Kubuntu 11.04 sucks

[sithlord48]

Re: Kubuntu 11.04 sucks

GreyGeek: Thank you for that very impressive read from your friend from the Department of Revenue. Since I am a business graduate, I had some amount of calculus but, his level of math knowledge is impressive. I only read the conclusion and some of his probability section. I want to break it down further later.

I have a different question for you. Why does the KDE organization say one thing concerning the release date of their updates to KDE SC 4.6 from their website, and every month for the last couple of months they have never met the release date? Also, When a new version of libreoffice is released from the libreoffice website, it takes sometimes the Kubuntu website up to a week to get the update posted and in PPA. What are the processes that are at work here?

if i may .. when kde releases stuff its usually in source then developers for each distro have to package and test it for their distro, same with libreoffice and just about any other package you download. thats the short answer

[GreyGeek]

Re: Kubuntu 11.04 sucks

What sithlord says ... and ...

Basically, no living programmer is a divinely inspired prophet who can accurately predict the future. . EVERYONE just gives their best guess. Some are better guessers than others because they minimize the known unknowns. But no one can minimize the unknown unknowns.

I had my own business as a self-employed independent programmer (contractor) for 15 years. When ever I met with a putative client, before I would estimate how much it would cost for my services to solve their problem, the first thing I did was to walk them through their business practices and with them identify every piece of data they collected, every kind of data they generated, along with dummies of all necessary input screens, displays and printed reports, journals, etc. Detail was extremely important. The more the better. Nothing spoils a relationship faster than failing to identify an important piece of data, or misunderstand a business step. Equally important is the documentation and sign off. When I was done creating the documentation I'd require them to check off the items mentioned above, and sign and date the document. I would then sign and date it myself, with the ink of my signature passing over their signatures deliberately. The items identified were usually associated with what are called "milestones", i.e., dates in the future when those items are expected to be completed and ready for testing by the client. I marked a calendar with those dates that hung on the wall in the office of the owner or head clerk.

Those dates of the milestones were guesses I made which were arrived at by considering all that had to be done to create the interfaces, database tables, etc..., knowing from past experience how long it took me to create such items. For example: a single login screen with a name and a password, plus connections to the authentication database would take me two or three minutes from scratch, or 30 seconds to modify one of my standard templates. Then I would take that estimate and multiply by two to arrive at the total time. A window with 4 tabs and 30 controls on each tab would take considerably longer, but adding up the times needed to add the respective controls to the respective tabs on the window would give me a ballpark figure, which I multiplied by two. Adding up all the milestones I could estimate the total time for a project.

Those dates would be written into two copies of the contract, with the documentation appended, which I would present at the meeting where we both would sign both copies, formalizing our agreement at the agreed price. At the time my rates were $120 per day plus travel and living expenses for programming, and $1,000 per day for testifying in court as an expert witness in criminal forensic investigation cases. I determined what days I programmed, when I arrived and when I left. I kept an invoice system of daily hours spent on the job, which the clerk signed and I gave them the carbon copy. I rarely worked at home on a clients software because most of the time I was on the road. The contract was a standard document I created after my first consulting job, which my client took the software I wrote and sold it to another person in the same business. I learned about it because my name an phone number were buried in the software and the individual found that my client couldn't help him so he called me, not knowing what his friend has done. After that, all code was copyrighted by me and the first page of the contract was a Non-Disclosure Agreement which covered the contract, documentation and all written software, with specific exclusions to sell it to a third party. I also identified any technology which I was skilled in before I undertook the contract, retraining all rights to it, and technology of their domain which I had to master to complete the project. That technology, if it was proprietary, remained with them, otherwise it was public knowledge. Example: the California Net Energy System which computes the weight gained by cattle when fed certain feed stocks for a certain number of days. I wrote Cattle Feedlot programs which used that mathematical model, which most feedlots used, but was public domain. I wrote it once and incorporated it into programs used by several feedlots.

