🚀 go-pugleaf

On Mon, 25 Jun 2018 10:25:28 +0100, Gareth's Downstairs Computer
<headstone255.but.n...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>It takes a Maverick with unconventional views to alleviate the
>situation in North Korea as opposed to aggravating it; the
>aggravationists demonstrating that McCarthyism is as strong in
>Yankland today as it was in the 1950s.

Trump is not a maverick. He is part of the swamp, appointed people who
like the swamp, and yet claimed falsely he is cleaning the swamp.

On Monday, June 25, 2018 at 3:25:32 AM UTC-6, Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote:
> It takes a Maverick with unconventional views to alleviate the
> situation in North Korea as opposed to aggravating it; the
> aggravationists demonstrating that McCarthyism is as strong in
> Yankland today as it was in the 1950s.

You really think he is doing anything other than playing Kim Jong-Un's game?

John Savard

On 26/06/2018 11:31, Quadibloc wrote:
> On Monday, June 25, 2018 at 3:25:32 AM UTC-6, Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote:
>> It takes a Maverick with unconventional views to alleviate the
>> situation in North Korea as opposed to aggravating it; the
>> aggravationists demonstrating that McCarthyism is as strong in
>> Yankland today as it was in the 1950s.
> 
> You really think he is doing anything other than playing Kim Jong-Un's game?

ITYM King Kong Jim?

On Tue, 26 Jun 2018 03:31:18 -0700 (PDT), Quadibloc
<jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:

>On Monday, June 25, 2018 at 3:25:32 AM UTC-6, Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote:
>> It takes a Maverick with unconventional views to alleviate the
>> situation in North Korea as opposed to aggravating it; the
>> aggravationists demonstrating that McCarthyism is as strong in
>> Yankland today as it was in the 1950s.
>
>You really think he is doing anything other than playing Kim Jong-Un's game?

That remains to be seen.

On Tue, 26 Jun 2018 20:32:39 -0400, J. Clarke
<jclarke...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Tue, 26 Jun 2018 03:31:18 -0700 (PDT), Quadibloc
><jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>
>>On Monday, June 25, 2018 at 3:25:32 AM UTC-6, Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote:
>>> It takes a Maverick with unconventional views to alleviate the
>>> situation in North Korea as opposed to aggravating it; the
>>> aggravationists demonstrating that McCarthyism is as strong in
>>> Yankland today as it was in the 1950s.
>>
>>You really think he is doing anything other than playing Kim Jong-Un's game?
>
>That remains to be seen.

He is trying to duplicate Putin.

On 2018-06-27, JimP <solo...@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tue, 26 Jun 2018 20:32:39 -0400, J. Clarke
> <jclarke...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 26 Jun 2018 03:31:18 -0700 (PDT), Quadibloc
>> <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>>
>>> On Monday, June 25, 2018 at 3:25:32 AM UTC-6,
>>> Gareth's Downstairs Computer wrote:
>>>
>>>> It takes a Maverick with unconventional views to alleviate the
>>>> situation in North Korea as opposed to aggravating it; the
>>>> aggravationists demonstrating that McCarthyism is as strong in
>>>> Yankland today as it was in the 1950s.
>>>
>>> You really think he is doing anything other than playing Kim Jong-Un's game?
>>
>> That remains to be seen.
>
> He is trying to duplicate Putin.

Only as far as Putin will let him.

-- 
/~\  cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid (Charlie Gibbs)
\ /  I'm really at ac.dekanfrus if you read it the right way.
 X   Top-posted messages will probably be ignored.  See RFC1855.
/ \  Fight low-contrast text in web pages!  http://contrastrebellion.com

Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> writes:

> On 2018-06-27, JimP <solo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> He is trying to duplicate Putin.
> 
> Only as far as Putin will let him.

       ...the difference between Trump and Putin is really big. Putin
       is a product of the Russian state-security service, which has a
       long history of repression, almost a century. Trump is just an
       asshole....

             -- Masha Alyokhina, Pussy Riot (in the G&M, 3 Feb 2017)

-- 
Mike Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada

On Wednesday, June 27, 2018 at 2:46:14 PM UTC-6, Mike Spencer wrote:

>        ...the difference between Trump and Putin is really big. Putin
>        is a product of the Russian state-security service, which has a
>        long history of repression, almost a century. Trump is just an
>        asshole....

>              -- Masha Alyokhina, Pussy Riot (in the G&M, 3 Feb 2017)

Given that Trump wishes to Make America Great Again, and Putin invaded Georgia 
because it claimed that ethnic Russians were being persecuted in part of that 
country...

I remember the relationship between a leader who invaded Czechoslovakia because he claimed that ethinc Germans were being persecuted in part of that country...

and an Italian leader who sought to restore to Italy the glory of ancient Rome.

Thus, I see Trump as the junior partner in a Putin-Trump partnership.

John Savard

On 2018-06-28, Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
> On Wednesday, June 27, 2018 at 2:46:14 PM UTC-6, Mike Spencer wrote:
>
>>        ...the difference between Trump and Putin is really big. Putin
>>        is a product of the Russian state-security service, which has a
>>        long history of repression, almost a century. Trump is just an
>>        asshole....
>
>>              -- Masha Alyokhina, Pussy Riot (in the G&M, 3 Feb 2017)
>
> Given that Trump wishes to Make America Great Again, and Putin invaded Georgia 
> because it claimed that ethnic Russians 
                                 ^Ossetians^
> were being persecuted in part of that 
> country...
>
> I remember the relationship between a leader who invaded Czechoslovakia because he claimed that ethinc Germans were being persecuted in part of that country...
>
There are very few Sudetenlanders in that part now.. Take that as a
lesson, invaders. Many of them did very well later in Germany. .


