The iPhone may not be open to developers, but it’s upgradable. When Apple finishes writing software to make the Wi-Fi automatically pick up a hotspot and act as a VoIP phone, that functionality can be rolled out transparently. First-gen iPhones will become second-gen iPhones without the users having to do anything.

The upgrade path will be to higher HD capacity, so people can carry more movies with them. I see these things as hugely popular for people who take trains to work. If I could take a train where I work now, I’d already be on a waiting list for an iPhone.

Principles: Deployment

Code that only runs on the developer’s workstation isn’t finished.
Any programmer that can’t be bothered with ensuring his code can be deployed is only doing half his job.
Being responsible for the integration issues caused by your code can be a real eye-opener.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss v2

Sometimes you read something that you can’t summarize without losing a lot. I just can’t find any extra words in this post, so here it is in its entirety:

1) Whatever language is currently popular will be the target of dislike for novel and marginal languages.

2) Substitute technology or methodology for language in #1. In the case of methodology, it seems a straw man suffices.

3) Advocates will point to the success of toy projects to support claims for their language/methodology/technology (LMT).

4) Eventually either scale matters or nothing matters. Success brings scale. An LMT is worthy of consideration only after proving out at scale.

5) Feature velocity matters in early stage Web 2.0 startups with hyperbolic time to market, but that is only a popular topic on the Web for the same reason Hollywood loves to hand out Oscars.

6) Industry success brings baggage. Purity is the sign of an unpopular LMT. The volume of participants alone will otherwise muddy the water.

7) Popularity invites scrutiny. Being unfairly blamed for project failure signals a maturing LMT; unfairly claiming success, immature LMT. Advocates rarely spend much time differentiating success factors.

8 ) You can tell whether a LMT is mature by whether it is easier to find a practitioner or a consultant. Or by whether there is more software written *with* or prose written *about* the LMT.

9) If you stick around the industry long enough, the tech refresh cycle will repeat with different terminology and personalities. The neophytes trying to make their bones will accuse the old guard of being unable to adapt, when really we just don’t want to stay on this treadmill. That’s why making statements like “Java is the new COBOL” are ironic; given time, “N+1 is the new N” for all values of N. It’s the same playbook, every time — but as Harlan Ellison said of fiction, every story has already been told, but nobody was listening the first time.

10) Per #9, I could have written this same post, with little alteration, ten, twenty or thirty years ago. It seems to take ten years of practise to truly understand the value of any LMT. Early adopters do play the important role of exploring all the dead ends and limitations, at their cost. It’s cheaper to watch other people fail, just like it hurts less to watch other people get injured.

11) Lisp is older than I am. There’s a big difference between novel and marginal, although the marginal LMTs try to appear novel by inserting themselves into every tech refresh cycle. Disco will rise again!

12) If an LMT is truly essential, learning it is eventually involuntary. Early adopters assume high risks; on the plus side they generate a lot of fodder for blogs, books, courses and conferences.

13) I wonder if I can get rich writing a book called Agile Lisp for Web 2.0 SOA. At least the consulting and course revenue would be sweet. Maybe I can buy an island. Or at least afford the mortgage payments on a small semi-detached bungalow in the Bay area.

14) It requires support from a major industry player to bootstrap any novel LMT into popularity. The marginal LMTs often are good or even great, but lack sponsors.

15) C/C++ remain fundamental for historical reasons. C is a good compromise between portability and performance — in fact, a C compiler creates more optimal code than humans on modern machine architectures. Even if not using C/C++ for implementation, most advocates of new languages must at least acknowledge how much heavy lifting C/C++ does for them.

16) Ditto with Agile and every preceding iterative methodology. Winding the clock back to waterfall is cheating. I’m more sophisticated than a neanderthal, but that won’t work as a pick up line.

17) Per #13, I don’t think so, because writing this post was already a chore, let alone expanding the material to book length. Me an Yegge both need a good editor.

Borealis
Sunday, January 07, 2007

This covers the technology pretty well. All he left out was the reason so much is coming back.

