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Two More Very General Consulting Question

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  Two More Very General Consulting Question Novice <novice@example..com> - 2011-11-30 21:00 +0000
    Re: Two More Very General Consulting Question Martin Gregorie <martin@address-in-sig.invalid> - 2011-11-30 21:45 +0000
      Re: Two More Very General Consulting Question Novice <novice@example..com> - 2011-11-30 23:00 +0000
        Re: Two More Very General Consulting Question Martin Gregorie <martin@address-in-sig.invalid> - 2011-12-01 03:06 +0000
          Re: Two More Very General Consulting Question Novice <novice@example..com> - 2011-12-06 15:24 +0000
            Re: Two More Very General Consulting Question Martin Gregorie <martin@address-in-sig.invalid> - 2011-12-06 20:59 +0000
        Re: Two More Very General Consulting Question Roedy Green <see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> - 2011-12-07 05:45 -0800
          Re: Two More Very General Consulting Question Tom Anderson <twic@urchin.earth.li> - 2011-12-07 18:58 +0000
            Re: Two More Very General Consulting Question Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2011-12-07 18:57 -0500
              Re: Two More Very General Consulting Question Arved Sandstrom <asandstrom3minus1@eastlink.ca> - 2011-12-07 20:33 -0400
                Re: Two More Very General Consulting Question Tom Anderson <twic@urchin.earth.li> - 2011-12-08 16:04 +0000
                  Re: Two More Very General Consulting Question Arved Sandstrom <asandstrom3minus1@eastlink.ca> - 2011-12-09 06:53 -0400
                    Re: Two More Very General Consulting Question Andreas Leitgeb <avl@gamma.logic.tuwien.ac.at> - 2011-12-09 12:51 +0000
                      Re: Two More Very General Consulting Question Lars Enderin <lars.enderin@telia.com> - 2011-12-09 17:26 +0100
                        Re: Two More Very General Consulting Question Martin Gregorie <martin@address-in-sig.invalid> - 2011-12-09 23:12 +0000
                        Re: Two More Very General Consulting Question Andreas Leitgeb <avl@gamma.logic.tuwien.ac.at> - 2011-12-10 12:00 +0000
                      Re: Two More Very General Consulting Question Tom Anderson <twic@urchin.earth.li> - 2011-12-10 19:53 +0000
                        Re: Two More Very General Consulting Question Andreas Leitgeb <avl@gamma.logic.tuwien.ac.at> - 2011-12-11 00:04 +0000
                    Re: Two More Very General Consulting Question Tom Anderson <twic@urchin.earth.li> - 2011-12-10 20:12 +0000
                    Re: Two More Very General Consulting Question Jim Janney <jjanney@shell.xmission.com> - 2011-12-12 03:05 -0700
                      Re: Two More Very General Consulting Question Arved Sandstrom <asandstrom3minus1@eastlink.ca> - 2011-12-12 06:39 -0400
              Re: Two More Very General Consulting Question Joshua Cranmer <Pidgeot18@verizon.invalid> - 2011-12-07 20:55 -0600
                Re: Two More Very General Consulting Question Andreas Leitgeb <avl@gamma.logic.tuwien.ac.at> - 2011-12-09 10:42 +0000
          Re: Two More Very General Consulting Question Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2011-12-07 18:48 -0500
      Re: Two More Very General Consulting Question Roedy Green <see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> - 2011-12-07 05:43 -0800
    Re: Two More Very General Consulting Question Arne Vajhøj <arne@vajhoej.dk> - 2011-12-02 20:15 -0500
    Re: Two More Very General Consulting Question Roedy Green <see_website@mindprod.com.invalid> - 2011-12-06 16:45 -0800

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#10662

On 11-12-12 06:05 AM, Jim Janney wrote:
> Arved Sandstrom <asandstrom3minus1@eastlink.ca> writes:
> 
>> 1. History is super-important in these organizations. It is how you
>> locate scapegoats.
> 
> History is an important working tool for me.  It's the first thing I
> look at when I want to know why a piece of code is written the way it is
> rather than the way I think it should be, or the way I originally wrote
> it.  Fairly often there turns out to be a reason, usually tied to a
> customer request.
> 

I have a bunch of reasons for valuing history. One of the most important
ones ties in with my role as a software consultant who usually works on
fixing or adding to existing applications, and it is quite similar to
yours: looking for the "why". More often than not there are either no
requirements or design documents, or they are incorrect or obsolete, and
so frequently the only place one can derive requirements for future work
is in the existing code.

This is actually part of an identified field of work; just Google on
"business rules extraction". Although a lot of that field has to do with
static analysis, if you've got good history available then there is
clearly valuable information there too.