> and an Italian leader who sought to restore to Italy the glory of ancient Rome.
>
> Thus, I see Trump as the junior partner in a Putin-Trump partnership.
>
> John Savard

As far as I can make out, Trumps latest moves are in reaction to the 
the growing US debt. 


[Must dump a lot of these plugins]
-- 
greymaus.ireland.ie
Will Rant for Food

maus <ma...@mail.com> writes:
>On 2018-06-28, Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:

>As far as I can make out, Trumps latest moves are in reaction to the 
>the growing US debt. 

Self-caused in large part by the ill-considered completely unnecessary
tax cuts.

On 2018-06-29, Scott Lurndal <scott@slp53.sl.home> wrote:
> maus <ma...@mail.com> writes:
>>On 2018-06-28, Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>
>>As far as I can make out, Trumps latest moves are in reaction to the 
>>the growing US debt. 
>
> Self-caused in large part by the ill-considered completely unnecessary
> tax cuts.

Oh, God. I hope you havce en-suite under the bridge.

The tax-cuts were prompted by the fact that people could either pay 35%
percent, or move the profitable parts of the company off-shore, and pay
.06%. 


-- 
greymaus.ireland.ie
Will Rant for Food

On 29 Jun 2018 15:55:23 GMT, maus <ma...@mail.com> wrote:

>On 2018-06-29, Scott Lurndal <scott@slp53.sl.home> wrote:
>> maus <ma...@mail.com> writes:
>>>On 2018-06-28, Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>>
>>>As far as I can make out, Trumps latest moves are in reaction to the 
>>>the growing US debt. 
>>
>> Self-caused in large part by the ill-considered completely unnecessary
>> tax cuts.
>
>Oh, God. I hope you havce en-suite under the bridge.
>
>The tax-cuts were prompted by the fact that people could either pay 35%
>percent, or move the profitable parts of the company off-shore, and pay
>.06%. 

The tax cuts in the US currently help the poor and middle class for a
limited time. The tax cuts for the top 1% of people with money, helps
them permanently.

JimP <solo...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On 29 Jun 2018 15:55:23 GMT, maus <ma...@mail.com> wrote:
> 
>> On 2018-06-29, Scott Lurndal <scott@slp53.sl.home> wrote:
>>> maus <ma...@mail.com> writes:
>>>> On 2018-06-28, Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> As far as I can make out, Trumps latest moves are in reaction to the 
>>>> the growing US debt. 
>>> 
>>> Self-caused in large part by the ill-considered completely unnecessary
>>> tax cuts.
>> 
>> Oh, God. I hope you havce en-suite under the bridge.
>> 
>> The tax-cuts were prompted by the fact that people could either pay 35%
>> percent, or move the profitable parts of the company off-shore, and pay
>> .06%. 
> 
> The tax cuts in the US currently help the poor and middle class for a
> limited time. The tax cuts for the top 1% of people with money, helps
> them permanently.
> 

Democrats used this to distort the current effects of the tax cut. As to
the cuts expiring, let's see. The guys probably want to get re-elected.

-- 
Pete

On Friday, June 29, 2018 at 1:32:05 PM UTC-4, JimP wrote:
> On 29 Jun 2018 15:55:23 GMT, maus <ma...@mail.com> wrote:
> 
> >On 2018-06-29, Scott Lurndal <scott@slp53.sl.home> wrote:
> >> maus <ma...@mail.com> writes:
> >>>On 2018-06-28, Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
> >>
> >>>As far as I can make out, Trumps latest moves are in reaction to the 
> >>>the growing US debt. 
> >>
> >> Self-caused in large part by the ill-considered completely unnecessary
> >> tax cuts.
> >
> >Oh, God. I hope you havce en-suite under the bridge.
> >
> >The tax-cuts were prompted by the fact that people could either pay 35%
> >percent, or move the profitable parts of the company off-shore, and pay
> >.06%. 
> 
> The tax cuts in the US currently help the poor and middle class for a
> limited time. The tax cuts for the top 1% of people with money, helps
> them permanently.

The tax cuts didn't do anything for the poor, and gave miniscule
help to the middle class.  Only the upper class benefited.

All of us will suffer with the resulting inflation.  Further,
to pay for the tax cuts, they're talking about reducing social
security and medicare.

<hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote:
> On Friday, June 29, 2018 at 1:32:05 PM UTC-4, JimP wrote:
>> On 29 Jun 2018 15:55:23 GMT, maus <ma...@mail.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> On 2018-06-29, Scott Lurndal <scott@slp53.sl.home> wrote:
>>>> maus <ma...@mail.com> writes:
>>>>> On 2018-06-28, Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> As far as I can make out, Trumps latest moves are in reaction to the 
>>>>> the growing US debt. 
>>>> 
>>>> Self-caused in large part by the ill-considered completely unnecessary
>>>> tax cuts.
>>> 
>>> Oh, God. I hope you havce en-suite under the bridge.
>>> 
>>> The tax-cuts were prompted by the fact that people could either pay 35%
>>> percent, or move the profitable parts of the company off-shore, and pay
>>> .06%. 
>> 
>> The tax cuts in the US currently help the poor and middle class for a
>> limited time. The tax cuts for the top 1% of people with money, helps
>> them permanently.
> 
> The tax cuts didn't do anything for the poor, and gave miniscule
> help to the middle class.  Only the upper class benefited.

