10,000 Foot Developer

I am typing this from a second generation Mac running an updated version of Tiger OSX (10.4.x).  I have it beefed up, as much ram as I can put in (but due to bus architecture only uses 3.3 of the 4 gig of ram), a 360 gig hard drive.  I haven’t upgraded to the newest Snow Leopard — teetering on whether the $120 or so full upgrade recommended for this Mac would be worth it vs. putting the money into a new one.

Upstairs I have a Compaq running Windows XP.  Also, a few servers with base Windows Server installed on them, and dual booting to Gentoo and Puppy Linux and a live distribution of Ubuntu for whatever various reasons I see fit.

In the 90’s and early 2000’s I played the value and expandability game with my Windows machines.  You know — get the ram later, maybe upgrade the processor later (which never happens), new video cards (but they change the slot configs constantly). It was always a game to calculate building vs. pre-made etc.  My time vs. money.  I remember porting data off PS/2’s with zip disks and DOS drivers to save it all.  Working hours on print drivers, maybe days.  Very painful.  Making machines run like Cubans fixing cars that run forever.

Later on after owning several notebooks I came to this conclusion:  what you buy, then and there, is what you get.  You *might* allow for a few upgrades like ram, harddrive, or maybe just maybe a slight OS upgrade.  But in the long run, when its time for that new OS your hardware is too slow (i.e. the 32 vs. 64 bit changeovers).  Or, the performance doesn’t justify spending $250 on that new old architectured processor, when you can put the money towards a screeming fast motherboard and newer architectured processor.

And if you are a developer, like me, you dont give a damn you just WANT IT TO RUN so you can write software.

——————

Value, to me, is something that does what you want for a long long time with minimal fuss.

Now recently I thought I’d install the latest greatest NetBeans on my Tiger Mac so I could develop a an invention in JavaFX.  I like Macs, its like having a Linux machine with a clean interface.  But, if you are a developer you know that upgrading the open source Java SDK on a Mac is near next to impossible.  FUSS.  I installed the SoyLatte port for Java 6, was not trivial.  For some reason, like Windows integrating its browser into the OS in the old days, Mac thinks it has to control someone elses software kit — Java.  In fact I think just recently (October 2010) Apple announced the support of newer JDKs (newer than 1.4 GASP!!) on its OS’s.

I ran into this same problem trying to install Eclipse on the Mac too.   Finally I got sick of it, went to my XP machine, and was up and running in 15 minutes  I had wasted 3 hours on the Mac, I had a protoype piece running in under 1/2 hour on XP.

So here’s my question to Apple: Why?  Why lock out Java installations or Flash engines?  Why make it so difficult for devlopers to use something besides Coco to make apps?  Why require us to upgrade ever year or two at cost?   Why can’t Apple make an OS that delivers value for as long a duration as Windows 98 or XP?

XP first came out in August 2001.  Wikipedia reports it still has almost 49% market share.  I can do anything wiht my hardware and software on it.  I will upgrade to Windows 7 soon — probably a new notebook — but that old Compaq will keep chugging along.  XP’s last support is suppost to be – April 2014.

Mac Tiger was released in April 2005.  It’s last update was in 2009.

14 years of functionality vs. 5 years of functionality.

There are of course payoffs for choosing one or the other that may be time soaks.  Windows requires a lot of virus software etc.  ts registry corrupts, needing rebuilding every so often. But, it hooks up with every piece of hardware; more software than any other OS.  It offers choices.  The Macs are generally rock solid; a nice solution-in-a-box if you need such a thing.  You probably won’t be unhappy but it requires a commitment to the Jobs school of thought.

Please don’t misunderstand me I really like Mac’s a lot.  But the difference between a Windows OS and a Mac OS is comparing a Ford pickup to a slick Harley.  Both can haul,  just pick your poison.

I don’t know how old you are or from whence you came but in the 1990’s a lot of us were using crazy tools that had nice WYSIWYG html designers in them like Visual Interdev, or Macromedia Homesite or Dreamweaver, or Frontpage or whatever.  There weren’t many but in our little two-tiered world these were awesome for getting a UI up off the ground and running.

