Notes from lunchtime viewing of first 40 min

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~9:29: "law is actually kind of a turing complete language"

Law is fuzzy; ACLs are fuzzy. ACLs can't handle real law because they're not Turing complete.

~11:20: had a business manager learn Ruby, had him implement poorly specified/tough features --> result: he modified/eliminated requirement

~12:20: a bunch of if statements are easier & better than an ACL

~13:50: in one case, 1000 users and 1000 containers would have required 270,000 ACL entries to implement one compliance rules; and 5 minute polling updates, because rule was time-based; --> couldn't audit, handle real-time changes; would've required 12 beefy boxes to execute.

14:40: Instead, re-write all rules in 400 lines of Ruby; analysts could read the code and say if implementation was right.

15:45: So a language wins, right? No -- "this is where the Suck begins" -- where management comes and crushes your soul. Bad product was substrate for document management system.

17:50: How do they sell this stuff? Connections, subterfuge? No.... "Steak and strippers, baby."

19:00: "This is one reason I want women to be in charge."

20:00: "What happens when they give you an MBA is they give you a lobotomy... and you walk out going 'Synergy! Synergy! Synergy!'"

21:00: MBAs are trained in manufacturing -- programming is not manufacturing -- you're going to work in an environment where they think you're worker bees on an assembly line.

22:00: So what to do about it?

1) Managers see people sitting there, they think nothing is going on. If management says "I demand all of your creativity but trust none of your judgement," you have to gather evidence that makes you more credible. You have to be objective. Try out whatever crappy technology that they're proposing.

2) Develop alternatives: if their crappy technology is good enough, stop; but if not, try out alternatives before suggesting.

3) Statistics; develop some pretty graphs. E.g., Zed's team built a demo server, showing slow performance. Without those, he would've had no evidence to contradict the sysadmin who was saying his tweaks had helped. Be prepared for intensely technical arguments, too.

4) Admit technical deficiencies.

~29:30: If none of this works, and they won't take it, build it anyway and then sell it to them or their competitors. The client can be your first customer. Good way to start a company.

~30:00: our doc management system is very simple, 4400 lines of Ruby plus some Samba modifications, and better than anything else out there.

Drools -- JBOSS rules engine -- "blows ass" -- just use Ruby instead.

~31:30: Figure out Roles first, with a Role Resolver -- draws on LDAP etc. -- 30 lines of Ruby -- now, ~200 lines of Ruby, covers all bizarre corner cases, easy to add new rules, easy to fix existing rules.

~33:30: And they still wanted the crappy older thing. At this point, it's all the social problem. What mattered was the old product had the same name. "Document Store 2000" vs. "Document Store New Gen" -- completely different, but easier to get through manager's manager's procurement process -- "that's the stupidity you deal with in the real world".

35:15: How do we win? We kept hammering. They sent out their best guy. I had him implement the toughest rule, the one requiring 200,000 ACL entries. Then had him explain to his managers why it wouldn't work. Had nothing to do with tech.

36:15: This stuff will kill you. How do you keep your soul through all of this? [Poll audience for years of education] -- "It don't matter" -- you're a factory worker.

37:30: "Business leaders don't really like you, because they need you, and they don't understand anything you do. ... And the sales people know this; they know if they go to your boss, and give them steak and strippers...."

~38:40: Fight your hardest not to be a corporate coder: your life as a geek or a coder should be all about exploring some new domain that no one else gets -- you can only go to conferences and talk to other geeks about what you do. A corporate coder works only on the stuff he's supposed to on one language, and never touches code otherwise. You should go home and do something fun with technology.

40:00: how to avoid not getting burnt out by day job? I.e., how to avoid losing your soul?

[40:30 stopped watching, back to work.]

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