The "poor" don't pay taxes anyhow, they get a handout instead, in a form
that looks like a tax refund on taxes they didn't pay. I know the rich got
a deal, which I'm not happy about. I need to find a website that will
figure my taxes using last year's data and this year's rates, and I'll let
you know about the middle class.

> 
> All of us will suffer with the resulting inflation.  Further,
> to pay for the tax cuts, they're talking about reducing social
> security and medicare.
> 

Never happen. Maybe Medicaid, but old farts who get medicare vote.

-- 
Pete

On 2018-06-30, Bud Frede <fr...@mouse-potato.com> wrote:
>
> In sanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting
> different results.

Apologies for drifting on-topic again, but... by this definition,
insanity is the correct response to a great deal of software out there,
and even some hardware.

Niklas
-- 
if (!this->with_sin())
    (int) stones[0];
                       -- Joe Pfeiffer's friend

On 10 Jul 2018 20:25:19 GMT
Niklas Karlsson <ank...@yahoo.se> wrote:

> On 2018-06-30, Bud Frede <fr...@mouse-potato.com> wrote:
> >
> > In sanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting
> > different results.
> 
> Apologies for drifting on-topic again, but... by this definition,
> insanity is the correct response to a great deal of software out there,
> and even some hardware.

	By that definition it is insane to expect to saw through a thick
piece of wood, you do the same thing over and over again dragging the saw
through the wood and then suddenly there are two pieces of wood.

-- 
Steve O'Hara-Smith                          |   Directable Mirror Arrays
C:\>WIN                                     | A better way to focus the sun
The computer obeys and wins.                |    licences available see
You lose and Bill collects.                 |    http://www.sohara.org/

On 2018-07-10, Ahem A Rivet's Shot <ste...@eircom.net> wrote:
> On 10 Jul 2018 20:25:19 GMT
> Niklas Karlsson <ank...@yahoo.se> wrote:
>
>> On 2018-06-30, Bud Frede <fr...@mouse-potato.com> wrote:
>> >
>> > In sanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting
>> > different results.
>> 
>> Apologies for drifting on-topic again, but... by this definition,
>> insanity is the correct response to a great deal of software out there,
>> and even some hardware.
>
> 	By that definition it is insane to expect to saw through a thick
> piece of wood, you do the same thing over and over again dragging the saw
> through the wood and then suddenly there are two pieces of wood.

Of course -- unless you define "saw until you're through" as one
operation.

With a lot of software this isn't nearly so obvious. Of course, there
_is_ usually a deterministic reason behind it, but it can require
digging pretty deep, and/or deep architectural knowledge. Or the same
action simply starts working because the network load went down,
reducing latency or packet loss.

Such things can be utterly opaque and mystifying to the end-user.

Niklas
-- 
Dark chocolate and stem ginger--though tasty--are probably sub-optimal
materials for constructing FTL-capable spaceships.            --Tanuki

On 12 Jul 2018 17:07:41 GMT, Niklas Karlsson <ank...@yahoo.se> wrote:

>On 2018-07-10, Ahem A Rivet's Shot <ste...@eircom.net> wrote:
>> On 10 Jul 2018 20:25:19 GMT
>> Niklas Karlsson <ank...@yahoo.se> wrote:
>>
>>> On 2018-06-30, Bud Frede <fr...@mouse-potato.com> wrote:
>>> >
>>> > In sanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting
>>> > different results.
>>> 
>>> Apologies for drifting on-topic again, but... by this definition,
>>> insanity is the correct response to a great deal of software out there,
>>> and even some hardware.
>>
>> 	By that definition it is insane to expect to saw through a thick
>> piece of wood, you do the same thing over and over again dragging the saw
>> through the wood and then suddenly there are two pieces of wood.
>
>Of course -- unless you define "saw until you're through" as one
>operation.

The sawing of a log begins with a single stroke of the saw. Followed
by the second stroke, then the third...certainly this is not doing the
same thing over and over, each stroke is unique, and each one must be
performed in the correct order.

>Such things can be utterly opaque and mystifying to the end-user.

And to me...and I'm supposed to know what I'm doing. This obsession
with updating all the software all the time, for one. I've never seen
such ardor for installing new bugs as quickly as possible. Best
Practices, so they say....

Old bugs can be worked with. It's the new ones are the ones that bite
you on the ass.

On 2018-07-13, Scott <nob...@example.org> wrote:
>
> And to me...and I'm supposed to know what I'm doing. This obsession
> with updating all the software all the time, for one. I've never seen
> such ardor for installing new bugs as quickly as possible. Best
> Practices, so they say....

Perhaps an extension of the "agile" mentality.

Google invented what they call Google Sprints, where you have a
design/planning phase before you get to coding and shipping.

i.e. they basically reinvented waterfall...

Niklas
-- 
Keeping UUCP running is starting to seem a lot like keeping a 130-year-old
man who smokes 4 packs a day on life support because he's the last person
on Earth who knows how to do the cha-cha, but he won't tell anyone.
                     -- Ryan Tucker

On 15 Jul 2018 11:58:30 GMT
Niklas Karlsson <ank...@yahoo.se> wrote:

> On 2018-07-13, Scott <nob...@example.org> wrote:
> >
> > And to me...and I'm supposed to know what I'm doing. This obsession
> > with updating all the software all the time, for one. I've never seen
> > such ardor for installing new bugs as quickly as possible. Best
> > Practices, so they say....
> 
> Perhaps an extension of the "agile" mentality.

