2023-08-11 01:41:44 <siesta      > i think i did it guys but its complicated https://tinyurl.com/TongitsArrange2
2023-08-11 01:42:05 <siesta      > its works corectly as i check
2023-08-11 01:42:47 <siesta      > can someone teach me some simple TDD techniques
2023-08-11 01:43:06 <siesta      > so i can test that code
2023-08-11 06:08:10 <crc         > for TDD, tests should be written before writing the code being tested
2023-08-11 06:09:32 <crc         > You would need to write functions to test each of the functions being tested
2023-08-11 06:09:57 <crc         > then provide a variety of inputs, and check to make sure the functions are returning correct results
2023-08-11 06:11:14 <crc         > I'd also check some invalid inputs, to make sure the returned results are as expected
2023-08-11 06:12:32 <crc         > refactor & rewrite the functions being tested until they pass
2023-08-11 06:13:01 <unjust      > looks like siesta quit about an hour ago
2023-08-11 06:25:31 <crc         > it'll be in the logs if he reads them :)
2023-08-11 06:26:35 <xelxebar    > crc: IMHO, TDD with unit tests is mostly useless. E2E tests, however, immediatly force architecture design decisions on you and also document those decisions in code.
2023-08-11 06:27:43 <unjust      > what are E2E tests?
2023-08-11 06:28:16 <veltas      > thrig: syntax off doesn't stop colour, there's loads of stuff that's coloured other ways, also other features like underline etc
2023-08-11 06:28:23 <veltas      > It just looks a lot 'neater' in VT100
2023-08-11 06:30:00 <crc         > e2e is end to end, looking at testing the program as a complete thing, as opposed to testing the individual functions in isolation
2023-08-11 06:30:22 <veltas      > I think good testing involves both
2023-08-11 06:31:15 <veltas      > Unit testing is really useful to catch most things up front, E2E helps confirm it's actually *working* if not
2023-08-11 06:34:31 <veltas      > The forth approach involves a lot of testing of individual functions to confirm they're working
2023-08-11 06:34:45 <veltas      > And it's quite easy to develop simple unit testing for words
2023-08-11 06:35:31 <veltas      > If your words are properly designed, simple, and pass their tests, it gives a lot of confidence that things are working
2023-08-11 06:39:05 <crc         > siesta: http://forth.chat/logs/libera/forth/2023-08-11 for some logged discussion relating to your question
2023-08-11 06:53:27 <veltas      > The big question about testing is really how much is appropriate, and I believe that really depends
2023-08-11 06:54:13 <veltas      > Unit testing, integration testing etc is good in my opinion, but it might be inappropriate depending on business needs
2023-08-11 06:54:37 <veltas      > Skilled debugging might be more appropriate than test driven development
2023-08-11 06:55:11 <veltas      > It's hard to know but usually I think it's 'known' by different industries how much testing is appropriate for different kinds of projects
2023-08-11 06:55:32 <veltas      > Certainly in my industry the full range is visible, things that demand little or no testing to things that need to be fully flight certified
2023-08-11 06:56:36 <veltas      > It depends on how quickly you need to develop, the risk associated with bugs, and also what kind of project it is. Test driven development will *save time* depending on the project
2023-08-11 07:03:08 <next4th     > yeah, when tests are failing, you have to figure out whose problems (env, tests or product) fun experience :\
2023-08-11 08:32:21 <KipIngram   > And there is almost always "finger pointing" in that process.  Everyone just has a really deep desire for it to be someone else's issue.
2023-08-11 08:45:18 <veltas      > I don't think that's true, not for me anyway
2023-08-11 09:11:36 <veltas      > If anyone remembers I was thinking about writing PDF generation in Forth
2023-08-11 09:12:00 <veltas      > My logic for this was that PDF is no essentially the 'printer format', so if you want to print typeset documents, or share that online, you need PDF
2023-08-11 09:12:07 <veltas      > now* essentially
2023-08-11 09:12:33 <veltas      > But thinking about it, you can generate a bitmap, and then you have control over the whole stack
2023-08-11 09:13:09 <veltas      > And that's more Forthy really, because using a 'smart printer' that understands PDF or postscript isn't too Forth (yes I know postscript is stack-based, it's still not very forthy)
2023-08-11 09:14:14 <veltas      > You 'just' need to render text, but initially it's not hard to render simple things, like bitmap fonts, and it might be practical to come up with a subset of modern vector font primitives to use for your own Forthy renderer
2023-08-11 09:14:30 <veltas      > Well text and vector graphics, you'll always need vector graphics
2023-08-11 09:15:02 <veltas      > And if you want to print this then you'll scale it up to 600DPI or so
2023-08-11 09:15:48 <veltas      > Writing something that converts and compresses a bitmap to PDF is easier than changing your entire stack to support PDF, truetype fonts, etc
2023-08-11 09:16:42 <veltas      > And whenever you have opportunity to reinvent the wheel in Forth, you take it :)
2023-08-11 09:20:46 <next4th     > render fonts seems cool, and this library https://gitlab.com/bztsrc/scalable-font2,  i wanted to write a simple VT100/xterm emulator with a custom simple font rendering, haven't start coding it yet..
