IT Turf Wars: the Most Common Feuds In Tech 217
snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Dan Tynan reports on the most common feuds in tech: turf wars in the IT department. 'IT pros do battle every day — with cyber attackers, stubborn hardware, buggy software, clueless users, and the endless demands of other departments within their organization. But few can compare to the conflicts raging within IT itself.' Dev vs. ops, staff vs. management — taking flak from fellow IT pros has become all too common in today's highly territorial IT organizations."
vim (Score:5, Funny)
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Let's get this out of the way. Real programmers use butterflies [xkcd.com].
CJ
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vlm, agreed
Re:vim (Score:4, Funny)
m is absolutely the bestD
A
wq
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The cycle to hell. (Score:5, Interesting)
Sigh.
Daily life around here.
Marketing wants what marketing wants. To hell if it has a positive cost/benefit ratio. "Nice and shiny and uses lots of Flash ... and runs on my iPhone ... drool"
Devs dev what marketing wants. Dev only wants to dev in production. As Administrator/root/qsecofr (or ALLOBJ).
IT Management, but especially Finance Magement skimp of every possible detail until they end up spending more time AND money patching it until it would have been cheaper to do it the way joint Ops/Securty said it would.
Ops/Security is handed a dogs breakfast of non-working, insecure code that produces amiguous, and often wrong results. Last to find out or provide input. But it's our fault when it doesn't work, or opens all security doors, or breaches laws in several countries. (The last ones to touch it must have broken it).
Classic way NOT to do it.
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Marketing wants what marketing wants. To hell if it has a positive cost/benefit ratio. "Nice and shiny and uses lots of Flash ... and runs on my iPhone ... drool"
I'm reminded of a branching decision diagram I once saw labeled "thought process of a marketing person." It basically was a "is it shiny" question box with an endless loop if "Yes."
Ops/Security is handed a dogs breakfast of non-working, insecure code that produces amiguous, and often wrong results. Last to find out or provide input. But it's our fa
Re:The cycle to hell. (Score:4, Insightful)
Building security has problems with assholes defeating the building's fire alarm so they can sneak out to a fire escape (or worse yet, a ground-floor alley) and smoke and get back in.
If an addiction is causing people to break company policy (or worse, the law), then maybe it's time to fire their butts (pun intended).
Re:The cycle to hell. (Score:5, Insightful)
I've got friends who work in hospital security who have a devil of a time with people leaving their passwords and usernames on sticky-notes everywhere. Building security has problems with assholes defeating the building's fire alarm so they can sneak out to a fire escape (or worse yet, a ground-floor alley) and smoke and get back in.
You had me up until this point. While your cited cases might be reasonable, there is also the all-to-frequent case where "security" regulations induce this behavior.
What does hospital security expect users to do when users are required to rotate passwords every two weeks, have a 12 character long mix of upper/lowercase alpha's and numerics, and then also be subject to a 7 password history non-reuse restriction? Security is cognizant that the result of these provisions will be that users write down their passwords on stickies, so how is this more secure than allowing people to pick a less complex password and retain it longer?
The answer is that this presumes that everyone is playing the same game, with the goal to be the best possible security equilibrium state balanced against inconvenience/usability. Running counter to this is security's CYA factor: they experience no penalty for the insane password restrictions that reduce overall security, because if there is a security breach from the post-it passwords they can dump all the blame on the hapless user for violating the published security protocol that prohibits such actions. So, security has a payoff table that disrupts the equilibrium resulting in the paradoxical, reduced security steady state that is observed in these cases (ie. security is externalizing the costs of implementing the high-grade security practices).
PS. As for defeating the fire alarms, maybe they shouldn't have turned the entire hospital into a "tobacco-free campus", with the nearest "approved" smoking area located six blocks away. This is basic psychology. Normal people like to abide by the rules/laws even if they find them onerous, but there is a limit to their willingness to comply. This is essentially what happened to the entire US during the Prohibition. Again, as I said, your cited cases might be reasonable, but I have seen many that were not.
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His workplace is NOT interested in security. or it would simply have smartcard authentication on all the computers.