But nowadays I am hard pressed in the programmer world to see anything that well, seems like some awesome futuristic create a great app solution with a great WYSIWYG editor.  In fact if anything, things have become (at least in my world) much more “codey.”  I mean for the sake of the gods even Actionscript/Flex UI’s are all code with no real fun drag an drop interfaces; none worth mentioning at least.

Its sad isn’t it?  I mean, in the way that those kids from the 1950’s thought we’d be living on Mars now disappointing.

WHY?

I think this situation came about for a few reasons:

1. A division between designers and programmers.  So, designer tools  are predominant for UI.  Developers might use a prototype tool to wireframe something out but that’s about it.  Generally, all the CSS and skinning is handled by a design pro.   It’s better that way, because it takes a lot of work, talent, and its not the same thing as coding the guts. (Fireworks, Balsamiq)
2. Its just as fast to code.  Why bother with a drag and drop layout when you are going to have to tweak the code anyway?
3. Scaffolding.  If the UI is predictable, the domain is sound, and UI work is just not that important (Craig’s list for instance)  then just do the ultimate code generation.  You can sidestep WYSIWYG editors for that. (Django, Grails)

WHAT I USE

For some of my straight sites, I just use a tool called HTML Kit build 292 from Chami.  It’s shareware, and does the things I need: HTML, CSS, and Javascript code coloring; term library, ftp client, and a quick preview and button for browser display.  I know several powerful programmers who use just something like TextMate or VIM or Text Wrangler, or Notepad++ or whatever.

I use Grails for quick prototyping because of the plugins and GORM, that allows me to quickly get a domain up, if I need something that powerful.

I tried different WYSIWYG editors and, honestly, cant justify the expenditure on the Adobe products because I don’t design for a living, I code the guts.  The Eclipse plugins are wanting, and anything in Firefox etc. just isn’t worth the trouble.  HTML Kit just lets me get at it quick and I am well versed in the web languages so, its nothing.

Wireframing tools ARE cool.  I took a product through a lifecycle trying both the newer Adobe Flash Catylist, and Adobe Fireworks just this year and it is cool but I don’t believe it.  Code generators outside of raw scaffolds make me nervous — doing a UMD (up-middle-down)  design is ALWAYS a bad idea if a domain is involved.  Because, the domain is a different beast  — different requirements, different technology (for instance, an object cannot be always be stored in its natural state if the domain has reporting or audit requirements).

For wireframing I kinda settled on Pencil, a Firefox plugin.  Also I love Visio but I just use that for documentation and UML.

Oh Well

Those days like in Star Trek where you can create an application by clicking on a few giant buttons on a touch screen aren’t here yet — because some of us are in the business of writing those touchscreens.

Guess you’ll just have to wait.

Have you ever known someone like this?  Maybe it was a child:

“Well, I was making tomato soup and I saw the bananas sitting there, and thought they’ll just go to waste.  So I sliced them up in the soup!  Then, remembering I had some cheese and sausage and pickled herring left from that party — I threw them in, and also the last of those brownies from the office meeting.”

Yum.  That’s gotta be some great tomato soup.

If the goal was to make tomato soup . . . it was quite missed by the misapplication of ingredients.  Sliced bananas don’t work well in everything.

Mountain Bikes

Recently I was looking for a rear cargo carry rack for my mountain bike.  For the winter, I have mounted some monstrous tires to float over the snow and grip some ice.  Monstrous.  I also have the need of carrying some cargo so I started to look for a bike rack that bolts onto the rear.  I can’t find one.  I looked at maybe 10 models, even very expensive ones.  None provide the clearance on the giant snow tire or meet the specifications of my particular bike.  None.

One company I talked to suggested this: “Why don’t you just use a smaller tire, then the rack will fit.”

To which I responded: “Thanks, but that would defeat the whole purpose of the snow tires!”

So basically the guy suggested I add sliced bananas to my soup, ignoring the whole requirements of what I need, just to make one little thing work.

So — I made something myself.

Misapplication of Sliced Bananas in Technology

This kind of scenario has so many equivalencies in the tech world I’m making a second pot of coffee just to think about them!