2023-08-11 09:24:46 <KipIngram   > I see it all the time in my environment.
2023-08-11 09:25:08 <KipIngram   > But maybe I shouldn't say it's a "common" behavior - maybe it's just that I work with a weird bunch of guys.
2023-08-11 09:25:36 <KipIngram   > Obviously I'm referring to problems that are in their "mysterious and unexplained" phase.
2023-08-11 09:26:59 <KipIngram   > In my office we've got the guys that develop the solid state drives themselves, and over in Hursley England there's the crew that develops the system level controller software for the boxes the drives go in.
2023-08-11 09:27:12 <KipIngram   > There's constantly finger pointing between those groups.
2023-08-11 09:29:53 <KipIngram   > I agree that printing via bitmap is more Forth-like.
2023-08-11 09:30:18 <KipIngram   > But then you will be writing printer drivers for the rest of your life, most likely.
2023-08-11 09:30:38 <KipIngram   > Chuck's philosophy is just decidedly "non-portable."
2023-08-11 09:30:59 <KipIngram   > He's pretty overt about it.  Solve the problem that's in front of you and nothing more.
2023-08-11 09:31:39 <next4th     > haven't study gcode (for 3d printer), maybe that's easier to be replaced by Forth
2023-08-11 09:31:41 <KipIngram   > A good question would be why printers don't expose a bitmap api.
2023-08-11 09:32:07 <next4th     > write 3d printer firmware to speak forth over serial
2023-08-11 09:32:09 <KipIngram   > It seems like the most obvious first thing to offer.
2023-08-11 09:33:38 <KipIngram   > veltas: Given the state of the world I tend to agree with you about pdf - it has almost become a "universal format."
2023-08-11 09:34:14 <veltas      > As I said, you can convert bitmap to PDF
2023-08-11 09:34:20 <veltas      > That's your "modern printer driver"
2023-08-11 09:34:26 <KipIngram   > I only very recently (in the last few weeks) got into the business of creating my own PDFs.  I found a Python package that does a good job of it.
2023-08-11 09:34:33 <veltas      > And they don't compress *too* badly either
2023-08-11 09:34:49 <veltas      > Yeah I've used that Python package, it's alright
2023-08-11 09:34:55 <KipIngram   > True, though that good compression seems to be optional.  I've seen some very big pdfs over the years.
2023-08-11 09:35:05 <veltas      > Yes it's optional
2023-08-11 09:35:33 <veltas      > It's sort of per-blob in the PDF, you can choose to compress most of the content but it's not required and can be enabled/disabled throughout
2023-08-11 09:35:43 <veltas      > Most PDF output will probably be compressed these days
2023-08-11 09:36:02 <veltas      > But there are some older PDF exporters that probably don't or can't
2023-08-11 09:36:03 <KipIngram   > The one I used was PDFPages; it's part of matplotlib.backends.
2023-08-11 09:36:24 <KipIngram   > My output is pretty "graph heavy."
2023-08-11 09:37:15 <veltas      > That Python package was one of the things I looked at to try and decide feasibility of writing PDF output in Forth
2023-08-11 09:37:27 <veltas      > Because it was easier to read than the PDF spec
2023-08-11 09:37:34 <KipIngram   > :-)
2023-08-11 09:37:38 <veltas      > I'm lazy like that
2023-08-11 09:38:13 <veltas      > But you can't argue with the simplicity of a bitmap format verses all of this
2023-08-11 09:39:14 <KipIngram   > no, you can't.  After all, that's what a printed piece of paper *is* - a 2D array of dots.