	Agile was a good principle used by many successful teams way back
before it had a name (even before 'extreme programming', then some idiots
formalised it and it grew a whole pile of procedural garbage.

> Google invented what they call Google Sprints, where you have a
> design/planning phase before you get to coding and shipping.

	One of the good bits of the sprint approach is that you are
supposed to ensure that 'user stories' are only accepted into a sprint of
they are properly defined, the tasks and acceptance criteria worked out and
there are no blockers. IME this never happens, instead all too often it's
whatever manglement wants next that goes in no matter how badly defined or
infeasible it is.

> i.e. they basically reinvented waterfall...

	The key principles behind agile are "don't bite off more than you
can chew" and "keep making it better" or more formally work out the smallest
useful thing that can be delivered and deliver it and go back round the
loop. This tends to be forgotten in the whole business of setting up scrums
and sprints with sprint planning and retrospectives and backlog grooming
and scrum masters and all the other bumpf.

-- 
Steve O'Hara-Smith                          |   Directable Mirror Arrays
C:\>WIN                                     | A better way to focus the sun
The computer obeys and wins.                |    licences available see
You lose and Bill collects.                 |    http://www.sohara.org/

Ahem A Rivet's Shot <ste...@eircom.net> wrote:
> On 15 Jul 2018 11:58:30 GMT
> Niklas Karlsson <ank...@yahoo.se> wrote:
> 
>> On 2018-07-13, Scott <nob...@example.org> wrote:
>>> 
>>> And to me...and I'm supposed to know what I'm doing. This obsession
>>> with updating all the software all the time, for one. I've never seen
>>> such ardor for installing new bugs as quickly as possible. Best
>>> Practices, so they say....
>> 
>> Perhaps an extension of the "agile" mentality.
> 
> 	Agile was a good principle used by many successful teams way back
> before it had a name (even before 'extreme programming', then some idiots
> formalised it and it grew a whole pile of procedural garbage.
> 
>> Google invented what they call Google Sprints, where you have a
>> design/planning phase before you get to coding and shipping.
> 
> 	One of the good bits of the sprint approach is that you are
> supposed to ensure that 'user stories' are only accepted into a sprint of
> they are properly defined, the tasks and acceptance criteria worked out and
> there are no blockers. IME this never happens, instead all too often it's
> whatever manglement wants next that goes in no matter how badly defined or
> infeasible it is.
> 
>> i.e. they basically reinvented waterfall...
> 
> 	The key principles behind agile are "don't bite off more than you
> can chew" and "keep making it better" or more formally work out the smallest
> useful thing that can be delivered and deliver it and go back round the
> loop. 

This was supposed to be something new and original???

> This tends to be forgotten in the whole business of setting up scrums
> and sprints with sprint planning and retrospectives and backlog grooming
> and scrum masters and all the other bumpf.
> 



-- 
Pete

On Sun, 15 Jul 2018 15:00:40 -0400
Peter Flass <peter...@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Ahem A Rivet's Shot <ste...@eircom.net> wrote:

> >> i.e. they basically reinvented waterfall...
> > 
> > 	The key principles behind agile are "don't bite off more than
> > you can chew" and "keep making it better" or more formally work out the
> > smallest useful thing that can be delivered and deliver it and go back
> > round the loop. 
> 
> This was supposed to be something new and origial???

	Not until people started publishing books and setting up training
courses, up until that point it was just what successful development
projects did instead of collected several reams of requirements documents,
generating more reams of specifications and design acceptance documents
(that nobody could understand, but signed off on anyway[1]) followed by even
more reams of design documents and then finally writing a bunch of code
that did everything except what was needed. Which is what most of the
spectacularly expensive failed IT projects did.

	These days in most places the core principles are unknown but there
are scrum masters and agile coaches and people doing daily standups,
writing user stories, playing planning poker, doing retrospectives and
missing the point completely.

[1] On one occasion I received a courtesy copy of such a design acceptance
document (produced as part of the SSADM methodology). Stacked on the floor
it was higher than the desks, reading it required spreading it out five
sheets at a time and following the cross-references. I got through about a
dozen sets before I got sick of enumerating the errors - a week later it was
signed off. The project only succeeded because we paid lip service to the
formal process and did the job our way.

-- 
Steve O'Hara-Smith                          |   Directable Mirror Arrays
C:\>WIN                                     | A better way to focus the sun
The computer obeys and wins.                |    licences available see
You lose and Bill collects.                 |    http://www.sohara.org/

Ahem A Rivet's Shot <ste...@eircom.net> writes:

> On Sun, 15 Jul 2018 15:00:40 -0400
> Peter Flass <peter...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> Ahem A Rivet's Shot <ste...@eircom.net> wrote:
>
>> >> i.e. they basically reinvented waterfall...
>> > 
>> > 	The key principles behind agile are "don't bite off more than
>> > you can chew" and "keep making it better" or more formally work out
>> > the smallest useful thing that can be delivered and deliver it and
>> > go back round the loop.
>> 
>> This was supposed to be something new and origial???
>
> 	Not until people started publishing books and setting up
> training courses, up until that point it was just what successful
> development projects did instead of collected several reams of
> requirements documents, generating more reams of specifications and
> design acceptance documents (that nobody could understand, but signed
> off on anyway[1]) followed by even more reams of design documents and
> then finally writing a bunch of code that did everything except what
> was needed. Which is what most of the spectacularly expensive failed
> IT projects did.

As a consultant I once had to interface with a user representative that
insisted I could not deliver small useful pieces of the master plan.  He
claimed that I could get to the last requirement and end up having to
throw out everything.