I had written a template accounting system (COFA-gl,gj, AP, AR-inv,cus,invorice, Payroll) utilizing Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), which cannot be patented, which I usually customized it to fit a client's needs. But, how I customized my template depended on the document I generated during my walk-through with them. I never took longer to generate a complete system than I estimated in a contract, but I never took less than half the time I estimated either. As always, even trying to document everything you possible can, sometimes well into the project they realize they forgot something, or mis-explained something, and you realize that something additional needs to be done,

So, Ronnowoy, you can see the difficulty writing a project where there is one programmer and one client.

BUT, what if the project had several thousands or millions of "clients", broken into two or more "camps" where each camp had its own ideas as to what the application should look like, and what it should do, and how it should do it, and when it should be ready? Which camp should the programmer listen to, especially if the requirements of the two camps were diametrically apposed? Fork? What if millions of the "clients" didn't know exactly what the project should do, or thought it did something else? What if they tried to run it on a machine that wasn't capable enough to do so, even when the documentation, which they never read, told them it wasn't advisable to do so? Or, perhaps a couple hundred, or even less, are poisonous users, whose attitude is "my way or I do my best to kill the project"? What if these users think that they don't have an obligation to post a useful, detailed bug report on a specific well identified website, but all programmers should spend every waking hour perusing this and other forums and blogs to weed out helpful comments about their software and how it is working from rants and ad hominem attacks.

And, what if, instead of one programmer, the project had a two, or three, or a dozen or (in the case of the Linux kernel) 5,000 programmers working on it? Have you ever herded two herds of cats? What if a project had 30 programmers working on it with skills that ranged from novice to seasoned guru with 40 years experience, but three of them were psychotic paranoids, or megalomaniacs? Or, the project lead killed his wife and tried to blame it on his best friend and the best man at his wedding, setting back the project or killing it altogether? And, what if very few users posted valid bug reports on bugzillas, but several of them ranted all the time in every forum they could find, hoping that by attacking the software and the developer they could force the developer into doing things their way, or kill the project because the discouraged developer quits. After all, why should he put up with this stuff if he is volunteering his time, machine and perhaps even a server?

Now, on top of all of that, consider that the better projects have excellent coders, an excellent lead programmer, a good project time line and some people who help in other ways besides coding. There are few poisonous users and bug reports are sufficient and timely? Still, not all users will agree with every decision the lead programmer makes, nor will all the programmers working under him or her. But, his leadership skills guide the project to meet most deadlines for project parts, except one. The coder responsible for that part of the project lost his job and had to drop out to find work, or her husband was sent to foreign countries to fight and she lost her concentration, or -fill in your own disaster.

Life is messier than many people realize. I doubt that they taught you this in business school.

[ronnowoy]

Re: Kubuntu 11.04 sucks

So, Ronnowoy, you can see the difficulty writing a project where there is one programmer and one client.

BUT, what if the project had several thousands or millions of "clients", broken into two or more "camps" where each camp had its own ideas as to what the application should look like, and what it should do, and how it should do it, and when it should be ready?

GreyGeek: Point taken. :-X Unfortunately, so many of us business grads like certainty not uncertainty.

Life is messier than many people realize. I doubt that they taught you this in business school.

Actually, Business School attempted to take real world situations into the upper level courses. The basic lower level courses were more concerned about us getting the basic economic concepts of supply and demand, scarcity, elasticity and in-elasticity. Believe it or not, the university had many simulations to real world business economic markets but still, they were simulations. Life is messy but, people still expect un-messy.

[GreyGeek]

Re: Kubuntu 11.04 sucks

My biggest problem with Economists, Business schools and MBAs is that they seem to think that the physical world obeys their economic theories. Thus, there will always be oil available in what ever quantity we need, because the more we need the more the market will make sure we'll find (a statement made to me by a PhD economist).