Smartcard + simple password = better security than requiring a 23 character password with a vowel to constant ratio of 1:3 and require 43% caps and 27.6% non alphanumeric characters plus it must be changed every 7 days...
Any company that does not use a simple password + authentication device pair is only faking their security.
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...a few years back, I came to realize just how crazy password management has become. The rule comes down to this:
The password must be impossible to remember and never written down.
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Re:The cycle to hell. (Score:5, Insightful)
No offense (I'm an ops/security guy and I was nodding the whole time till I thought about it), but this is exactly what the article is talking about. Of course Marketing wants it shiny and iPhone enabled. It's marketing, it's supposed to catch the eye and cause people to pay attention. Of course management wants to save money.. Money saved here is money that can used elsewhere or go into someone's pocket (often management's of course, but in theory anyone's). Of course Dev wants to have access to the live servers, there's info they want/need on there and very rarely it actually is useful to make changes on the fly when the situation is serious enough (It shouldn't ever be, but we don't live in a perfect world). Of course you want reliable, stable secure code that changes as little as possible.
The solution isn't "Make all these other guys understand that I'm right". It's to try to minimize the siloing so that everyone has a say in process from the ground up. So the dev guy can tell the marketing guy, "Hey you can't have iPhone *and* Flash. Do we want to find a shiny that doesn't use Flash, or accept that iPhones don't see our shiny?" Marketing can say to Ops "Ok that shiny I wanted was insecure, I get that, is there a secure way to do something similar?" Ops can say to Dev "I set you up a limited access account on the live servers to collect the usage data you need, please don't let it stack up." And Management can say to everyone "This is how much we really have to spend and the results if we break budget."
That way everyone can be an adult. There'll still be conflicts of course, but if everyone knows that each group is legitimately trying to facilitate everyone else, they can become points of discussion and resolution instead of small scale wars that every side is trying to "win".
Except that it NEVER happens like that. (Score:2)
Your solution is all nice and fluffly, but completely NOT grounded in reality, and the GP was talking about reality.
Devs have NO say, Ops have NO say. You get handed the dog food and you can either eat it or find someone else to feed you.
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Amen. Worry not, you are not alone. I'm right there with ya!!
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I have emacs open right now, and I usually write my short stories in emacs. And to instill fear and loathing into you, I actually do have children.
What helped you decide "emacs" vs "vim"? (Score:2)
I better jump on this chance to ask my question. No, I'm not trying to start a flamewar, but this might be a unique chance to some more insight.
Okay, you use emacs. What was your choice based on? What were the factors that ended up getting you on emacs?
For me, I decided to learn vim, because I had heard that there was a lot of chording (ie. Esc-Meta-Alt-Ctrl-Shift type simultaneous keys) in emacs. It worked out well when I started using vim on my smartphone. But I haven't actually used emacs before, so
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Dont forget the choreographed dance/fight numbers. (Score:5, Funny)
To quote Lincoln Spector and sung to the tune of the Jets song from West Side Story.
When you use DOS you use DOS all the way
From your first data loss 'til you format drive A:.
When you use DOS, why your confidence grows;
For your keys there's commands, for your mouse there's Windows.
It's DOS that's sublime; it's used by all go-getters.
At file-namin' time, we're never locked in fetters--
We choose eight letters.
When you use DOS, old hardware you can swap.
You can buy something new, next month prices will drop.
When you use DOS, why, you're never a stooge,
If your 640's low, well, there's always a cludge.
DOS users: On clones we can run, with brand-names we're the choosers.
The Macs'll buy none, cause all the Apple users
Are mouse abusers.
We're using DOS, yeah! and we're gonna fix
Every last system that's not something eighty-six--
Not something eighty, very weighty, six.
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Forget Feuds, this is WAR! (Score:4, Funny)
Luckly we have the equivalent of Sun Tzu's Art of War for the IT crowd.
B.O.F.H [wikipedia.org]
IT Crowd rocks. (Score:2)
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-it-crowd [channel4.com] :)
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The thing about timebombs is that you may not really have part in it. Anytime someone demands what would be a bad decision get implemented, a timebomb is created. You can warn people all you want. Its screaming down a well. If something happens to said bad decision in some time period after you leave, you are blamed. The fact that the empty desk that wasn't back-filled didn't take over the minor task you were doing in order to keep BadIdea(tm) running, still becomes your fault.