2023-08-11 09:39:35 <veltas      > Or at least can be represented with it
2023-08-11 09:39:47 <KipIngram   > I found that Apple's TrueType specification had some fairly informative stuff in it.
2023-08-11 09:40:07 <KipIngram   > At least it was good grounding in some of the issues you encounter when trying to make fonts look good printed.
2023-08-11 09:40:45 <KipIngram   > A lot of scaling stuff - how to be able to make the result look good regardless of the font size you chose.
2023-08-11 09:41:16 <veltas      > Yes but overly complicated
2023-08-11 09:41:28 <veltas      > If you think about it, it's interesting that we want the same fonts on screen as we get on paper
2023-08-11 09:41:40 <veltas      > It's sort of scope creep
2023-08-11 09:42:06 <veltas      > It's only necessary for WYSIWYG editors (and actually they work better without font hinting!)
2023-08-11 09:42:30 <veltas      > What looks good on your average screen doesn't look good on paper, usually
2023-08-11 09:42:33 <veltas      > Or on a high DPI screen
2023-08-11 09:42:38 <KipIngram   > It is quite complicated.  The whole thing would probaby go over to Forth pretty well, though - I think it actually uses a stack system, and the printable documents do contain "commands" that drive scaling transformations and so on.
2023-08-11 09:43:00 <veltas      > Deja Vu Sans Mono looks good to me at a low resolution, it looks like garbage on high DPI screens though (to me, highly subjective)
2023-08-11 09:43:42 <veltas      > Hinting has no impact on high DPI screens so "in future" it will be an inherently archaic concept
2023-08-11 09:43:47 <KipIngram   > Yeah, but it's important subjectivity.  It's a bit like how fiction writers aren't supposed to "jar you out of immersion."  Same with a printed page - ideally you don't have print artifacts "grab your attention."
2023-08-11 09:44:22 <KipIngram   > You want to be involved with the information content, not how it looks.
2023-08-11 09:45:29 <veltas      > There are some concepts which are necessary complications, like pair kerning and ligatures
2023-08-11 09:46:14 <KipIngram   > I never really did more than skim it, but I believe you.
2023-08-11 09:46:25 <veltas      > Which are quite fundamental basic things that lots of print shops don't know anything about for some reason
2023-08-11 09:46:39 <veltas      > kerning is how some letters need to be drawn nearer or further away from each other to look right
2023-08-11 09:47:20 <veltas      > And ligatures are alternative drawings of some combinations of glyphs that do stuff like join lines together or otherwise make them prettier in practice
2023-08-11 09:47:49 <veltas      > Without kerning or ligatures you end up with a lot of 'crap' on your page, that looks like a mistake or some kind of digital error
2023-08-11 09:47:51 <KipIngram   > I imagine the printing industry has experienced similar "technology effects" as, say, the music business.  Go buy a bunch of equipment and hang out your shingle.  Like all the kids that want to be musicians but really only know how to fly some software.  Don't really know MUSIC.
2023-08-11 09:48:45 <KipIngram   > Back when I worked for the University of Texas, our research shop had a couple of guys who specialized in graphic design.  They did all of our presentations, our posters for conventions, and so on.
2023-08-11 09:49:06 <KipIngram   > I haven't seen a group like that in years - these days we're all expected to be adept enough at PowerPoint to do all that ourselves.
2023-08-11 09:49:08 <veltas      > Kerning and ligatures in fonts are about as old as movable font
2023-08-11 09:49:15 <veltas      > So like 500+ years old
2023-08-11 09:49:27 <KipIngram   > But none of us, for the most part, really know that trade the way those guys did.
2023-08-11 09:49:52 <veltas      > Yeah very true
2023-08-11 09:50:07 <veltas      > I like to think though that if I write my own typography stuff I can put the PowerPoint people to shame
2023-08-11 09:50:45 <KipIngram   > Nice.  I can't - I pretty much hate having to do PowerPoints.  It always exposes how amateur I am.
2023-08-11 09:51:04 <veltas      > Just keep it simple
2023-08-11 09:51:08 <veltas      > Or use beamer
2023-08-11 09:51:10 <KipIngram   > Oh yes.
2023-08-11 09:51:22 <KipIngram   > Re: "simple" - I haven't ever tried Beamer.
2023-08-11 09:53:28 <veltas      > Have you tried https://tools.suckless.org/sent/
2023-08-11 10:12:39 <KipIngram   > No, but that looks interesting for "crunches."