[dequire]

Re: Kubuntu 11.04 sucks

Given all of the facts in this discussion, the fact that GNU-Linux survives and now exponentially thrives, is in itself a stand-alone testament for why it NEEDS to exist. I'm at once proud, privileged, and honored to be a part of it all.

[erigais]

Re: Kubuntu 11.04 sucks

for petes sake please stop posting in this thread and let it die, it makes me so sad to see it one of the top viewed and replied threads in the forums. especially since 80% of the talk in here has nothing to do with kubuntu sucking(which it doesnt!). I hope this post is the last, and if you want to reply to this post, please put it in a new thread.

[claydoh]

Re: Kubuntu 11.04 sucks

Mark it [SOLVED] hehe

[Linkmaster]

Re: Kubuntu 11.04 sucks

I've been following this thread since it was first started, and I've learned more from the thread then from anything else I've seen. GreyGeek and ronnoway have had a very good, clean debate, and I look forward to the others response when one posts. Its quite a learning experience, especially reading some of the citations and links

[MoonRise]

Re: Kubuntu 11.04 sucks

I've been following this thread since it was first started, and I've learned more from the thread then from anything else I've seen. GreyGeek and ronnoway have had a very good, clean debate, and I look forward to the others response when one posts. Its quite a learning experience, especially reading some of the citations and links

I +1 this. GG and RonNo have done an excellent job and at least gives hope that others can do as well.

[GreyGeek]

Re: Kubuntu 11.04 sucks

......

Life is messier than many people realize. I doubt that they taught you this in business school.

Actually, Business School attempted to take real world situations into the upper level courses. The basic lower level courses were more concerned about us getting the basic economic concepts of supply and demand, scarcity, elasticity and in-elasticity. Believe it or not, the university had many simulations to real world business economic markets but still, they were simulations. Life is messy but, people still expect un-messy.

I mentioned the "messy" part because during my 15 years as an self-employed computer consult I would estimate that fully 2/3rds of those who asked me to prepare a computerization plan took me "aside" and asked, most of the time in a "diplomatic" way, if I could write a second set of books -- "You know, a private set that 'cuts to the chase' and give me a quick bottom line". Few actually came out and said, "I want a set of books that I can show to the IRS and I want a set of books that tell me what my REAL income is -- can you do that?". My answer was "No. That's illegal". Their response was "Sorry, we can't do business with each other". They paid for my analysis and I left. Of the third that didn't want dirty books probably half would attempt to cherry pick my analysis, which I quickly learned to charge them for if I didn't get the contract, and hire some high school kid or other noob on the cheap. On several of those occasions I was called in after a few months to try and repair or recover what had been attempted.

In one instance a guy who presented a competitive bid (his was $5K for 3 months work, mine was $15K) was using a pirated copy of Peach Tree Accounting software, which was written in interpretive BASIC but didn't come with documentation. At that time that package cost $1,500 for a big 5 GAAP set. He was expecting to be done in a month and pocket $5K. That "programmer" though he could take the source, modify some variable assignments and get them up and running. It turned out that all of the variables were in a 2 dimensional string array of several hundred elements. One element would hold the printer port assignment (LPT1: or LPT2: or COM3:, etc) and another would hold the name of the printer, another the port call for the printer. Many held chart of account names and others held the chart of account numbers, but they weren't always "var[i,j]='AP VISA CC'" and var[i,j+1]='5001021'", i.e., the key,value combination were not adjacent. When they called me up they were in a desperate situation. The guy stopped showing up, they had been doing invoices and inventory by hand, and payroll was 3 days late. They "just need a payroll right now". I installed my GAAP system, entered their chart of accounts, showed the clerks how to enter the employee info, and print the checks. I couldn't be there the day they printed the checks but I'd show them how to post the payroll info to the general journal for later posting to the general ledger when the business period closed. The printing went off without a hitch. When I returned the day after they asked me to computerize their entire business operation. I also taught them about networks and put up one of the first Novell networks in Nebraska in their plant. They filed a complaint with the country attorney against that guy and the company he supposedly worked for.

