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I've been doing this for 40 years. I know it's not just government contracts.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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John,
Newer isn't Better, it's just different. And full of bugs at first.
Try starting and running your own company and develop you own product sometimes. That should give you a whole new attitude adjustment. As someone who has been there, I know.
Also don't forget the User interface. Every change you make to it, requires re-training on the part of your users. The PM should have explained this to you.
Newer isn't Better, it's just different.
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Alright, listen up (mostly for the people that I don't recall ever interacting with here).
I've been a developer for almost 40 years. I already know it's the same everywhere. I already know about "new is not necessarily better" and the danger of introducing bugs (although honestly that should be a non-issue because ALL dev work - maintenance or new dev - is at risk for that aspect). I already know about the hazards of changing the UI regarding idiot users. I'm not anywhere close to being new at this crap.
My rant was merely about my current lot in life. It can even be summed up with the phrase, "Same sh*t different day", and everyone here could nod in agreement.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote: My rant was merely about my current lot in life. It can even be summed up with the phrase, "Same sh*t different day", and everyone here could nod in agreement.
Nodding in agreement, John!
CQ de W5ALT
Walt Fair, Jr., P. E.
Comport Computing
Specializing in Technical Engineering Software
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Reminds of this:
Initiative
modified 20-Oct-19 21:02pm.
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for my opinion (its worth what you paid to get it $0.00) Sounds like you are one of two extremes, the newbie that is uber excited to be part of the group which also can includes the guy with a new toy! Again super excited to bring that (new toy, language, design paradigm) to the group or you could be the other extreme. A craftsman, one who probably started this field on their own well before setting foot on a campus but it was never a job and always the pursuit of perfection, making something the absolute best it can be with the best choice of languages and tools and/or architecture. If you are the newbie or simply have a new toy - there is hope for you. If you are the craftsman, the ultimate configurer than I am truly sorry and I know your pain. I have been a hired gun for almost 40 years myself in this industry. There has been both good jobs and bad jobs and many nights programming for work until 2 AM at home, and showing up at work by 8 AM to start my day allover - suffering for my art because I know it can be done better, faster, with tighter security and with better stability (typically starting with architecture at square one). However, if that is NOT you then simply keep your head down, your ears open, volunteer for team lead on projects you know you can handle and brass will eventually trust you with bigger projects - OH!!! Watch your back, get to know who your friends are and WHO THEY ARE NOT. Don't let the amount of back stabbing make you a casualty, people will do some serious politicking if they feel their work/job/career is in jeopardy from the new guy, especially if the new guy is as good as he claims.
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I did a few goverment jobs - they all failed.
None of my other projects ever failed.
In Goverment projects, nobody cares if it is ever finished.
And - in my experience - almost all externals are sitting there to make as much hours as possible so even they do not want the project to succeed.
So I don't do any goverment project anymore; it's just a waste of time.
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I know the feeling. I work for a small software firm and our primary product is so mired in old code (much of it Borland OWL which pretty much only one person in the company touches these days), that any attempt to improve the product is met with the same "that will be a ton of work that we can't do because we need to concentrate on new features".
I almost always end up implementing new methodologies in my off-time or in projects that are entirely within my control, and slowly begin interfacing the legacy code to use them in "baby steps" ("what about Bob?"). We have countless requests for specific improvements that have literally all been handled in a "proof of concept" I wrote a few years ago, but until I can mirror all of our internal and external legacy API calls, there is no way to drop in this new system. That proof of concept was proven to be faster, more memory efficient, more fault tolerant and more resilient to abnormally high concurrent transaction counts than our old legacy system, while also opening up the door for a clustered parallel processing solution.
4 years later, that "proof of concept" still has not been implemented in our product because of the fear of beginning a new branch that could get out of date with current fixes while in development. (Though, I have it running as an alternate service provider for several of my projects on one of my test servers.)
I feel your pain!
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An analogy just occurred to me. Re-writing software in a different framework or language might be like switching a petrol engine car to electric.
For most users (bosses included), when they sit in the new car, and don't see or feel anything different, they might wonder why all the fuss and cost.
