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From: hollombe@ttidca.TTI.COM (The Polymath)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: Whither Unix Gurus
Message-ID: <1410@ttidca.TTI.COM>
Date: Thu, 29-Oct-87 20:25:11 EST
Article-I.D.: ttidca.1410
Posted: Thu Oct 29 20:25:11 1987
Date-Received: Thu, 5-Nov-87 04:31:59 EST
References: <4692@elroy.Jpl.Nasa.Gov> <15669@clyde.ATT.COM>
Reply-To: hollombe@ttidcb.UUCP (The Polymath)
Organization: The Cat Factory
Lines: 24

In article <15669@clyde.ATT.COM> rcj@moss.UUCP (Curtis Jackson) writes:
. ... I was appalled
.at the absolute crap I saw people working on -- little or no documentation,
.garbage thrown together at midnight even though there was no great deadline
.to meet, etc. etc.  And most of this was at big companies that have
.guidelines for code development, documentation, testing, and the like.
.I shudder to think about some of the incomprehensible, untested, bug-ridden
.software that must be put out by smaller places with no controls whatsoever.

Having worked at both, my experience is that small companies generally do
a better job of software development and documentation than large ones.
When you're small you can't afford to make big mistakes.

I've worked at a place where a $30K loss was a big mistake and at a place
where a $250 million disaster was survivable.  Guess who enforced
documentation and coding standards. (Hint:  What do you think _caused_ the
$250 million disaster?)


-- 
The Polymath (aka: Jerry Hollombe, hollombe@TTI.COM)   Illegitimati Nil
Citicorp(+)TTI                                           Carborundum
3100 Ocean Park Blvd.   (213) 452-9191, x2483
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