Off the top of my head, I’ve found sliced bananas in these situations:

• Tooling.  For some reason a lot of places lock down tooling.  One contract I worked at wanted high quality graphics, but wouldn’t give me anything close to Photoshop to create and edit them! I couldn’t even install my own license on my work machine, so I did it on my notebook offsite.  Else — use the company standard “pixel paint.”  Dear god.
• Features.  Hey — Powerbuilder worked pretty good in 1998 right?  So why not use the same usability documents for a web app?  (This is a true story . . . )
• Methodology.  You knew I was going there!  If we have all those Agile tools let’s use them!  In fact, let’s retrofit the project INTO Agile that’ll make it . . Agile.  It my not get done but who cares.

Recently the methodology sliced banana has been rearing its ugly head up everywhere.  I have been talking around and reading sites etc. and it looks like a lot of the rigid agile stuff has been falling to the wayside.  So the providers of it are trying to do anything to sell it.   For instance, I have talked to several places that talk about TDD and how important it is but barely anyone uses it.  TDD is a sliced banana, definitely.  Or what about top-down agile?  This is where all the projects info is put into an Agile tool with the intent of making a dashboard for upper management.  But — once this is rooted in upper management the very “Agile” nature of the project is scuttled because if there’s a problem, it can’t be changed.  Another sliced banana.

Features has me thinking too.  A lot of places that don’t even know their business model want uber-flexible frameworks with high amounts of functionality.  Well, I’ve learned something from mountain bikes, kayaks, other objects like iPhones and iPads.  Things that do a lot of stuff  do not do one thing outstandingly.  Sorry but that’s just how it is.  A super fancy UI (function=eye appeal) is harder to change quickly.  A broad domain model takes more time to extend.

Tooling too.  You want to have it all?  Get the IntelliJ IDE BUT it costs money and is a less flexible environment.  So you like basic editing/quick turn around  time?  Use VIM and the command line; but forget about good debugging.  Some people need a Cuisinart, sometimes the task needs a Cuisinart; or sometimes a person can do everything with a good knife.

Well anyway I think I have made my point.  Most of us would prefer to spend our time on just making simple good ole’ tomato soup when that’s what’s needed.  And its surprisingly difficult to make in the software world.

Ok I decided yet an foray into speech-to-text software.  I am seeing what exactly I can just do with it and honestly, the idea of being a poor man’s Tony Stark is just too cool to pass up.  Well, I guess his commands are like “computer, reconfigure titanium actuator motors” and mine would just be “computer, open minesweeper.”  Still cool though.

Speech to text: You talk, and the computer either types your statement or executes a command.  Speech to text is also called Voice Recognition – VR.  A lot of these applications also do text to speech — computer speaks the text or responds vocally — as well.

I started to research what was open source, and what wasn’t.  With these four features as a priority:

1. Be able to take dictation.
2. Be able to process already recorded audio files(MP3’s)  into text.
3. Execute commands.
4. Respond like Hal 9000.

Starting to research I came down with these applications:

• Open source – Sphinx project from Carnegie-Mellon.
• Open Source – Simon (a non-American effort).
• Plain old Microsoft VR functionality on a PC.
• Shareware – E-Speaking VR software ($14; 30 day trial).
• Commercial – Dragon Speech from Nuance (Currently $75 with a headset on sale)

Sphinx was purely an API for people wanteing to do academic applications or have a core library to make an app.  There were pieces in both C++ and Java, but I found the startup time quite long since I don’t want to CODE speech to text, I want to DO speech to text.

Here is the Sphinx site:  http://cmusphinx.sourceforge.net/

I played with Simon for about 4 hours, and came to this conclusion: it may be a fancy and high potential application but its over-engineered, complicated, and lacks basic “how-to”  instructions that would have any “see-I-told-you-so” usability experts write the second edition to their books scolding us developers.  There is a LOT of setup to get the thing off the ground: you have to download a dictionary,  load it, you have to create “scenearios,” create grammars, and record a lot of samples before this thing will get off the ground.  And since me and my homey Noam Chomsky haven’t hung out in years I was a little short on linguistics PhD knowledge to make this thing fly.  It exposed all the innards I didn’t want to know.

Also, Simon is with a Linux-based KDE graphics and operations.  I didn’t dig into the architecture, it kinda reminds me of a desktop KDE install on a PC.  But, I think this product is platform-independent and even runs on Mac.

The Simon site: http://simon-listens.org

In all fairness, projects like Sphinx and Simon are crucial for the advancement of VR technology, CRUCIAL.  And I thank the efforts on both projects, thank you!

