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Not ranting about the developers. I am ranting about the execs who buy it.
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The Bespoke vs Off-The-Shelf debate has been on-going for decades. The people who are responsible for the money are always going to prefer known/fixed costs over, (let's face it), the wildly over-optimistic estimates from IT - that always go over budget. It doesn't matter that the in-house development cost less than the package. It does matter that it cost twice as much as was estimated.
Most, (probably all), software developers believe they can do a better job than anyone else and, coupled with that, are hopeless at estimating how long something will take. [Admittedly, not helped, because the business are hopeless at telling us what they really need.] But, if we continue to keep shooting ourselves in the foot, the higher-ups will continue to spend their money on packages.
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Hey! Not all estimates are wildly over-optimistic!!!! Only the ones that get approved...
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"Most, (probably all), software developers believe they can do a better job than anyone else"
And also businessmen believe they can do better than following the refined rules of the third oldest profession, so always ready to asking for a few customizations.
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I guess you have not been involved in asking the 'fixed cost' people what it costs to learn/modify the canned stuff? And, it's usually more than twice the cost of in-house. Then there's the generic/one-fits-all bloatware syndrome that requires user training (since they were not in on the development of the 'fixed stuff'.
While I agree that in-house estimates are always a problem, I would say that the people creating the bloatware had that very same problem. This will never go away because, unless you have 100% of all the business details things get changed added development time comes into play. Just ask the Agile groupies, one of its purposes is to discourage out-of-scope changes.
Oh, and when you add the additional cost of kindergarten Agile meetings, you get added costs. This was my earlier post about Agile's raising the costs of development estimates. So in that aspect I agree with you.
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On my website I describe it as "We [JUUN Software] do not believe a ‘one size fits all’ approach is right for everyone. You pay for everything, use half of it and are left missing just that functionality you needed."
I've seen it times and again.
My current job is writing everything a very huge and very expensive ERP solution cannot do 
Meanwhile they're not even using half of what this system can do.
They've been using the system since April and I don't think they'd buy it again with the knowledge they have now.
However, they're invested now and it works well enough for the parts they do use 
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Yeah, my company uses an Office addon which does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING Office can't do by itself, except it's way more visible than Office's built-in functionality (as in this piece of crap opens an "updating" window on login) and I bet some salesjerk got a nice bonus smearing that into our CEO's face.
Gotta say though, IT departments can be just as moronic. Recently, we got the order to update our clients to W1020H2. The IT not doing that centrally is the first WTF here. But the next WTF is the IT department's instructions on how to find the current version.
They didn't say something sane, something like "press Win+R, input winver, press enter". No, they provided a program they wrote which we are supposed to download & run (while bypassing Windows security warnings, go figure) which DISPLAYS THE VERY SAME SYSTEM INFORMATION DIALOG!
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I feel your pain.
Currently working for a company that wants to replace their 15 year old application.
It told management that it would take 2 years development.
Management did not like that, so they outsourced it to India.
Told them to build a web version of the application we have.
It is already 6 months behind schedule. 
Now they expect it somewhere middle of next year. 
They didn't took the opportunity to redesign the database, screens, etc.
So we are stuck with the same issues (bugs) as before.
Next they expect us to maintain it. (nobody has experience with JavaScript) ![Java | [Coffee]](https://codeproject.global.ssl.fastly.net/script/Forums/Images/coffee.gif)
Next year is going to be fun....
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Several years ago we outsourced a vendor management system that was Internet facing to a group in Mexico. Once they had finished it I was tasked with getting it to run properly. I rewrote most of the database routines as they were unmanageable and then had to rebuild quite a lot of the UI as they broke it into individual, non-scalable border images. Security was a mess as well as our corporate auditors refused to allow it to be deployed until I fixed about 15 major security holes. So much for saving a bunch of money and development time.
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Yep. Been there.
Just a tip from someone who learned the hard way - if you need to use jScript, stay away from jQuery. You can run into version issues. Online samples all have different jQuery file versions, and they can conflict with something else you may be using.
Yes, there are ridiculous work-arounds for version conflicts, but they are both confusing, and several I tried did not work, whereas jScript does not have version issues - at least that I have found. It's statements are slightly more complex, but will save you trying to figure out why a certain jQuery function you used before suddenly isn't working now.
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Information Builders / IWay UGH UGH UGH
At least three companies I have worked at have fallen for the sales pitch from these guys and spent a ton of money on a product that just does not do what they said it would.
It is the worst.