BOFH (Score:2)
Obviously they've never read any of the BOFH tales...
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"Long live the Fighters!" (Score:2)
shutdown -s -f -m \\theman
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Re:"Long live the Fighters!" (Score:4, Funny)
I always found it fun when OTHERS found net send, decided to "have some fun", and as a result I showed them the consequences of mixing 1. batch scripting, 2. net send, and 3. infinite loops. And not one of them knew how to turn the service off... One of them even started to cry..
Good times :)
Network vs. Servers (Score:2)
The network guys are never wrong. Nope. Doesn't happen. Must be something wrong with your servers. Can't be the 2k line ACLs we've put on each vlan to protect the windows machines. Nope. You don't need any ICMP protocols anyways. Why?? What do you need it for? There are no problems with the network. Don't believe me, look at my stats....
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That's why I love patching a crossover cable from one switch to another on them and let it sit there.
making it red like their critical cables and with a "DO NOT REMOVE" label attached on each end is a great way to screw with them. Bonus points if you make it long and snake it through trays so it's not obvious.
Re:Network vs. Servers (Score:5, Funny)
Paint one half of the cable blue and the other half white, and hide the switch point in a mass of cables somewhere.
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You almost made me weep, you evil bastard...
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AMEN BROTHER! PREACH IT
I worked for a rather large bank that was still using token ring in the building I worked (This was about 8 years ago). One of the PCs on the call center floor lost its network connectivity. I realized her leased address had expired and it didn't get renewed. We'd had problems with the ring hubs losing their IP Tables in the past so I called the sysadmins and spent 3 hours on the phone with a guy who insisted I didn't know what I was talking about. During this time several other PCs h
Define "the network". (Score:4, Informative)
Remember that the network switches / hubs / routers are part of "the network".
So when there REALLY is a problem on the network, the network admins usually hear about it because EVERYONE is having problems with ALL of their apps.
If one workstation or one server is having a problem (but the others are working) then it probably isn't a problem with "the network".
It may be that the network is not configured the way you'd like it to be for whatever you're trying to do ... but remember that the network admins have to keep the network configured to support all the OTHER items that were on it before yours.
At least be able to tell them what you want to do protocol-wise.
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A-fucking-men.
I didn't completely understand why the networking team always seemed so irritable when they would get called until I started doing that job at another company.
Anything where one user can't get to one website, one file share or their PC won't boot up is always suggested to be network related. After the other people claim to check the file server(s), VMWare(if it's a VDI client), etc., they come to me and it's up to me to prove that it's not the network. Invariably, I end up owning the issue a
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Remember that the network switches / hubs / routers are part of "the network".
So when there REALLY is a problem on the network, the network admins usually hear about it because EVERYONE is having problems with ALL of their apps.
If one workstation or one server is having a problem (but the others are working) then it probably isn't a problem with "the network".
And the one time it is the "network" for 1 user it's usually a disconnected cable from the user's machine.
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Do you work downstairs?
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The biggest challenges in this field (Score:2)
The best thing I saw... (Score:2)
Years ago I quit my job web developing because a customer of my former employer was shady, and promising that the websites could do credit card sales, built in... at no additional charge. So when I quit my job over this kind of blatant lying, I was blacklisted by the former employer. A couple months later, their prized customer stiffed them in $15k worth of fees.
I phoned my former employer when I heard the news and gave her a bit of the "I told you so," except I was kind about it, and polite. It was apparen
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So when I quit my job over this kind of blatant lying, I was blacklisted by the former employer.
Your former employer was Joe McCarthy??
But seriously, could you clarify? I don't quite understand.
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The former employer complained about me leaving suddenly at a social event, to a number of people I know, while they were rubbing elbows. Some of the folks who were present mentioned it to me. Later on the same people phoned me and told me about that same customer stiffing my former employer.
What you call "blacklisting" is something that would only upset Paris Hilton or one of the girls from The Hills? Please tell me I'm misunderstanding this.