But it's more efficient. The engine kicks in 0.2 seconds vs 2 seconds.
Running cost will be lower.
Fixing things will be simpler because fewer moving parts.
It will be easier to re-use the engine across other cars, reducing the development time of those (repeat time might be reduced but initial development expense might mean return takes a few years - long term planning for the win)
Boss: "And it will look and feel the same"?
You: "Yes, with those additional things you want!"
Boss: "But you could add those additional things to the existing version?"
You: 
You: "I will go back to my dungeon and add the feature to allow a user to define how big they want the buttons to be."
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John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote: 'm so tired of government contract work... There is no motivation to excel, and initiative is stomped out before it gains a foothold in peiople's minds.
I worked as an expert witness for the government on the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. It was a nice experience and I enjoyed it!
CQ de W5ALT
Walt Fair, Jr., P. E.
Comport Computing
Specializing in Technical Engineering Software
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John Simmons / outlaw programmer wrote: I'm so tired of government contract work...we don't have the time/desire to do it at work, and you'd think I was trying to hack the freakin Pentagon.
It was my understanding that government contracts were based on dollars for features. Thus if it isn't in the contract then it should not be done in the first place.
To be fair however that is how all contracts work. The developer doesn't get paid to work on what they want - they are paid to work on what the customer wants.
One is of course free to convince the customer that they should want something else. And produce another contract. However that role is seldom one that a developer will be doing.
Somewhat reasonable of course given that normal businesses end up in the situation where they find that a developer has spent the last month working on something that they are sure is better (although often being able to quantify that is non-existent) rather than what they were supposed to be and said they were working on. Not to mention that they fail to consider the actual cost to the business such as impacts like the cost to re-test the entire stack or even actual impacts to customer processes.
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Not all contracts are time/material. The last one I was on wasn't, but this one is. All that means to me is that we can hire more people if we can justify it. The problem with that is that anyone we hire MUST have the contract-specified certifications before we can hire them, and finding devs with Security+ AND CSSLP is like looking for hen's teeth.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
-----
You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
-----
When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013
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At the interview: Ace the "fox-hen-grain crossing problem"
First day working in IT: Find out that foxes can swim.
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Second day working in IT: Find out that the fox is actually a turtle, the grain is on back-order and that the chicken died last Tuesday.
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. - Mark Twain
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And on the 3rd day you will see the bridge...
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge". Stephen Hawking, 1942- 2018
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And the day after that, there'll be a light at the end of the tunnel.
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... and then discover that the light is an oncoming train.
Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. - Mark Twain
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Or some bastard with a torch bringing you more work. 
"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."
- Homer
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Or... it could be the gates of hell opening up to usher in new development work on technology that hasn't been supported for 15 years.
"When you are dead, you won't even know that you are dead. It's a pain only felt by others; same thing when you are stupid."
Ignorant - An individual without knowledge, but is willing to learn.
Stupid - An individual without knowledge and is incapable of learning.
Idiot - An individual without knowledge and allows social media to do the thinking for them.
modified 19-Nov-21 21:01pm.
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But it was built from QA and SO code fragments cobbled together by a Guru ... who left six weeks ago.
Sent from my Amstrad PC 1640
Never throw anything away, Griff
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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OriginalGriff wrote: But it was built from QA and SO code fragments cobbled together by a Guru ... who left six weeks ago.
So you did have a second job.
Michael Martin
Australia
"I controlled my laughter and simple said "No,I am very busy,so I can't write any code for you". The moment they heard this all the smiling face turned into a sad looking face and one of them farted. So I had to leave the place as soon as possible."
- Mr.Prakash One Fine Saturday. 24/04/2004
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Third day: Discover that foxes not only are derived from the baseclass turtle, but that turtles also inherit from a baseclass: Fish.
Extreme baseclassing, my favorite extreme sport.
I have lived with several Zen masters - all of them were cats.
His last invention was an evil Lasagna. It didn't kill anyone, and it actually tasted pretty good.
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Hahaha, a real Dutch treat 
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