Still, while you may have good reasons for valuing history, and I'd like
to think that I do, and no doubt plenty of other developers have good
reasons, a lot of places don't. You'll know when you're in a toxic place
when people are much more interested in the "who" rather than the "why",
and not so they can get the "why" from the horse's mouth either.

AHS

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#10601

On 12/7/2011 5:57 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
> I have never seen an actual problem due to CVS not having
> atomic commits. Or even read about. Maybe the problem was
> not that important.

When you are trying to do archaeology or rollback (say, bisecting to 
find a regression range), the "not having atomic commits" suddenly 
becomes a major dealbreaker.

-- 
Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not 
tried it. -- Donald E. Knuth

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#10617

Joshua Cranmer <Pidgeot18@verizon.invalid> wrote:
> On 12/7/2011 5:57 PM, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>> I have never seen an actual problem due to CVS not having
>> atomic commits. Or even read about. Maybe the problem was
>> not that important.
> When you are trying to do archaeology or rollback (say, bisecting to 
> find a regression range), the "not having atomic commits" suddenly 
> becomes a major dealbreaker.

This may be true in "worst-case" situations, where the fileset of
each (non-atomic) commit affects large numbers of files, and such
changes happening every few minutes.

I've more often had the need to revert a commit partially (i.e.
only for some of the files), than the non-atomicity causing trouble.
Maybe, this sheds a light on bad practise of the devels (sometimes
committing independent changes in one go), but such is life. 

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#10598

On 12/7/2011 8:45 AM, Roedy Green wrote:
> On Wed, 30 Nov 2011 23:00:17 +0000 (UTC), Novice<novice@example..com>
> wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted someone who said :
>
>> I simply haven't had the spare cash to do
>> something about that.
>
> IT will set you back $6 a month if you don't host the SVN server
> yourself.

There are free ones.

http://www.svnhostingcomparison.com/

Arne

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#10588

On Wed, 30 Nov 2011 21:45:19 +0000 (UTC), Martin Gregorie
<martin@address-in-sig.invalid> wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted
someone who said :

>However, I'd strongly suggest that you don't mention the crash because 
>IMO losing anything in a disk crash shows a certain carelessness. Here 
>I'm assuming that you now have an adequate backup scheme that is used 
>regularly and rigorously and that, preferably, you also are familiar with 
>and use a source version control system for any code you care about. Can 
>you explain your backup and version control strategy if asked?

see http://mindprod.com/jgloss/subversion.html
http://mindprod.com/jgloss/tortoisesubversion.html
-- 
Roedy Green Canadian Mind Products
http://mindprod.com
For me, the appeal of computer programming is that
even though I am quite a klutz,
I can still produce something, in a sense
perfect, because the computer gives me as many
chances as I please to get it right.
 

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#10451

On 11/30/2011 4:00 PM, Novice wrote:
> First question: They are asking about my availability.
>
> If the truth be told, I have nothing else on my plate right now except
> looking for work and there is nothing in the short term future either.
> I'd like to say "I can dedicate myself to your project 100% starting
> tomorrow morning" but am concerned that this may make me look bad. They
> might well get the impression that I am so awful at what I do that I
> can't find any customers.
>
> Is there a good way to answer the availability question that basically
> says I can give them my full attention immediately without making me look
> like I'm really inept?

Main rule: don't lie. If you get caught lying then
you are most likely out - forever.

Besides the last 3 years has not exactly been an IT boom. Lots
of good IT consultants has found it harder than usual to find work,
so I don't think you being available right away will be that bad.

If you want to downplay the fact a little it until after they
have decided to hire you, then "I will be able to start soon" and
"I am sure that I can start when you need me" may postpone the
question about exact date until HR has to ask.

Arne

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#10577

On Wed, 30 Nov 2011 21:00:28 +0000 (UTC), Novice <novice@example..com>
wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted someone who said :

>Is there a good way to answer the availability question that basically 
>says I can give them my full attention immediately without making me look 
>like I'm really inept?

Don't worry. They are thinking about themselves. Never once in the
last almost 50 years has anyone complained when I could start work
immediately.

As for showing work. Often you can't show work you have done for
others. They own the code and they consider it proprietary. See
http://mindprod.com/project/projects.html Timing may be tight, but you
can do such a project and show them not only the code but the how the
app looks to the end user.  That your work looks presentable and runs
well is of far greater importance than someone paid you to do it.
-- 
Roedy Green Canadian Mind Products
http://mindprod.com
For me, the appeal of computer programming is that
even though I am quite a klutz,
I can still produce something, in a sense
perfect, because the computer gives me as many
chances as I please to get it right.
 

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