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What you call "blacklisting" is something that would only upset Paris Hilton or one of the girls from The Hills? Please tell me I'm misunderstanding this.
Not if you're self-employed - it's not unusual for a lot of your work to come through networking and people talking to each other. That sort of thing is Extremely Bad in such cases.
DBA vs. SysAdmin (Score:4, Funny)
DBAs always seem to want root for some reason or other... with apologies to A Few Good Men:
SysAdmin: You want the authority?
DBA: I think I'm entitled.
SysAdmin: You want the authority?!
DBA: I want the root!
SysAdmin: You can't handle the root!
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This is a result of poorly designed DBM systems (and other products) that have to be installed and configured as root.
I have used and built quite a few well thought out systems that can be run and administrated entirely from a standard user account (usually named {product}root). At most, some required the sysadmin to make a single entry into /etc/inetd.conf or give the product admin (DBA) sudo permission to run a start/stop/refresh script as root.
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It's not that the systems are poorly designed (filesystem access, and hell, Oracle DB has its own filesystem), it's poorly designed DBAs who think that because the system needs it, they need it too.
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DBAs needing root isn't necessary as long as you have proper corroboration, communication, and trust between system admins and DBAs.
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You realize most DBA's do nothing more then write monitor backup and restore and bitch about devs needing to change database structures on dev servers 'all the time'.
I'm sure that's not you. But I'm also sure you've met them by the dozen.
I'm happy when I find anything resembling competence from a DBA.
Most DBAs aren't competent to write a stored procedure, tune a database or script an update to structure (without something like RR to do it for them).
They are backup admins with higher salaries.
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Turf wars... Pfft... (Score:5, Insightful)
Got a great idea and want to get it past security without trouble? that's simple... simply get buy-in from a senior executive. get him to adopt it as his pet project and get it working on the Dev servers. now when he announces it Security cant do anything but say yes and do your bidding because they do not dare tell the Senior VP of marketing that they wont let his project run. Do I make enemies withing security? yup. Every one of them hated me because my default approach to them was an end run. And it was simply because the security guys were incapable of thought outside of the "lock it all down" OMG OMG! DANGER DANGER! WE got a iphone/ipod app launched for use in the company and made every one of the security guys froth at the mouth and fall on the floor convulsing when I end ran them to a VP who loved it and wanted every sales person to have it. They lost their mind at allowing 190 non company locked up iphones and ipods connected to the holy internal wifi.
Just wait when my ipad system for sales forecasting get's greenlighted and they have to allow 200+ ipads on it as well...
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Have you tried no being a dick yet?
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I'm pretty sure he has.
Their security sounds eerily familiar to my security - Who forces me to sit with my laptop on an unsecured connection right on the internet, because I'm an "untrusted" contractor - but working on developing their systems, who are thus *also* untrusted. And therefore they can't allow internal access, so none of the internal customers are allowed to actually see what I'm developing, unless I mail them a screenshot.
Oh yeah - since I'm in the untrusted segment, they also don't allow debug
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In this regard the iPad/iPhone is equivalent to kids driving around with motorized scooters on the freeway. It's exciting and easy to use. But completely incorrect tool for the job. iPads are consumer products without any security features worth mentioning.
Re:Turf wars... Pfft... (Score:5, Interesting)
I admit: my first reaction is that if I worked security at your company, I'd want to kick your ass. I mean, I like you, but they probably have a very valid point about not wanting untrusted apps popping up all over the place.
But my second reaction was that you're right. There's no valid reason why you can't have unsecured guests on the holy internal wifi. We have an open WLAN here at the office, but it's firewalled away from anything we actually care about, with exceptions on a case-by-case basis. You don't get open access to the database server just because you're connecting to our corporate wifi. If your security guys can't handle that, then, well, sucks to be them. Good for you for finding away to make people actually do their jobs.
Too many assumptions there. (Score:2)
Designing a wireless / wired network to support unsecured guests is a LOT different than designing one to support only secured guests.
AND it requires that all the PREVIOUS systems not have problems with the design.
The network admin has to support ALL the systems. Not just your pet.
What happens when the corporate database IS accessible from the corporate wifi because other apps need that access and those apps are run by people on wifi?
