Error-free Software Is in Reach, but Is Anyone Reaching?

Error-free Software Is in Reach, but Is Anyone Reaching?: "In an interview with Watts S. Humphrey, a Fellow of the Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute (SEI) and Former Director of Software Quality and Process for IBM, I learned that 'even experienced engineers on average will inject a defect every 9 to 10 lines of code.'

Comment: I have a book from this guy, is it ever dry!!! Still very worth reading if you're very serious about taking the next step in terms of software engineering in your organization. The author speaks of three misconceptions people believe in terms of software, 1-it's impossible to ship error free software, 2-software is an art, 3-software errors are unique. The first two you hear all the time, the last one caught my attention, and it's true it's a common mis-conception, just so much more sneaky, read the explanation, and once you do, you will also, like me, realize that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure!!! I'm happy to realize that here at Macadamian we're putting more and more effort in the prevention, with our processes and tools...WooHoo!"

BBC NEWS | Americas | Pentagon axes online terror bets

BBC NEWS | Americas | Pentagon axes online terror bets: "The Pentagon has abandoned plans to set up a controversial online trading market to help predict terrorist attacks.

Comment: Finally some common sense. This is the kind of idea you come up with when you smoke too much pot and you too much responsabilities. You start thinking analysts will be able to figure when and where terrorist attacks will take place. I wonder what kind of degree you need to get to analyse and predict terrorists attacks. Can you imagine what insider trading information would be on such trade system...I don't want to think about it...it's money based people will want to make more money, to what extend are they going to go to make more money, thus make an event happen...I have a simplistic understanding of the system, but it's scary...I feel better that this is not going to move forward already."

CD Database Software : Collectorz.com Music Collector

CD Database Software : Collectorz.com Music Collector: "

Comment: Here is a useful utility. I'm a convert to the iPod, but the software they package with it to manage the songs on it is less than avg. The CD recognition functionality is weak to tell you the thruth. This utility here will help me bring back correct album and song naming for my whole collection."

Spam hitting BillG as much as anybody...

Microsoft plans to boost R&D, jobs | CNET News.com: "The billionaire co-founder of Microsoft said he normally uses rules to filter his in-box, but in a lighthearted moment he showed several pieces of spam that slipped through. Some were on target, he joked, pointing to one that promised to help him get his college diploma. Others, such as an offer to get out of debt, seemed misplaced. One that was particularly intriguing, he quipped, was an offer to solve his legal problems for just pennies a day.

Comment: Oh yeah and they plan to boost their r&d effort by 8%, creating 3000-3500 jobs in the US and another 1500-2000 else where, I suspect in India since they have a large contingent outthere now for quite some times..."

BBC NEWS | Business | Sony profits plunge 98%

BBC NEWS | Business | Sony profits plunge 98%: "ony said restructuring costs were behind the 98% plunge in net profits to 1.1bn yen ($9.3m; £5.8m) compared with the same period of 2002.

Comment: BTW this was from the this-has-gotta-hurt dep!!"

Blogger again!

Thanks to a colleague of mine, Francis(he doesn't have a blog just yet, he is shy!), for noticing my rss feed was again down. I have no idea how it happened but the rss feed generation switch has been turned off. I suspect when blogger upgraded from the old ui to the new ui some settings got lost along the way.

Ender's Game and Software Development

/\ndy's Weblog: "As I read the novel, four main themes jumped out at me as being very relevant to software development. The hero of the story, Ender, had many gifts and attributes, but I think these were the ones that made him a success:

Comment: When I read that book several years back it's not the capabilities of the hero that struck me, it was the accuracy with which Orson Scott Card had read the future of communication, the one were in right now with the web. How you post messages and you build your credibility along the way. For example when I buy a book, I go to Amazon to figure what people think about it, but not just about any people, if I can find a review by someone who has credibility in the system it's even better for me...Granted Card could have just extrapolated on the news group idea and bulleting board, I think he did a good research on the topic.

Anyway v-good book serie I highly recommend it for those who likes soft-sf. Card has this tendendy to mix religion into his work, and the images used are sometimes just too transparent for me. This was even more obvious in the earth born serie.... "

Linux vs Windows

Windows Server 2003 Gaining at the Expense of Linux: "8,000 sites switched from Linux to Windows

Comment: My read is that to replace a 2002 server machine, it takes two 2003 server...Just kidding! I'm actually surprised by those figures."

Volkswagen frappeunevan!

Gizmodo : Volkswagen gets Phat: "Volkswagen is planning to make Phatnoise's Digital Car Audio System an option in its new automobiles. Phatnoise is basically a car stereo that plays MP3s.

Comment: I don't for how long I will be a VW fan, but this is Car Audio thing is kewl...Now make it wireless so that it syncs when I pull in the driveway and we have a winner."

Mozilla Non Profit Organization

Mozilla developers form nonprofit foundation - Computerworld: "The people behind the Mozilla open-source project have created a foundation largely funded by America Online Inc. that will build, support and promote Mozilla products.

Comment: I like this foundation thing, I think to compete with M$ you have to use all the means you can. Pooling several company resources works with Linux, Mono, Apache, Eclipse...I sincerly wish the best to Mozilla foundation, because I AM a firebird convert."

The Bug

Ok I was on vacation got aroung to read "the bug" as suggested per joel spolsky. It's ok. I didn't skip too many pages, but I sure didn't take the time to read the code snippets...

Outsourcing driving prices down...

Nah, really? Oh my god, I think IDC has been living under a rock for the last few years... At Macadamian we sure have been feeling the pain of increased competition. It's tough out there, and competition is unbelievably hungry. It's not a walk in the park to win a contract, we're fairing well given the circumstances. It's tough for canadian co, I would imagine us co are really hurting bad.

Outsourcing a project gone bad story...

But a slew of mistakes on both sides -- mostly in communications -- meant that instead of being ready in six months, the software didn't reach end users until earlier this month, a year behind schedule. The story of what happened highlights a number of key issues facing users and vendors as Russia tries to break into the global outsourcing market. more

Comment: People underestimate communication so badly. They underestimate the benefits of face to face, and weekly meetings. Keeping things on track is no small job when everybody is on site, we have to be even more pro-active communication wise when doing offshore. I was having lunch the other day with an old timer OTI and his opinion was exactly the same, they have had multi-sites development for many years, and you have to invest time and money in making people talk to each other, face to face, and force them to use the phone as much as possible, e-mail/groupware/collaboration tools aren't gonna cut it on their own, to quote him. Nothing new here, but still we keep on reading the same mistakes over and over. What is the problem, is-it new people who've never been in a d-team scenario before, or is it people who've done it for so many times they've grown lazy?