Comment: Re:Agile doesn't mean that the project won't fail (Score 1) 207
I just want to add...
Try writing a project that meets ISO specifications for medical use using the waterfall method.
People will die.
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I just want to add...
Try writing a project that meets ISO specifications for medical use using the waterfall method.
People will die.
I hate to break it to you but "fully defined requirements analysis" is a pipe dream filled with rainbows and unicorns. I have never, not once, seen a requirements document that accurately captures exactly what the system will do.
Well, I've written them, and I've never had a project fail.
One example involved interviewing
i) the owners of the company
ii) an executive from each department
iii) a "regular joe" representative from each department
This became a 40+ page project specification, which was signed off by all stakeholders and became the contract.
Then this document was fed into a series of code generation engines, which created hundreds of thousands of lines of code. This was all done with an eye towards allowing various professionals to go away and do what they do best without getting held up waiting on each other or tripping over each other, filling in the missing functionality in the generated code.
That system is still in operation close to a decade later, organizing the working lives of thousands and serving the needs of millions.
Now I work in Agile. I hate it. I'm always having to check with other people constantly to move forward, I never get in the zone, there's a lack of clarity and vision, and I feel like I'm getting stupider each day and I'm not producing my best work.
That's why you should be agile but never Agile.
If that's the criterion, we need to disable all spreadsheets and decision support systems.
The answer is, "yes, you did. And I sold MY license to use your software to Fred."
Meanwhile, according to TFA, he had the option to just cough up and extra $59/month to make it a business account and they would be fine with it.
A good first step is to recognize that a contract cannot grant any party the right to unilaterally alter the agreement in any way. Next, recognize that no contract may be applied after the fact (especially shring wrap agreements), the deal is whatever it appeared to be the moment money was handed over. By default, that is assumed to be a sale.
Next up, we need to address the multi page walls of text. Start by re-considering the liklihood that the customer actually understood everything in it and limiting it to what an average person would have understood. Nobody should need a lawyer to understand a cellular agreement or buying a piece of software.
If I own a bull, and this bull gets loose in a china shop, I'm liable. Why should intellectual property be any different?
Ignoring the fact that you cannot patent a product of nature, which means that nobody (should) have patented the virus rather than isolated genes or segments of cDNA which might be used to uniquely identify it in a laboratory assay (i.e., patenting a non-viable portion of an organism shouldn't make you liable for the existence of the natural organism)...
I cannot buy this argument from the software crowd, whether commercial, open source, or GNU-ish. The coders among you lot disclaim warranties, liability, and general responsibility for anything which you write as a matter of course. The users among you lot sit there and take it. But when it comes to patents, suddenly the patent-owners should be liable for anything remotely related to their patent.
Why should intellectual property be any different? Because you treat so every chance that you get, and there are far better arguments for why the owner of 'a gene' is not responsible for the actions of the natural virus. First and foremost, a little concept called 'proximate cause.'
We have ways of preventing the infection.
In just a few years with any luck, she will have the opportunity to play with far more dangerous reactions in her school. It's called organic chemistry. Also with luck, she will have been taught the necessary safety precautions by that time.
Which rule did she knowingly break?
Oh, I slay me!
And a good thing too, with jokes like that.
I'll bet she has learned a few important things at this point. Some about chemistry, a few about politics and sociology, a few about the way the legal system (doesn't) work in the U.S., and that she needs to take her friend's advice with a pound of salt in the future.
I'm guessing she won't do it again, which would be the only legitimate goal of any punishment at this point, aso that's covered as is. Anything else would just be petty and hateful.
Frankly, decimal is kind of a cruddy system. It was a bad call in the first place to use base 10. Yeah, it's good for counting on your fingers, but it's only cleanly divisible by 1, 2, 5 and 10. Base 12 would have been a much better choice, it's cleanly divisible by 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 12.
I say we ditch metric, imperial and the decimal system as well.
FORCE YOURSELF TO RELAX!