I tied delivering outlines for all the things his department was looking
for.  Each a small deliverable.  His position was that I had to expand
each into a complete specification before any real work could be done.

Fought that bastard for a couple of years, then I asked to be moved
somewhere where I could be more useful.

I did do a lot of useful stuff despite the constant obstacles
from the user representative.

-- 
Dan Espen

On Sun, 15 Jul 2018 19:29:23 -0400
Dan Espen <dan1...@gmail.com> wrote:

> As a consultant I once had to interface with a user representative that
> insisted I could not deliver small useful pieces of the master plan.  He
> claimed that I could get to the last requirement and end up having to
> throw out everything.
> 
> I tied delivering outlines for all the things his department was looking
> for.  Each a small deliverable.  His position was that I had to expand
> each into a complete specification before any real work could be done.
> 
> Fought that bastard for a couple of years, then I asked to be moved
> somewhere where I could be more useful.

	It's much harder to fight when it is a mandated policy from the
top, which was common in government circles the one time I dipped my toes in
there.

	Fortunately we had high powered support in the shape of a potential
board member looking to make his mark and a very unusual consultant whose
expertise was in manipulating bureaucracies - he knew things like the
holiday schedules of everyone that mattered, who to get drunk at lunchtime
so that a sign-off would come that afternoon - who *not* to get drunk at
lunchtime and so forth. When the guy in charge of procurement said that we
would have X-Terminals only over his dead body, we got them the next day -
and Joe sent a memo querying the lack of a dead body.

-- 
Steve O'Hara-Smith                          |   Directable Mirror Arrays
C:\>WIN                                     | A better way to focus the sun
The computer obeys and wins.                |    licences available see
You lose and Bill collects.                 |    http://www.sohara.org/

On Sun, 2018-07-15, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
> On 15 Jul 2018 11:58:30 GMT
> Niklas Karlsson <ank...@yahoo.se> wrote:
>
>> On 2018-07-13, Scott <nob...@example.org> wrote:
>> >
>> > And to me...and I'm supposed to know what I'm doing. This obsession
>> > with updating all the software all the time, for one. I've never seen
>> > such ardor for installing new bugs as quickly as possible. Best
>> > Practices, so they say....
>> 
>> Perhaps an extension of the "agile" mentality.
>
> 	Agile was a good principle used by many successful teams way back
> before it had a name (even before 'extreme programming', then some idiots
> formalised it and it grew a whole pile of procedural garbage.

People can try to steal it as much as they want. To me, it's about the
Agile manifesto, and about a small team feeling collective
responsibility for getting useful things done.

>> Google invented what they call Google Sprints, where you have a
>> design/planning phase before you get to coding and shipping.
>
> 	One of the good bits of the sprint approach is that you are
> supposed to ensure that 'user stories' are only accepted into a sprint of
> they are properly defined, the tasks and acceptance criteria worked out and
> there are no blockers. IME this never happens, instead all too often it's
> whatever manglement wants next that goes in no matter how badly defined or
> infeasible it is.

I think you have to have someone with power, who's defending the team
and the agile ideas against things like that.  E.g. a Scrum team can't
defend itself if everyone else works against it.

(Although I can imagine doing some badly-defined task, if it's
understood that the outcome will be a best-effort thing.)

>> i.e. they basically reinvented waterfall...
>
> 	The key principles behind agile are "don't bite off more than you
> can chew" and "keep making it better" or more formally work out the smallest
> useful thing that can be delivered and deliver it and go back round the
> loop. This tends to be forgotten in the whole business of setting up scrums
> and sprints with sprint planning and retrospectives and backlog grooming
> and scrum masters and all the other bumpf.

All those things can be done well or badly.  For example, back when I
was in a proper Scrum team, the Scrum Master was just another team
member, who also worked part-time as the team's secretary.  Planning
was Post-It notes on a whiteboard, and so on.

/Jorgen

-- 
  // Jorgen Grahn <grahn@  Oo  o.   .     .
\X/     snipabacken.se>   O  o   .

On 25 Jul 2018 09:54:23 GMT
Jorgen Grahn <grahn...@snipabacken.se> wrote:

> All those things can be done well or badly.  For example, back when I
> was in a proper Scrum team, the Scrum Master was just another team
> member, who also worked part-time as the team's secretary.  Planning
> was Post-It notes on a whiteboard, and so on.

	Sure that's the usual when it's done properly - a variant (when
there are many teams) is that scrum masters do nothing else but they do it
for several teams.

	Even when done properly it can be quite an overhead - especially
with short sprints. One PPOE we had one week sprints but out of that week
the whole team would lose half a day on sprint planning and another half
day on the sprint retrospective as well as five minutes a day in standups,
also part of the team would lose another half day to backlog grooming and
user story prep. So a five person team doing one week sprints only gets
something like 19 person days (two people tied up in grooming and story
polishing) to work in out of the 25 they started with - more than a 25%
overhead.

	Longer sprints have much lower overhead but greater probability of
management interference^W^Wpriority changes during the sprint.

	The sprint planning tends to be the silliest waste of time as
everyone goes through the user stories and votes on the number of story
points for each - typically only one or two people have a really good idea
of the complexity involved (different people for each story of course) and
the rest try and go with the flow and vote accordingly in the planning
poker. After a few sprints the retrospective is also mostly a waste of time
as people get more and more desperate to find "things to start doing",
"things to stop doing", "things to do more of", "things to do less of" and
"what went well" and "what went badly".

