The Crapolla According to Fek'Lar

You Know You're DOOMED When...

You realize all your friends are happier than you, then you remember they're all on anti-depressants - and you're not.

You've stumbled onto another issue of The Crapolla, a journal written for software professionals. No not the managers; I mean the people who do the work.

This Crapolla is sponsored by...

In This Issue...

The tornado hits the trailer, and one of your letters.

How is it in the Tornado?

Many moons ago, I worked at a little start up company that was acquired by a larger startup company. The larger company had a plan. A book entitled Inside The Tornado: Marketing Strategies from Silicon Valley's Cutting Edge, by Geoffrey A. Moore described a strategy that reportedly would ensure we grabbed market dominance. The entire company was told to read the book, because that was what we were going to do. This two part strategy, which in a nutshell said to "Just ship it irregardless of quality, we'll fix it later" did work. The larger company was Netscape, and Navigator became the new killer app.

The problem with this strategy is you can't do part one for very long. In fact, the book says you shouldn't. While doing part one of the strategy, you ignore customers' needs. They'll call up begging for answers or a build that actually launches. They'll tell you their job depends on this. You'll just turn a deaf ear to this. Tech Support will get one big group Valium given to them at every staff meeting. ("Four out of five of you have quit. So as you can see from this pretty chart that means we have an attrition rate of 2%.") You just keep shipping new versions, and you don't worry about the bugs. They will just give you worry lines. Then when you have market dominance part two comes in. You slow down and you do pay attention to the customer and you start to ship really good quality stuff. Tech Support finally relaxes that sphinchter. There's a flaw in this strategy, the "tornado" hit the trailer park where JavaScript lives.

As I said, Navigator became the new killer app. That means even the press woke up and noticed it. People didn't have a connection to the internet; they had "Netscape". They didn't even know really what the internet was. They did know what "Netscape" was. This is all fine and dandy. Netscape delivered many million copies of Navigator to consumers. Many, many different versions of Navigator meant many, many different sets of bugs. Hell even the bugs weren't compatible.

LiveScript was born in Navigator 2.0 and would later go on to become JavaScript. It started out as a simple scripting language that would let you enhance the HTML in your web page. In fact, if you're writing a page with a form in it, a little bit of this language can really make that page sparkle. JavaScript continued to evolve and be enhanced as the many many versions of Navigator rolled off the many many T-3 lines beneath East Middlefield Road.

Many, many versions, each with a different set of bugs - in the JavaScript interpreter. Woe are we who would consider using the language for it's more advanced functions. You can write a fairly involved application in JavaScript, but you do so at your peril. The problem with the strategy of the "tornado" book was it assumes everyone will get every upgrade, virtual DDT would kill all the bugs when you got to part two of the strategy. Not so during the Browser Wars. People got pissed off with Netscape's "You have a bug? Try our newest unsupported beta and see if it works" answer. When people found a version whose bugs they could live with, they never upgraded again.

Every single version of Navigator is still in use today. The older a version of Navigator, the fewer copies of them there are in circulation. But every version still exists. This means you would have to be really stupid (see letter below) to deploy a very involved JavaScript application on the world wide web. One version of the browser is going to work while another may not. When it doesn't work, the person using your application might get an ugly pop up window telling you that something wasn't defined just so. Not that the user has any idea what the pop up is talking about. The programmer just looks like an idiot at this point.

Unfortunately, the only time JavaScript makes sense is on private networks where IS has an iron handle over versions of browsers. How many of you get to work in that environment? What's the moral of this story? Well as the old joke goes (which I don't claim to have written), being "Inside the Tornado" is like marriage. In the beginning there's a lot of sucking & blowing, but in the end, someone always loses their trailer.

The Crapolla Mailbag

Dear Mr. FekLar,

I've noticed that all the managers in my department are losing their hair. My manager is beginning to look like a bald white monkey. Is management hazardous to one's health?

Sincerely,

Harry in Cube 64

Dear Harry,

Just speaking to your manager can be hazardous to your health. (Just look at all the people around you going out on Section 8 disability.)

Assuming you really meant "does becoming a manager create health risks such as hair loss?" Quite the opposite really.

The reason people have hair on their head is to keep the brain warm. As people lose hair, their brain begins to cool and slow down. To compensate for the evolutionary disadvantage of slower brain functions, evolution has created the hierarchy. This began by establishing tribal elders, and then the Pharaohs, Phd's, etc. As the individual's brain slows, they move up along the hiererarchy ladder. Persons with particularly slow brains become members of Congress.

Hair loss is not the only cause of brain slowing, or as it's more commonly known, stupidity. Meetings are very hazardous to brain cells. Go to any meeting and watch the IQ's drop. The trouble is while you're watching their IQ slide to the basement, they're doing the same to you. I always show up late, then sit next to the door and leave early. Meetings are like drinking Everclear, moderation is important.

You might be wondering why we promote the stupid and give them more money. Again, this is not a reward system. Society needs to invest more resources in the stupid so they don't die off. Your manager is spending a fortune calling tow trucks to open the car door because he's always leaving the keys in the ignition. These idiots aren't just losing their hair, but everything else. We also tend to want to lump these folks together, making it easier to keep track of the stupid. We call these institutions BMW Dealers and Country Clubs.

I've noticed a couple of perfectly healthy thinkers attempting to imitate the stupid attempting to get a raise. They lose their wallet and spend the morning calling people to replace everything. Trouble is this ability to replace the contents betrays their intelligence to the world. These people never move up the hierarchy ladder. The system works.

Rest assured, Harry. Your manager's health is not in danger. But the next time he gets a promotion, you'll understand it's because he's a few sandwiches short of a full picnic basket.

Let's play, "Who said this?"

Heard in the halls of various software companies.

"I'm so glad I don't have a job!"

"Thank you for generating a large file with no data, now go back and generate a large file with data in it."

"This whole move to Belgium would be a whole lot easier if it were over."

"As always, I'm at your service."

"When you're on anti-depressants, it's much easier to aim a gun!"

Excuse Me

I have to onBlur="submit()" something.

Fek'Lar
(Destroyer of Laptops - Morale Officer - The Last Honest Geek)

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