We knew they'd bang out this book sooner or later, and look, they even got to do the cover!

Your executive (or usually the administrative secretaries) should communicate to you what they want. If they are not giving you an indication of the metrics they want, and they're leaving it to you, then you have the danger of boring them with useless and irrelevant information. Not repeating the 30k feet, brief, don't use IT speak comments; you likely want to engage someone close to them to figure out what metrics you gather, or can gather, and which are actually meaningful from the BI view. Oddly, information by itself is useless. Let me explain... I work for big oil/gas company (doing corporate reporting). One thing I provide is spill reports. They use this to scorecard divisions (for bonuses). But the information itself isn't very useful, because it doesn't say what products are spilled (specifically sometimes huge numbers come out re fresh water spills, and these are reportable to govt., but not as dangerous as sour gas...). The divisional guys get really annoyed because they're compared to previous years (so its spilled volume over time), and they really want me to speciate by operation or commodity, but I can't because the executive committee in charge doesn't care. They want ONE line item for an overall metric in one area of the business. So to reiterate, its really important to talk with them or someone close to them to figure out what is useful and what the "destination" is. Process improvement? Health check? Benefits/bonuses? Lots of categories to chose from.

I would like to have...
1) a cell phone that looks like a TOS communicator (one vaporphone was the Sona Mobile themed phone)
2) a micro-lab that looks like a TOS tricorder (hell, I'd be happy with GPS, temperature, and humidity sensors in a stylish box)
3) a laser pointer that looks like a TOS phaser (that would absolutely get attention in meetings)

Cool and useful science toys.

You don't have to do custom programming; you can use a modification of edge detection to generate a texture map; effectively same color at different luminosity would drive the topology mapping.

Nah, Death March by Yourdon. I re-read it frequently and it never loses its luster.

Wow. How can you prove something like this... I know mathematical induction and various finite automata tests were used in my old school days to prove software worked... but something as complicated as this.

In any event, an inductive hypothesis in software is tripe. Unless you can formally describe all states, you usually have an unbounded problem, and people test (and prove) positive case. There are just way too many states.

Just like Bjarne said Proof by analogy is fraud... and induction is akin to analogy.

As with any software process, there are right and wrong things to do. First, the formal code review where invitees don't review the code in advance are pointless. Usually there is so much to go over, even if these are scheduled frequently, that anything more than surface is missed.

And then when you have a developer do a package and walk through, there are people not to invite. I've been in reviews where all but one of the reviewees took it seriously, and the one that did not, effectively wanted to review everything in the meeting because they didn't study the prep. Only invite reviewers that take it seriously.

A lot of unorganized code reviews degenerate into style comments and surface stuff. This doesn't help; the most important thing is to have reviewers that bring in their own findings like an audit. You can delegate things from developer to reviewer, like one reviewer could run through a profiler (ie java findbugs), another through metrics (ie java metricsreloaded), or another with specific data structures and algorithms expertise or concurrency attention. So... each reviewer can have a role. Each reviewer is a subject matter expert.

The best ones in my opinion are where the developer runs the code through a metrics tool to identify hotspots, like complex code, or things that have complex entry/exit conditions. Things where the developer actively wants to solicit opinions. Like... "How the heck can I test this?"

Again it falls to the people though. Artifacts are really important, as are action items and follow up. Another example; one review I was in we spotted a developer using floats for guids. We explained why this was a really bad idea, but because we didn't follow up on it, and neither did the developer, I spent a week hunting down a duplicate spurrious guid conflict. The team was pretty upset with the developer for not actioning a fix, but our management believed that buy in to process was optional...

Good luck. Reviews show professional acumen, but there needs to be some discipline in the prep, review, and follow up.

I've known too many software developers; even with redundant systems written to the same requirements, I'd never trust the requirements were complete, and I'd never trust that the testing covered "the negative case." Many requirements are missed, and most test cases are to a postive case (so you only have a subset of known inputs and outputs for simple, selected execution paths.)

Also, a plane that is breaking up in the air will send in interesting results via automated systems... totally off topic.