	For most projects I prefer the continuous flow model of Kanban to
the artificial pulse beat of sprint.

-- 
Steve O'Hara-Smith                          |   Directable Mirror Arrays
C:\>WIN                                     | A better way to focus the sun
The computer obeys and wins.                |    licences available see
You lose and Bill collects.                 |    http://www.sohara.org/

Ahem A Rivet's Shot <ste...@eircom.net> wrote:
> On 25 Jul 2018 09:54:23 GMT
> Jorgen Grahn <grahn...@snipabacken.se> wrote:
> 
>> All those things can be done well or badly.  For example, back when I
>> was in a proper Scrum team, the Scrum Master was just another team
>> member, who also worked part-time as the team's secretary.  Planning
>> was Post-It notes on a whiteboard, and so on.
> 


My question is, why keep inventing new terminology for something that
successful developers have been doing since the 1960s, at least? It
succeeds in making something simple sound esoteric.

-- 
Pete

On Wed, 2018-07-25, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
> On 25 Jul 2018 09:54:23 GMT
> Jorgen Grahn <grahn...@snipabacken.se> wrote:
>
>> All those things can be done well or badly.  For example, back when I
>> was in a proper Scrum team, the Scrum Master was just another team
>> member, who also worked part-time as the team's secretary.  Planning
>> was Post-It notes on a whiteboard, and so on.
>
> 	Sure that's the usual when it's done properly - a variant (when
> there are many teams) is that scrum masters do nothing else but they do it
> for several teams.

I've been in that scenario, too.  I've no idea if it's kosher, but I
don't like it so much.  The scrum master tends to become more of a
manager, and the team feels less responsible for the scrum stuff.

My first scenario above was 4--5 teams, internal scrum masters, /and/
a guy called an "agile coach".  He helped us with scrum procedures,
and pointed out when we did something stupid, such as running for the
wrong goal.  He also helped resole conflicts in the team (conflicts
seem more common in agile teams).

> 	Even when done properly it can be quite an overhead - especially
> with short sprints. One PPOE we had one week sprints but out of that week
> the whole team would lose half a day on sprint planning and another half
> day on the sprint retrospective as well as five minutes a day in standups,
> also part of the team would lose another half day to backlog grooming and
> user story prep. So a five person team doing one week sprints only gets
> something like 19 person days (two people tied up in grooming and story
> polishing) to work in out of the 25 they started with - more than a 25%
> overhead.

I know what you mean; planning and retrospective can be frustrating.
Especially the time estimation -- although I can understand why
someone would want a believable prognosis.

> 	Longer sprints have much lower overhead but greater probability of
> management interference^W^Wpriority changes during the sprint.
>
> 	The sprint planning tends to be the silliest waste of time as
> everyone goes through the user stories and votes on the number of story
> points for each - typically only one or two people have a really good idea
> of the complexity involved (different people for each story of course) and
> the rest try and go with the flow and vote accordingly in the planning
> poker.

I partly agree (and if you catch me right after such a session, I'd
agree more!). But at least it's a chance to have all team members
"buy" the sprint as a whole and get a feeling for all its contents.

> After a few sprints the retrospective is also mostly a waste of time
> as people get more and more desperate to find "things to start doing",
> "things to stop doing", "things to do more of", "things to do less of" and
> "what went well" and "what went badly".

Perhaps the retrospective can be shortened when nothing exciting is
happening.

The saddest part is going through last sprint's issues and realizing
you haven't done anything about them ... or that all major problems
are outside the team's control.

On the other hand, you can get surprising insights in those sessions,
mostly about what your coworkers silently liked or hated during the
sprint.

> 	For most projects I prefer the continuous flow model of Kanban to
> the artificial pulse beat of sprint.

Personally, I cannot say. I like to have a deadline, but perhaps
Kanban gives you that.  I've been in Kanban-ish situations where noone
noticed if you slipped a week or month, and paradoxically I found that
more stressful -- the nagging suspicion that you were always late.

/Jorgen

-- 
  // Jorgen Grahn <grahn@  Oo  o.   .     .
\X/     snipabacken.se>   O  o   .

On 25 Jul 2018 13:35:07 GMT
Jorgen Grahn <grahn...@snipabacken.se> wrote:

> On Wed, 2018-07-25, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:

> > 	For most projects I prefer the continuous flow model of Kanban
> > to the artificial pulse beat of sprint.
> 
> Personally, I cannot say. I like to have a deadline, but perhaps
> Kanban gives you that.  I've been in Kanban-ish situations where noone
> noticed if you slipped a week or month, and paradoxically I found that
> more stressful -- the nagging suspicion that you were always late.

	Kanban works really well with continuous integration/delivery where
you arrange that you *always* have something deliverable (just after a
release it will be almost identical to the release) and the Kanban board
shows you what's there in the currently available release and what to expect
to land in the coming days.

	Then if you plan a release date say a couple of months down the
line and there's a list of 'must haves' you just make sure they go through
the pipeline first so that when release date rolls round it's just a
question of take what's there or hold for feature X coming in Y days. You
should also know early if the 'must haves' cannot be done in time for the
release.

	This approach is also great when just after the release there's a
crash priority to fix the horrendous bug that the first customer found -
just drop everything else off the board, push the fix through and ship the
resultant release.