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Designing a wireless / wired network to support unsecured guests is a LOT different than designing one to support only secured guests.
And the cool thing is that you don't have to pick just one. It's perfectly possible and reasonable to have open and secured networks. That how I - the network admin - built the system at my company. I'm quite well aware of the conflict between security and usability, but at the end of the day, my boss pays me to find a way for him to use the software he wants. I don't have the privilege of saying "that's insecure! You can't use that on my network!" because he can always trump with "get your stuff and leave"
Wasn't that the point of the GP? (Score:2)
Maybe I read it wrong, but wasn't the GP's post about having unsecured guests onto the internal, secured wifi?
Having unsecured guests on an unsecured, external wifi network is easy.
Allowing someone in parking log to access your internal network from his unsecured machine ... that's a problem.
Just ask Target about it.
Re:Too many assumptions there. (Score:4, Insightful)
I think the conflict here is between reasonable people and assholes. You sound like a reasonable person, Lumpy sounds like a bit of an asshole, but that may be the fault of working with assholes. It's quite possible that if you were Lumpy's security guy, and he knew he *could* come to you and open a reasonable dialog that would result in a mutually acceptable solution, he would. Since he works with obstructionist asshats, he bypasses them whenever possible. It's also possible he's just an asshole who always wants to get his way. Hard to tell under the circumstances. Personally my policy is to never say "no" without at least trying to come up with an alternative.
Re:Turf wars... Pfft... (Score:4, Insightful)
Got a great idea and want to get it past security without trouble? that's simple... simply get buy-in from a senior executive.
One of the best environments I ever worked security for allowed for senior managers to take personal responsibility for these kinds of decisions. The business unit would announce their Big Idea. InfoSec would look at it, analyze risks / security issues, and (often missing from many InfoSec groups) work out ways to allow the same functionality while mitigating any discovered risks, and ultimately document those risks. If the business unit didn't want to follow InfoSec's recommendations, they could take their Big Idea to their boss and make the business case for it so that their boss can take personal responsibility for the decision. InfoSec would provide the risk assessment. Senior management would then decide if the business case overcame the risk and everyone would press on accordingly. The process did wonders for enforcing open communication. Management wanted good information before they put their own butts on the line. Business units couldn't get away with just grousing or avoiding InfoSec and InfoSec couldn't get away with arbitrarily dismissing any new ideas. I should point out that this system is seeped in conflict. And that's good. Conflict is fundamental to security and, in many ways, any pursuit that has many options guided by creative thinking - something that all good IT environments should be encouraging. The key is to ensure that conflict can drive a constructive process. Too many IT environments pretend conflict doesn't exist and has no proper outlet for it.
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> One of the best environments I ever worked security for allowed
> for senior managers to take personal responsibility for these
> kinds of decisions.
Yeah, I once had a dream like that too, except the senior managers were also unicorns who shit candy.
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Yeah, those "personal responsibility" contracts are just proof that you allowed senior management to do something unbelievably stupid and attempted to absolve yourself of the duties you were hired for. When it hits the fan, you'll be canned because you weren't doing your job (senior management might or might not be fired depending on cronyism).
I invite you to re-read my post. My job was to identify and outline the risks. Which I did in my report that was distributed to the team and all management involved in the decision process (always CYA with documentation). At that point, it is management's job to make the decision. That's what management does. If you're in a position where you can do your job, get ignored, and still get fired then you should cut your losses and get a different employer (or be a contractor with sufficient fees to cover
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So I am curious how this evolved into this form. How did this get implemented? How did you get the buy in that you should actually take the time to do this assessment?
It was the job description. The employer was dealing with a number of major security incidents and was trying to get a handle on the situation. They wanted to change how things were operating but they didn't want to kill the golden goose.
I have to admit, the environment was different than others. It was corporate but had more of a research feel to it. Unlike, say, banking environments where locking things down is a part of the culture. Yet this culture allowed for personal responsibility as managemen
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Ding ding Ding!!!! we have a winner.
And that is the point of getting executive buy-in. to bypass the security guys that say by default "no way, if it does not meet NSA security specs it's not on my network" and actually getting work done in the company.