But I want to be Tony Stark.  NOW, dammit.

Through my searches I found out Microsoft has some VR built in, depending on what you have installed.   Here we go again  . . . grasping for straws . . . . maybe.   First  look in my install of Office 2007.  Hmm, nothing.  I look in my Control Panel-Speech — VR tab is missing.  Upon reading I find this out:  XP OS doesn’t have it, you need to have installed Office 2002 or 2003.   After that, they moved the VR module in Vista to the OS, and Office 2007 and later will not have it.  CRAP.  So I find this site:  http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306537  and a light goes on — just install the right service pack.

I find all the software here:  http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=5e86ec97-40a7-453f-b0ee-6583171b4530&displaylang=en

And after getting all of it finally figure out what I want is the 68 meg file (this was quite painful, I don’t know WHAT I did to my poor Compaq).  So Bingo/Bango its installed . . . I can uh, train it.  I stopped there, because I wasn’t sure how to make it really work on my XP machine

E-Speaking is next.  I am impressed.  It gives you immediate out of the box functionality, a nice interface with commands for your PC machine.  The UI is relatively easy to use.  it TYPES into notepad!   It has a cool talking face you can skin.  Very impressed.  The E-Speaking product does most of what I want, with relatively little pain.  Awesome.  Also, it sits on top of the Microsoft SAPI engine — PC only but who cares for my uses.

Here’s the E-Speaking site:  http://www.e-speaking.com/

Dragon Speech is a pay-for — I have used it before and it is FAST and the UI is very good,  For more money it does what you want.  What I don’t like is reading their site they seem to want to limit your choice of hardware to theirs.  I am not sure though if they can lock out your own blue tooth headset, that would totally SUCK.    At the current $75 price point I may purchase it though.  Also, its difficult to figure out exactly what features come at the different pricings/versions on their site.  I don’t want to have to pay another $100 to have the word commands “unlocked” — or whether I can even train my own apps on their software, it might be quite locked down.  Also Dragon at a higher price level (for both Mac and PC) can do the transcribing of audio files.

Dragon’s site:  http://www.nuance.coI

Its an interesting revenue model to follow for E-Speaking; I have an idea Dragon will follow.  basically, if you build the wrapper and some basic functionality, you can charge for different voices, bigger dictionaries, command libraries for applications etc.  Its like Mapping software — you buy the wrapper cheap, and pay more for the maps you want if you want them.  Not a bad idea.

The winner:  right now, for my purposes: E-Speaking.   It does goals 1,3,4 and very quickly.  None of them did goal 2 — process MP3’s to text.  Maybe I’ll see what it takes to write something like that.

I’ve been talking with recruiters as the economy has picked up a bit and there’s something different that has happened in the last few years.   Notably, its the treatment that we the developers get when trying to do business with these salespeople.  The treatment has become very much more poor, almost abusive, in many ways.  I talked with several of my developer colleagues and here’s what we’ve been seeing:

• Immediately we are asked for our rate — without even knowing the person.  If we refuse we are run through the mill and treated poorly.
• We are asked for all of our contacts — our developer friends — so they can be helped.  if we don’t capitulate again, the conversations with the recruiter and company take a turn for the worst.
• A few years ago we would agree to meet a recruiter for the first time on neutral ground, like a coffee shop, splitting the distance.  These days the staffing companies are expecting us to drop everything we are doing at our existing job (with raises flags) to go to their site to meet them on un-neutral ground.
• We are never, ever thanked for our time or, if naive enough, the information we have given them.  Ever.
• It seems to me that the actual knowledge the newer companies have about actual technology is very low compared to that of 10 years ago.

It’s interesting, this kind of treatment.  It’s interesting because it implies that the day of the turn and burn recruiter is here forever, and gone are the relationships and the long term vision of partnership and future business.  I haven’t formulated any response to this.

For instance, a few days ago I was berated for my rate — I just said, it depends on the job.  Why isn’t that good enough?  But when I ask an accounts manager for transparency into their margin percentage, some of these new types of recruiters and companies will very simply hang up on you.  If you call out that they are in fact selling you a job — that you are a buyer, not someone they are doing a favor for — they get very upset.