-- 
Steve O'Hara-Smith                          |   Directable Mirror Arrays
C:\>WIN                                     | A better way to focus the sun
The computer obeys and wins.                |    licences available see
You lose and Bill collects.                 |    http://www.sohara.org/

Peter Flass <peter...@yahoo.com> writes:
> My question is, why keep inventing new terminology for something that
> successful developers have been doing since the 1960s, at least? It
> succeeds in making something simple sound esoteric.

agile/scrum discovers Col. Boyd and OODA-loop, some refs

Defining an Agile delivery plan with the OODA loop
https://cm.engineering/defining-an-agile-delivery-plan-with-the-ooda-loop-c723b21b4f1c?gi=4a2bd7f330bf
OODA loop
http://wikispeed.org/2016/10/ooda-loop/
How does Boyd's OODA loop compare to the discipline of agile project
management?
https://www.quora.com/How-does-Boyds-OODA-loop-compare-to-the-discipline-of-agile-project-management
What Lessons Can the Agile Community Learnfrom A Maverick Fighter Pilot?
https://www.scribd.com/document/15670827/John-Boyd-Lessons-from-a-fighter-pilot
OODA: The Mindset of Scrum
http://blog.aglx.consulting/2016/02/20/ooda-the-mindset-of-scrum/
John Boyd and the Origins of "Agility"
https://smartbear.com/blog/collaborate/john-boyd-and-the-origins-of-agility/

So, what is Agile?

Agile is a set of principles and values that have come to be employed in
business and computing. But their origin lies in the Korean War, in the
lessons learned and taught by John Boyd.

...

Robert Greene has written that the OODA cycle was "deeply relevant to
any kind of competitive environment: business, politics, sports, even
the struggle of organisms to survive" (February 24, 2007). He's right,
and it's important for those of us involved in agile computing and
related fields to recognize it.

... snip ...

OODA-loop (Boyd, "Father of F16")
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OODA_loop

some scrum/agile will wander into boyd groups at linkedin and/or
facebook. I was originally introduced to Boyd in the early 80s and
would sponsor his briefings at IBM. Boyd Posts and some web URLs
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/subboyd.html

trivia: The first time, I tried to do the briefings through the plant
site employee education ... and initially they agreed. Then as I
supplied more information, they changed their mind. They said that IBM
spends a great deal of money educating managers on dealing with
employees and they viewed exposing general employees to John Boyd
briefings it could be detrimental. They suggested that I limit
attendence at the briefings to senior members of competitive analysis
departments.

... part of long winded post I made yesterday in Boyd group:

In briefings Boyd would talk about former military officers steeped in
rigid, top-down, command&control ... were starting to contaminate US
corporations (however, this was in period when articles started to
appear that MBAs were destroying US companies with their myopic focus on
short term results and financial engineering). He would also talk about
periodic review of large scale war games ... admirals & generals would
spend all year playing golf while their staffs practiced. When it came
time for the game, the admirals&generals had no "finger reel" for war
room information flow (some subsequent analysis that it was a problem
with information overload and how to reduce the information flow to rate
that top people could absorb and make decisions, as opposed to not
sufficiently practiced). However, the corollary to information overload
is decision overload ... both the appropriate information as well as the
appropriate decisions. The issue of decision overload is another way
approaching mission command. Boyd would talk about pushing decisions
down as far as possible to the appropriate level and to the people
closest to the problem.

I've periodically referenced of Boyd would sometimes appear to be
thinking concurrently with both sides of his brain and carrying on
simultaneously different threads in single converstation ... having to
infer which sentence belonging to which thread ... in order to
respond. This gets into studies about how language and vocabulary can
shape/limit how people think ... and the Toyota reference that there
aren't words for what they do
http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/how-toyota-turns-workers-into-problem-solvers

Boyd had coup d'oeil and fingerspitzengefuhl with intuition and instinct
... and plausably 1846 Halleck
http://www.amazon.com/Elements-Instruction-Fortification-Embracing-ebook/dp/B002RKSO9K
loc5019-20: A rapid coup d'oeil prompt decision, active movements, are
as indispensable as sound judgment; for the general must see, and
decide, and act, all in the same instant.

So "see, decide, act" implied only single act and lacked the concept of
a "mental map" which might be static. Boyd needed to impart continuous
operation and also address confirmation/observation bias from a static
"mental map"; needed it to be dynamically updated. So get "OODA-loop"
... where "see" becomes observation and "orientation" (mental map) is
added to decide and act. Problem is still not sufficient; in briefings
he said that needed to constantly observe from every possible facet (to
constantly update "orientation", countermeasure to static "mental map"
and confirmation/observation/orientation bias). Also for most people
"loop" implies sequential, step-by-step and what he really needed was
something that implied not only continuous operation but all parts
running simultaneously and asynchronously.

Along with this is something akin to "mission command" ... transition
for F16 to unstable airframe required "fly by wire" because human no
longer could directly control all the operations needed in real time
... where the "stick" becomes pilot "intent" and "fly by wire" executes
all the operations needed, including compensating for failed/damaged
components. Again there is lack of vocabulary to convey intent being
translated into large number of concurrent and asynchronous activities
that can dynamically adapt.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relaxed_stability
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fly-by-wire
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fly-by-wire#Closed_feedback_loop_control
How the F-16 Became the World's First Fly-By-Wire Combat Aircraft
http://www.f-16.net/articles_article13.html

At 2011 Naval Academy conference there was discussion of military drones
completely eliminating the pilot and "intent" being provided by the
"mission specialist".