I'm a big one on giving the guys that matter, sales, the tools to sell more and make more money for the company. It's that understanding that get's me as a IS guru and dev the ear of most of the executives as I talk their language.
"increased sales, bett
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And that is the point of getting executive buy-in. to bypass the security guys that say by default "no way, if it does not meet NSA security specs it's not on my network" and actually getting work done in the company.
The problem here is having to bypass the security guys. In that environment, we were constantly coming in to a meeting and putting the breaks on the Big Idea as presented. There were often huge risks due to absolutely no consideration or understanding of security or even the underlying technology. Our job was to not only find these problems, but help the business unit come up with solutions to those problems. That was the usual outcome. Sometimes the business unit just didn't want to change their direc
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Got a great idea and want to get it past security without trouble? that's simple... simply get buy-in from a senior executive. get him to adopt it as his pet project and get it working on the Dev servers. now when he announces it Security cant do anything but say yes and do your bidding because they do not dare tell the Senior VP of marketing that they wont let his project run.
They should go to the VP of marketing and ask him about delaying the implementation of the project to try to address some securit
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That is the problem when you are working in a gatekeeper position or have deal with people in that role.
No one notices the gatekeeper until they screw up. The default answer to any request must be no, because if they say yes and something bad happens it is their fault. No one remembers that they have been keeping the bad stuff out up until this point. Only that they let this one bad thing through so they must be bad at their job and should be replaced.
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"Of course, I wasn't the one who was constantly rebuilding hosts in the internal network because black hats kept breaking in through compromised iPhones, so for me, it was a total win."
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Why an iPad app? Why not a web app? That way you don't (necessarily) have to buy any new hardware, and don't need to lock yourself in to any proprietary platform.
You have to understand, each iPad is a portable, overpriced little security nightmare. They're fully capable of running advanced malware like a desktop computer, but at the same time, are uncontrollable, unsecurable black boxes. You have less control over them than Apple, the telcos, and anyone who can compromise anything they're running. A brand n
Sadly.. (Score:2)
I have found not one, but two jobs where the entrenched administration chose Novell and refused to budge. I normally am pretty calm about using any tech, if it works then it works.
Novell, however, is a bloated piece of crap that no user should be forced to use. However, if it were the only game in town, then you're stuck with what you've got. It's not, however. It's not even the best at what it does. The only reason it's still in use is because there is a certain class of 'admin' out there that refuses
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Novell, however, is a bloated piece of crap that no user should be forced to use.
You do realize that Novell is a company, not a product, right?
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Yes, and I have to deal with most of their product suite. So, for the sake of brevity, I chose to highlight the company and not the individual products.
Clearly, I expected too much from some folks.
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But it is crap. SLES wasn't that impressive before Novell got a hold of it.
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Oh, your meaning was clear, it was just your that grammar sucked. I fail to see how a company can be a bloated piece of crap, or how anyone could be forced to use a company. Perhaps you meant to say Novell makes bloated pieces of crap, or that Novell's software is bloated crap. Both of those would be grammatically correct, but, I digress.
The only reason it's still in use is because there is a certain class of 'admin' out there that refuses to learn something new and update their skill set.
That's just plain ignorant. There are a lot of use cases where Novell's products are the best tools for the job, and I have 4 Novell admins here who regularly learn new
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That's just plain ignorant. There are a lot of use cases where Novell's products are the best tools for the job, and I have 4 Novell admins here who regularly learn new things and update their skill sets.
I haven't worked with their full catalog, so maybe there isn't a stinker in there. However, what I've used I can't imagine any of them being the "best tool for the job". Mind sharing what you are thinking here?
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Do you work for the government? That is the only place I see Novell anymore. Governments and school districts. They cannot get off of the platform because it would cost too much. Lots of luck going to the voters for a few billion dollars to rip and replace Novell.
Developers (Score:2)
Any developer that writes an app that requires admin rights on the desktop should be beaten and stabbed. (yes, you should be able to disable auto-updating)
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What about ones that write admin tools?
Gotcha.
I joke though, it's bad form and usually just poor planning.
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Any developer that writes an app that requires admin rights on the desktop should be beaten and stabbed. (yes, you should be able to disable auto-updating)
If I want to run "ping" or "telnet", I have to open a ticket with the IT Helpdesk.
