Comments for Bob on Development

Comment on Software — Cheap! by Schanie

Schanie — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 02:48:29 +0000

Your observation “Average person- no longer values software” hits the bull’s eye regarding the current scenario in application software. Years back before the internet era, I was writing application code, I got the same impression and worked on developing a methodology for writing application code. The result was the most compact mini-ERP software that had the flexibility to prototype and convert the prototype into a full working system. Due to poor software value awareness, I dropped the further development. But I believe, the application software, the buyers and the users are continue to be mysterious – always demanding.

Comment on What PayPal, eBay and UPS Can Teach Us About How NOT to Treat Online Customers by trianiultaspipt

trianiultaspipt — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 19:13:44 +0000

hello it is test. WinRAR provides the full RAR and ZIP file support, can decompress CAB, GZIP, ACE and other archive formats.
fcfxdxccqvszcusxjszrotiotvxthspsmodhello

Comment on Do You Use Language-Specific Features That Replicate provided .NET functionality? by Mindy

Mindy — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 19:09:45 +0000

I use both. For me, Right(Mystring,3) is far more natural than mystring.substring(mystring.length-3,3). And more concise. That last bit has to annoy the c++ & c# guys

Will VS2008 let me extend the string object to include a Right method? MyString.right(3) ?

Comment on Scrum: Putting a Name on Intelligent Development Practice by dell notebook pc tablet

dell notebook pc tablet — Thu, 17 Jan 2008 02:24:14 +0000

Reading Intel’s Tea Leaves for

A lot of the speculation has focused on Apple’s apparent plan to introduce a small notebook computer, and I think

Comment on Software — Cheap! by malleswararao

malleswararao — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 10:03:21 +0000

how can i earn money

Comment on Windows Vista: Wait for SP1 (at least) by Bob On Development » Windows PowerShell

Bob On Development » Windows PowerShell — Fri, 13 Apr 2007 02:05:43 +0000

[...] it’s reassuring in light of some of the recent train wrecks to come out of Microsoft (e.g., Vista) that they can still produce great, innovative and useful tools like this. [...]

Comment on Getting Your Feet Wet With VMWare by Inez Wells

Inez Wells — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 22:39:03 +0000

This blog is really superb!!! Thank you for you work! Good Luck.

Comment on Do You Use Language-Specific Features That Replicate provided .NET functionality? by Carl Martin

Carl Martin — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 05:30:02 +0000

Some interesting thoughts on an age-old problem. I’m currently learning Spanish (again), hopefully all the way to fluency. I had a choice whether or not to learn the Spanish of Spain or of Latin America. But even in Latin America, there are differences. Whether it is in the learning of programming languages or spoken languages, the bottom line would seem to be, whatever works for a given situation. I have a friend in Buenos Aires, and there they speak with some notable differences for the common construct “you are” — “tú eres” in most of the Spanish speaking world, becomes “sos vos” in the River Plate (Buenos Aires, Uruguay, Paraguay) and Central America regions.

You made some good points regarding legacy versus non-legacy concerns. In the world of languages, “whatever works” perhaps needs also to be tempered with an eye on the growing trends. All too often, though, both would benefit from a good crystal ball.

Comment on Software — Cheap! by Software Made Simple

Software Made Simple — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 04:24:35 +0000

[...] Software — Cheap (Bob on Software) [...]

Comment on Software — Cheap! by Nico

Nico — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 19:01:45 +0000

I know a guy that made money from Rentacoder. He took those “made me the moon for $200″ requests and completed them in a couple of hours. How? He knows how to understand the requests properly, not literally. He uses Delphi, C# and VB, and uses very high-level open source components. He has a repository of code and documentation to cover inmediately common-tasks. He lives in Spain, that’s cheaper to live than USA or UK, but much more expensive than India or the east of Europe. I confess that I couldn’t have done the same work, but I’ve seen him in action, and the result is happy customers.

I don’t understand why you think that software cost can’t be measured or foreseen. I work for a consultancy firm. We do it all the time and it works.

Bob replies: Hi, Rico, and thanks for commenting. I am a consultancy, and I also do it all the time and it works — for a given value of “works”, anyway. The problem is not so much estimating time as what the estimate is based upon. I tend to work with small companies with very specialized problem domains and often they have difficulty articulating what they want. Sometimes various stakeholders disagree on requirements and these disagreements are not always exposed right away. I also encounter a fair amount of scope creep in the form of statements of fact that turn out to be fancy, not to mention the constant churn of changing business requirements. Given that, I generally steer away from clients who want flat or capped pricing, because such clients generally don’t have the commitment to the project to “go the distance” and work through the various adjustments along the way. One of these days I will post more about that. Rest assured I’m not suggesting that you can’t come up with a reasonable estimate at any point in time; but for any non-trivial project it needs to be understood that this is subject to change and refinement because one cannot do 100% of discovery up front in the real world.