Later, while I was computerizing a small college residing in the same town, the county attorney asked me to evaluate the computers, software and hardware that that company had installed, because of what they did to that factory I computerized, to handle auto registration and drivers licenses. They were charging 3X the market price for line printers, and 1/3rd of the printer's price as a "maintenance fee". They had a installed couple of low end Japanese versions of PDP-11s, at twice market value, running COBOL and being backed up by tape drives, except that the back up software could not roll over to a second tape if the first one filled up, so, they never had a complete backup of the system. For office software that company had installed pirated copies of the old "Saturn" word process-spreadsheet application, which would run on that kind of hybrid hardware and software, "until they were able to install the real WP stuff" --- which time never arrived. The business office manager at that small college was also on the town board, and was friends with the owner of that business which defrauded so many people. When I came back from the meeting with the county attorney he intercepted me in the parking lot and tried to find out what the CA wanted and what I said, and also "vouched" for that company. I suspect he "vouched" for the company at the town board meetings and probably shared in the illegal profits. Later, during the computerization of the college I found a discrepancy of over $100,000 between the monies reported as received in the development office and that reported by the business office ledger. I reported it to the VP, expecting him to report it to the Pres. I thought that both the VP and Pres were dirty. I learned later that the VP never told the Pres. One day a student walked up to me and said my software stunk. I asked him why? He said that he couldn't get his student work study check because of problems with my software, according to what the business manager told him and other students. Knowing that the same program which printed the faculty checks earlier in the day also printed the students checks I walked over to the business office and asked why they were spreading disinformation like that? He arranged to show me the problem later that afternoon in his office. So, I took another computer to that office and attached it to the network and ran "BrightWorks" on it, a Network remote access program that allowed me to watch the screen of any computer or operate it remotely. At the meeting he took a set of account numbers and entered some values and make a posting. After a wait of a couple minutes he said "now look" and put up a screen display of the posted info. Sure enough, the values were different from what was entered. I asked him to re-enter the values and while he did it I did a fast scan of all the workstations what were accessing those files. Only two showed up. The other one was in an office adjacent to the one we were in. I knew the name of the gal who was setting at that work station. I called the business manager over to the computer running "BrightWorks" and asked how it was that she would know which of the couple hundred chart of accounts in that enterprise accounting system to modify, and more importantly, when? The jig was up. I knew it and he knew it. And he knew that I knew he was a liar. He huffed and marched out of the room. That was about 1 pm. The kids got their paychecks that afternoon before 5 pm. I suspect the guy was kiting money for personal profit and didn't want to meet student payroll until he had maximized his profits. After that I started monitoring the network packets for my name or the world "computer", which I kept a printed copy of. Other members of that VP & business manager's gang, which included some maintenance staff and faculty members, sabotaged some of the machines at various times, or attempted to corrupt files info. They never understood how I had the system set up to instantly mirror new data in redundant servers so that when the need arose I could undo their work in a few moments. They never knew that I always knew in advance, after that payroll fiasco, what they were going to do before they did it. Without that surveillance I would have never been able to finish the computerization of the school. Did I mention that the small college was a "Christian" college?

Life can be more than messy ...

[de_koraco]

Re: Kubuntu 11.04 sucks

Guys, this is for all of you
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ux33sSnSYfw

[GreyGeek]

Re: Kubuntu 11.04 sucks

The two in the middle carry them all!

[ronnowoy]

Re: Kubuntu 11.04 sucks

Wow! Some very musical girls. GG: yeah, the two in the middle.

[claydoh]

Re: Kubuntu 11.04 sucks

now if you watch or listen to more of their songs, they are all multi-talented and utterly fantastic! I am now a fan.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aswXK...0SsvfKzIpDaBrg

[de_koraco]

Re: Kubuntu 11.04 sucks

You should see them live!