Get your boxes in order

Everyone seems to have an opinion on downloading music and TV shows, everything from “Information wants to be free” to “Skipping commercials with your TIVO is theft.” Some of the views are self-serving, some are rationalizations, and some people have strong opinions based on what they believe is right and just.

Here’s the thing a lot of people are missing, though: Breaking the law does not count as civil disobedience unless you go out of your way to do it publicly. Obviously I’m referring to people who upload and download music, movies or software without permission from the copyright holders. Some of them are just in it for the free tunes. Some of them think the law is wrong. But the ones who believe copyright laws have gone too far damage their case when they quietly violate the law, expecting to protest the law if — and only if — they are caught.

Think the law has tilted too far in favor of the copyright industry? Great, so do I. Have you written to your congressman? If not, then don’t complain about the law when you get busted. It makes it look like you’re just trying to stay out of jail — which you are — and supports the MPAA and RIAA next time they try to get copyright extended.

Before you end up in a jury box, you should really try the ballot box. Time for me to get off my soapbox.

What is Steve Jobs thinking?

We all knew Cisco had the trademark on the name. According to their press release:

“Cisco entered into negotiations with Apple in good faith after Apple repeatedly asked permission to use Cisco’s iPhone name,” said Mark Chandler, senior vice president and general counsel, Cisco. “There is no doubt that Apple’s new phone is very exciting, but they should not be using our trademark without our permission.”

They negotiated, Cisco said no. So they release it anyway. And Apple’s response is:

Apple responded by saying the lawsuit was “silly” and that Cisco’s trademark registration was “tenuous at best”.

“We think Cisco’s trademark lawsuit is silly,” Apple spokesman Alan Hely said. “There are already several companies using the name iPhone for Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) products.”

It’s “silly”? Come on, that sounds like they’re daring Cisco to take it to court. And claiming that the trademark has already been diluted by other products is a dangerous game. If that argument prevails, then Apple will have no standing to prevent anyone else from releasing their own iPhone.

What the hell are they thinking?

[Update]

See the Joel on Software forums for some discussion of this.

Pay the man

IT people are frequently highly-educated, with extensive formal and on-the-job training. And we all, if you look at our resumÃ©s, think that we’re fast learners. That’s probably because everything we work with keeps changing every couple of years, so anyone who’s been doing this for very long has learned multiple generations of tools. Many of our jobs also require us to be generalists, with a broad range of knowledge across multiple unrelated fields.

It’s probably not surprising, then, that we tend to be DIY-ers. Never changed a light fixture? No problem. Give me a few minutes with a book and I’ll know enough to do it. House needs painting? Heck, I’ve always wanted an excuse to go get one of those power sprayers, I’m on it! That’s why we’re shocked to hear how much people pay to have someone do work that, after all, we could do ourselves with little or no training.

That was my frame of mind when I had to replace the shower door. The frame was mounted on tiled walls. I only cracked two of the tiles a little bit trying to get the old frame off, and lifted about a dozen away from the wall. No problem, just ran to the hardware store for some tile adhesive. And I only put the adhesive on a little too thick, so two of the tiles fell off the next day when I started mounting the frame. And I only cracked one more because I was unfamiliar with the mounting hardware.

I had to remove all the tiles and start over because the adhesive was actually nowhere near dry. I wanted to make sure it dried all the way, because I wasn’t completely sure I did it right this time. When I tried again three days later, there was only one tile that fell off because I had gone too thin with the adhesive. But after waiting a day for the grout on the rest to dry, I was able to scrape that space out and get the last tile up and grout it. The caulk and grout I used to patch the cracks looks mostly okay … for now … while it’s still white

All in all, it only took me a week and a half to hang that door. And the cracked and patched tiles will probably still look good when I go to sell the house. (At least I hope they will; the color was discontinued years ago, so I’d have to re-tile the whole damn bathroom otherwise.) I’m so glad I didn’t pay a hundred bucks to some barely-trained tradesman to do it for me.