I appreciate your concern for me, and you both have given me hope because as opposed to pointless name calling, the discussion ended amicably! Good job!

Unfortunately I won't use a proxy; not that I'm not technically inclined; but because I have a little voice in the back of my head saying its not ethical. If hulu, adult swim, or any other content provider doesn't want me to have content... fine. I won't support them.

I learned about Hulu because on a Canadian news network they touted how great it was. When I checked it out, I discovered that Canadians couldn't use it... Only reason my wife and I checked it out was to try see the contraversial Palin/Clinton SNL clip we heard about. I think I can live without seeing it.

Many of us outside the US can't use Hulu anyway; so it doesn't matter ;-)

People need to ask the question, what is the business driver for an enterprise to spend money on OpenSource? The argument will be, enterprise will likely be a consumer only of the product, because there is no value to the business in spending money on enhancing any OpenSource project because its likely not a competency of said company. Restated; why should a big energy company invest in mysql's development? They're a consumer, not a producer of said technology. Now... if said big company needs to fix some glitch in an OpenSource project; well; they're obliged by license to contribute. But very few big companies have the internal expertise to do that [because again, they're probably not in that business.]

So its really a battle for mindshare and credibility. If you have an enterprise using OpenSource, it justifies its existence, and the spin off consulting to actual OpenSource champions/contributors is where the money is.

I started playing everquest in 2001. At first I refused to play, but friends pretty much bought the game and installed it on my PC. I refused to play because I figured I'd get addicted... and sure enough... 7 years later... I went cold turkey. There are a few things that I realized about my own addiction that helped me break it.

First, MMOs are Skinner boxes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning_chamber They let the player feel like they're accomplishing something. This is a huge motivator when in your real life, the rewards are missing from any effort. For me, I had just got divorced and had a company I help start shoot down the toilet. Suffices to say, I was at a motivational low.

So, to figure out the trap (Skinner box), you need to figure out how to get the rewards in real life that are missing. A psychologist might suggest sitting with your friend and actually setting achievable, short term, real world goals. Even if it is as simple as going for a 30 minute walk. Then emphasize the "Hey, I did something today." You might even want to try something that gives other rewards, like adrenaline, through running, or some sport.

Next, there was the social aspect. People in MMOs believe the social context missing from their lives is real - that you actually have friends in the game. This is pretty far from the truth. Sure, I got to know a few people well in my EQ experience, but not one of them has participated in a relationship outside the game. So, some brutal realities there...

Anyway, I've been EQ free over six months. I refuse to play another MMO, ever. When you look at the total time played, and you see that you've been online 300+ days... ask the question, if you had a year of time back, what would you do with it? Sit in front of a computer screen like a zombie? Or actually try accomplish something. People often say they don't have time for stuff. Pretty sobering to look at some metrics. And real addicts underestimate how much time they play.

Well...

All the amazing solutions that I've had while asleep or in delerium have always seemed really good for the 30 minutes of furious waking coding... before the "What the f**k is this garbage? It will never work..." gets shouted out.

My subconscious thinks this is hilarious.

Many moons ago I thought about doing a doctorate in computer science. Knowledge sciences were very cool, AI was mostly a dead topic, and ... I disagreed with most everything I read on the topic of KS/AI. I had many of my own ideas, was involed with cognitive psychology, and being a geeky programmer I brought some ideas to light. But I had a thought...

What if my theories were on the right track? What if I could produce learning and self awareness? Would I not be condemning new life to an uncertain existence? For example, in the vein of I Robot, AI, and Blade Runner, there would be a definite military or commercial upside to this technology... so it went from a cool gift to humanity, to thinking about how crappy it would be for a sentient slave for my own ego gratification.

Then I had another thought. What if it already existed? What if someone already figured it out, and maybe even implemented a learning machine that achieved sentience? Would they, if they had any sense of morality, publish the findings? Is it even ethical to attempt to achieve this?

I look forward to reading the book, but I'm not sure it will answer my questions.