I don't have rights to install hardware, so if I plug in a new mouse I have to open a ticket with the IT Helpdesk.
Three times a week, they push an update for Windows Media Player that forces a reboot when I'm in the middle of something important. Virus scans start every day at 10:00AM and run for four hours.
Every programming blog in the intarweb is blocked for "Social Networking".
Most of the time, when the IT Helpdesk
You can't do it, we must do it. (Score:2)
I see this all the time in government. Various IT departments will make it impossible or difficult for others to do work, but limiting access to various things, restricting software, no allowing for permissions, and refusing to take responsibility for a role or function that might enable any of those things.
ME: I would like to do X. I need to have access to Y in order to do X, may I have access please?
IT Dept: A) No you cannot do it, but we would happy to do it for an exorbitant sum, but we don't have capac
Sysadmin Saying (Score:2)
The head of our systems branch used to always say, without irony, "The applications branch can't run without systems, but without the applications branch, systems run just fine."
To which the head of apps branch would mumble, "Yeah, and without customers Apps branch would run just fine."
Very green thinking (Score:2)
It's very green to think that the most important thing to focus on at work is technology or process choices. It's more important to build meaningful bonds with other teams than any other skill set. That's why IT goes to bat for me when I need them to. Because I work with them, not against them. If they say things need to be a certain way, I may question why and protest civilly if it's not legit, but I follow their rules. It's their playground I need to run my code. They need my code to keep their playground
One print page for InfoWorld article. (Score:3)
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If programmers new what they were doing I wouldn't be stuck running old-assed unsecurable OS's that we only keep around because stupid programmers can't be arsed to update their bloated crappy application software to run on current systems.
Hey programmer, try running your app without a machine to run it on.
A lot of times it's the push from management, not the lack of motivation. App XYZ was written 9000 years ago (in computer time, so, translated into maybe 15 earth years?) and the developers were tricked into using some snazzy system calls or library components that promised they'd change the way they work "forever", but, really, support was dropped 3 years later leaving an app that, best case, needs an entire tier rewritten (worst case: the whole dang thing). It takes time and money, but the business won't
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If programmers new what they were doing I wouldn't be stuck running old-assed unsecurable OS's that we only keep around because stupid programmers can't be arsed to update their bloated crappy application software to run on current systems.
Hey programmer, try running your app without a machine to run it on.
Go whine to the project manager or whoever deals out the projects and balances and prioritizes available dev time.
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let .net developers do things correctly.
You mean, like migrating apps away from .net?
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they would rather write a buggy version of asp.net (using asp.net no less) than let .net developers do things correctly.
Where can I escape retarded senior developers???
Escape them? It sounds like you are on your way to becoming one.
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Sometimes it's a senior (in years only) developer who created a "standard" before I got there.
I'm guessing you never bothered to ask why that "standard" was there to begin with and 2 to 4 months down the line will find out that there is some limitation that was completely outside of everyone's control and you've just run head first into it. Of course by then you'll have started a re-write and will learn to just blame it on the old timer's lack of documentation and if it was documented, it wasn't documented "right".
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Sometimes it's a senior (in years only) developer who created a "standard" before I got there.
I'm guessing you never bothered to ask why that "standard" was there to begin with and 2 to 4 months down the line will find out that there is some limitation that was completely outside of everyone's control and you've just run head first into it. Of course by then you'll have started a re-write and will learn to just blame it on the old timer's lack of documentation and if it was documented, it wasn't documented "right".
Exactly. If there's one important lesson that I've learned, it's that you never assume the person who wrote that "retarded" piece of code was a moron when they did it, or that you even know why it was written a certain way. There's probably a very legitimate reason for it. It may not even be relevant any more, but it sure was at the time. Just do yourself a favor and ask a few questions before jumping to conclusions.
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They frequently do cause unnecessary limitations. Then I get it up to snuff and find out that quiet XYZ client wants it that way for their POS legacy setup.
"Who is this XYZ?"
"XYZ, they propped us up during the last economic downturn. By the way they called this morning and were pissed."
Sigh.
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