I end up writing a quick and dirty reporting system in something like SSRS or SAS and putting that together for the upper bees and it just works. Without all the money and time wasted.
To err is human to really elephant it up you need a computer
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I've seen a company insist on open source (it's FREE) only to immediately branch the source code thereby locking us out of future developments on the open source project - and hiring dozens of programmers to manage the FREE software - that doesn't really do what we need but it was FREE.
I've seen FREE software cost us millions.
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You are expecting intelligence from people where none is to be found...
Steve Naidamast
Sr. Software Engineer
Black Falcon Software, Inc.
blackfalconsoftware@outlook.com
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In my "travels", I have found another issue at work here leading to this bloatware. There seems to be this flawed belief that going out and buying a tool will magically make the real problems and inefficiencies of the business disappear - things like poor project management and processes, poorly defined or non-existent project and development workflows, lack of development conventions, non-existent or ignored review processes, no oversight, and on and on - a tool isn't going to solve these problems...they often just waste people's time. Often, the CEO/CIOs are pretty disconnected from exactly what problems the employees are facing and get "sold a bill of goods" by IT or a sales person (with zero evaluation by the employees who have the most "skin in the game") that some tool that he/she can buy will solve all these problems with a stroke of a pen to a purchase order instead of buckling down and doing the real work needed to create an efficient working environment and a functional business.
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As a Developer, I am the first one to say, BUY software.
We don't write our own office apps (Despite some sales guy telling us he could describe a better Excel, with more word processing features)
But know what you are buying.
I've seen small project spin up to become black holes at Dow Chemical. In the end, the just needed a MAC and PC Terminal into the mainframe with additional features to extract the data, etc. But it just kept growing/consuming them.
Now, for smaller companies. I've seen 12yr SAP implementations FAIL to make the 12yr cut and run strategy. LOL
So, it depends on the complexity And the core skills of the developers. (never liked BizTalk, FWIW).
AND if they are better spent making the companies products, or internal "tools"... Both have their pros/cons.
30 years doing back office software. Small companies have tiny needs, and no spare cycles to implement/optimize packaged software well. They need help. it's amazing what using Quickbooks properly, and have a little custom software can do.
But I cannot say that buying a packaged solution is ALWAYS the wrong answer. Didn't US Steel go bankrupt hiring IBM to write custom software for them... I think the package route would have cost less... Although Steel is a really custom world!
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As far as Christmas songs go, "Please be home by Christmas" by Charles Brown is my favorite.
We only have about 2 weeks of "Winter" here in Nola, usually in February. 
C.M.O.T. Dibbler
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And I have a copy (Electronic, I don't "do" paper books anymore).
But ... I find myself strangely unwilling to read it, probably because it's the final book of the Expanse story. I dunno, I guess I'm just reluctant to let the story end, even though I want to know what happens.
And next week ... the same problem, with the final TV series on Amazon. Damnit!
Thinking about it, December looks to be good for "decent releases": Expanse 2Discovery, the Witcher, ... anything you are looking forward too this month (other than a visit from Santa)?
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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OriginalGriff wrote: anything you are looking forward too this month
Watching "Goliath", "Wheel of Time", "Foundation" and "Great British Baking Show"!
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I'm just the opposite I only buy hardbound books, currently about 450 of them.
The less you need, the more you have.
Even a blind squirrel gets a nut...occasionally.
JaxCoder.com
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I see your 450 hardcover books, and raise you 1,500 softcover books, and 1,200 e-books. 
I never judge a book by its binding.
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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Ah another avid reader. I read about 4 hours or so a day since I retired and work on our house has slowed down.
The less you need, the more you have.
Even a blind squirrel gets a nut...occasionally.
JaxCoder.com
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You bunch of amateurs  . When my wife and I moved into our previous house, the moving company wanted to charge us a premium to move our books: over 200 boxes of them, at 25-40 books per box for a total somewhere between 5,000 and 8,000.
Since then I've pared my collection way down. I'm down to about 1,000 and I only keep books that I'm sure I'll want to read again more than once.
My wife unfortunately can't seem to do it. She uses all of the bookcases in the house, except for the nook off our kitchen where mine live.
Software Zen: delete this;
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Does the local fire department know about your fire hazard?
I know of public libraries with fewer books than you had!
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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I doubt they'd even notice the books. Parts of my house were built in 1872, 1892, and the early 1920's. The plaster in the oldest part of the house contains horse hair. I imagine the whole place is pretty flammable.
Software Zen: delete this;
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