By no means do I suggest being belligerant, but lets face it: the idea of “employer” in today’s world is very temporary.   Do you seriously think you’d get paid these days to sit on the bench while they look for another contract placement?  Does anyone think their FTE-ship is beyond an episode of layoffs?  Seriously?  And add to that that we the developers are doing a different profession that they the sales.  We don’t even understand each other’s worlds.  Its all too often I see developers, not companies, putting up with these blocks of productivity and disrespect.

It doesn’t have to be like that.  As developers we have to realize that our peers are other developers.  They are our people.  We spend our daily lives with each other, not with sales or management.  To our people we owe our allegiance and to watch each others backs.  I have yet to see the promise of “if things get bad I’ll pull you right out” from a consulting company; not while there is money to be made.  YOU ARE JUST FODDER.

Now not every place is like the cold heartless consulting firm or company so let us be mindful and not participate in those horrid places.  It starts with you.

Recently I was helping out a team that was on a death march.  They had all the great things a high energy project requiring dedicated developers employs into the project methodology:

• Unpaid overtime, lots of it.
• Moratorium on vacation time – none allowed.
• Vacation time does not roll over at year end.
• Mandatory weekends and late nights.
• Short notice on certain late nights, as much as (gasp) four hour notice for having to stay late Friday or work Saturday-Sunday.
• Zero, ZEEEEEE-RO, project plan and schedule.

You might think this is crazy.  I am thinking that this is more likely the rule now rather than the exception; I’ve been talking to my colleagues and all of us are having this problem:  poorly planned projects intent on destroying our outside lives; the reasons many work in the first place gathering cholesterol in their ateries by sitting still in place for 8-12 hours a day.

XP addressed this by calling out for the value of  “sustainable velocity.”  It did this by allowing developers to gauge their NORMAL velocity via estimates, and then to use that to predict the amount of software they could do in a short iteration.

Recently I was asked — “golly Journeyman if you are such a great developer then why is amangement never happy with the work?”  It’s because managment only wants one thing — to paraphrase Jackie Mason:  MORE.

Now I am not going to blame them but at some point we have to ask ourselves the simple question that if work is so great, why do they call it work?

Note, I am not saying don’t love your professions or what you do.  By all means do it.  But recently I was pitted against a another less experienced developer.  He billed 38% more than me — 55 hours to my 40.  He made roughly 2/3 as much per hour.  I produced twice the software with 1/5  less bugs.  The bugs took up an average of 50% of the time of the original story (due to requirements).  (This is all from a project tracking tool.)  So, in simple math it took him 110 hours to produce the original software, if we even out the bugs ( it wakes him 4/5 more to do the bugs thats 50% time 110) then it takes him 165 hours to equal my output.  Multiply by 2/3 the pay, he costs 109 hours in my dollars. 273% more expensive than me.

Management though only looks at hours on certain projects; not quality and planning.   So, a person who works more hours is of course more productive — in the new PM Agile world.

Now last wek I was at an Agile conference, and one of the vendors helped me figure out — the change was when Scrum came along. Like in 2007 it made Agile widely adoptable to management — SCRUM did this.  And in Scrum, with a tracking tool that many companies now use like MS Project manger — hours are more important than results.   Estimates are used against developers as accountability, instead of as an aid to get better estimates.   It changed EVERYTHING.

Sooo . . . anyway all my musings aside is why, young or old grasshoppers, we should avoid projects that say “High Energy” or “Want Dedicated Developers.”  Because here are the formulas to calculate the meanings of these terms:

High Energy Environment = poorly planned requiring lost of unbilled hours by task people.

Dedicated Developers = developers willing to work tons of extra hours for free.

Its as simple as that.  I am not saying don’t work hard.  I am just saying, work smart.  You will be taken advantage of if you don’t, your life will become miserable, and your productivity will drop.   70 hours of a burned out developer’s time with 30 hours unpaid on a meangingless project is way less productive than 45 paid hours of a developer’s time on a well thought out, superbly executed project.

And remember — management are negotiators.  Sales.  Compromisers.    They have to be because they work people jobs.  But its up to us to call BS on them:  poor project plans are not negotiable.  Life sucking jobs are not negotiable.  The way to stop the machine, is just to take your toys home and don’t play with them.