So stepping back, simple example of intuition/instinct is "touch typing"
versus "hunt&peck". Lots of "touch typing" teaching was done on
keyboards with no letters to eliminate any "hunt&peck". As computers
evolved from paper typewriters to screens, "menus" appeared. There is
still lots of discussions about "command line" being equivalent to
"touch typing" and menus being crutch equivalent to "hunt&peck". Boyd
needed a concept/word generalization that went beyond specific
actions/contexts, OODA-loop still has the deficiency that "loop" has the
connotation for many of sequential, step-by-step rather than
continuously, asynchronously.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fly-by-wire#Automatic_stability_systems

Also analogous to "touch typing" versus "hunt&peck", there are periodic
discussions about being proficient in computer language ... analogous to
proficiency in natural language ... and even going beyond where the
abstraction has no direct representation. This showed up last decade in
discussion between the CEO of Microsoft and SVP of Intel. M'soft CEO was
telling the Intel SVP that they have to stop doing multi-core chips and
return to single core (increasingly faster) chips because parallel
(concurrent) programming of multiple cores was too hard. Issue is
standard programming languages specify things sequentially, step-by-step
... have to step outside the straight programming language to deal
efficiently with large number of simultaneously and concurrent
operations. The holy grail in dataprocessing for some time has been a
programming language with constructs that efficiently represent
simultaneous and concurrent operations (analogous to intent of stick in
fly-by-wire systems and/or intent in "mission command").

old posts reference m'soft/intel multi-core & parallel programming too
hard:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007i.html#78 John W. Backus, 82, Fortran developer, dies
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2008f.html#42 Panic in Multicore Land
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012e.html#15 Why do people say "the soda loop is often depicted as a simple loop"?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012j.html#44 Monopoly/ Cartons of Punch Cards
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2013.html#48 New HD
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2014d.html#85 Parallel programming may not be so daunting
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2017e.html#52 [CM] What was your first home computer?

-- 
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

On Wed, 2018-07-25, Huge wrote:
> On 2018-07-25, Peter Flass <peter...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> Ahem A Rivet's Shot <ste...@eircom.net> wrote:
>>> On 25 Jul 2018 09:54:23 GMT
>>> Jorgen Grahn <grahn...@snipabacken.se> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> All those things can be done well or badly.  For example, back when I
>>>> was in a proper Scrum team, the Scrum Master was just another team
>>>> member, who also worked part-time as the team's secretary.  Planning
>>>> was Post-It notes on a whiteboard, and so on.
>>
>> My question is, why keep inventing new terminology for something that
>> successful developers have been doing since the 1960s, at least? It
>> succeeds in making something simple sound esoteric.

There are /some/ good reasons: to give it a name and to get attention.

The Agile manifesto, if you go back to that, doesn't obfuscate.

> So people can sell books, training courses, consultancy and so on?

To the extent that this means worse methodologies get replaced,
I'm all for it.

Of course it may also mean having the same people do what they always
did, while also paying lip service to e.g. Scrum.  Then it would be
better to be honest about it and stick with what you have.

> Also, don't forget that everything comes round again, and
> development methodologies are no different. The 60's were a long
> time ago.

/Jorgen

-- 
  // Jorgen Grahn <grahn@  Oo  o.   .     .
\X/     snipabacken.se>   O  o   .

On 25 Jul 2018 14:50:44 GMT, Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> wrote:
>On 2018-07-25, Peter Flass <peter...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>> Ahem A Rivet's Shot <ste...@eircom.net> wrote:
>>> On 25 Jul 2018 09:54:23 GMT
>>> Jorgen Grahn <grahn...@snipabacken.se> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> All those things can be done well or badly.  For example, back when I
>>>> was in a proper Scrum team, the Scrum Master was just another team
>>>> member, who also worked part-time as the team's secretary.  Planning
>>>> was Post-It notes on a whiteboard, and so on.
>>
>> My question is, why keep inventing new terminology for something that
>> successful developers have been doing since the 1960s, at least? It
>> succeeds in making something simple sound esoteric.
>
>So people can sell books, training courses, consultancy and so on? Also, don't
>forget that everything comes round again, and development methodologies are
>no different. The 60's were a long time ago.

More importantly, they can ignore the lessons of the past, make the same
mistakes while claiming that no one could have predicted them, all because "this
time it's different."

On 26 Jul 2018 12:13:21 GMT
Jorgen Grahn <grahn...@snipabacken.se> wrote:

> On Wed, 2018-07-25, Huge wrote:
> > On 2018-07-25, Peter Flass <peter...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >> Ahem A Rivet's Shot <ste...@eircom.net> wrote:
> >>> On 25 Jul 2018 09:54:23 GMT
> >>> Jorgen Grahn <grahn...@snipabacken.se> wrote:
> >>> 
> >>>> All those things can be done well or badly.  For example, back when I
> >>>> was in a proper Scrum team, the Scrum Master was just another team
> >>>> member, who also worked part-time as the team's secretary.  Planning
> >>>> was Post-It notes on a whiteboard, and so on.
> >>
> >> My question is, why keep inventing new terminology for something that
> >> successful developers have been doing since the 1960s, at least? It
> >> succeeds in making something simple sound esoteric.
> 
> There are /some/ good reasons: to give it a name and to get attention.

	Yes but unfortunately with the attention comes a great deal of
formalising and many heed the formalised mechanisms without understanding
the underlying principles. While those successful developers since the
1960s understood and used the principles but I doubt any of them wrote user
stories or played planning poker or did stand-ups.

-- 
Steve O'Hara-Smith                          |   Directable Mirror Arrays
C:\>WIN                                     | A better way to focus the sun
The computer obeys and wins.                |    licences available see
You lose and Bill collects.                 |    http://www.sohara.org/