2023-08-11 10:14:53 <KipIngram   > Looks like one shortcoming is inability to mix text and images on the same slide, unless you embed it in the image.
2023-08-11 10:15:28 <KipIngram   > That might be a fairly severe limitation for the sort of simple slide decks I normally make.
2023-08-11 10:15:44 <KipIngram   > But I tend to be a fan of "simple things."
2023-08-11 10:23:47 <veltas      > I was doing alright today until I read this https://www.marktarver.com/bipolar.html
2023-08-11 10:48:00 <KipIngram   > Well, I think both brilliance and abject failure (in specific cases) comes from having the daring and audacity to "go for it."  To not spend all your time playing it safe - safety leads to mediocrity.  And humans are fallible.  If you "go for it" and get it right - you're brilliant.  If you go for it and get it wrong, you've abjectly failed.
2023-08-11 10:48:11 <KipIngram   > The cliche "Nothing ventured, nothing gained" comes to mind.
2023-08-11 10:48:44 <KipIngram   > Working without a net.  We have lots of phrases that get at this general idea.
2023-08-11 10:49:37 <KipIngram   > I think it's a good trait to have, in moderation.  Have none of it at all and you likely won't ever stand out very much.
2023-08-11 10:50:07 <thrig       > there will be less Beethovens if w'all stick to a rut
2023-08-11 10:51:23 <KipIngram   > "He'll pick up on a task and work frantically at it, accomplishing wonders in a short time and then get bored and drop it before its properly finished."
2023-08-11 10:51:29 <KipIngram   > My god - that's me.
2023-08-11 10:51:50 <thrig       > Beethoven at least finished some things
2023-08-11 10:51:56 <KipIngram   > Over and over again, all over the topic map.
2023-08-11 10:52:44 <KipIngram   > Except I don't usually follow those periods of activity with full on down time - most often I've been lured away by the next interest.
2023-08-11 10:52:59 <KipIngram   > Sometimes I do binge TV shows or novels; I guess that counts as down time.
2023-08-11 10:54:16 <KipIngram   > "But brilliance is not enough.  You need application too, ..."
2023-08-11 10:54:41 <KipIngram   > Jordan Peterson always points out that IQ alone doesn't predict success - what does predict it well is IQ combined with "trait factor conscientiousness."
2023-08-11 10:55:08 <KipIngram   > Smart and disciplined - those are the ones who typically turn out winners.
2023-08-11 11:09:00 <veltas      > I agree with the entire HN thread that all said that's not 'bipolar' what he's describing
2023-08-11 11:09:18 <KipIngram   > Good article.
2023-08-11 11:09:28 <veltas      > You are right though, there is more to success than intelligence
2023-08-11 11:09:43 <KipIngram   > Yeah, I don't know if bipolar is the right word
2023-08-11 11:09:59 <KipIngram   > These traits come in a spectrum like most do.
2023-08-11 11:10:15 <KipIngram   > You can find examples at the frignes of the spectrum, but most folks fall somewhere in between.
2023-08-11 11:10:18 <veltas      > Personality disorders tend to describe some people quite accurately
2023-08-11 11:10:21 <thrig       > also medical science hasn't really figured this all out
2023-08-11 11:13:19 <KipIngram   > There was a guy that used to work on my team at BP Micro.  He started out as an electronics technician, but wound up knowing more about the stuff than most of the engineers he worked with.  After a long time he went back to school and got his engineering degree, because he found he just couldn't "go anywhere" otherwise.
2023-08-11 11:13:58 <KipIngram   > He was *superb*.  His problem was that he would go semi-postal on people - he had that problem with bullshit the article mentions.  Never violent, or even close to it, but he would be really ugly to people sometimes.
2023-08-11 11:14:04 <KipIngram   > So I got constant complaints.
2023-08-11 11:14:17 <KipIngram   > I think in a big company he's have been cast out by the machine.
2023-08-11 11:14:31 <KipIngram   > The problem, though, was that I valued him more than I valued the people complaining about him.
2023-08-11 11:15:03 <KipIngram   > I regarded him as mostly irreplaceable, so I spent an inordinate amount of time smoothing ruffled feathers.
2023-08-11 11:15:32 <veltas      > Humans are complicated!
2023-08-11 11:15:38 <KipIngram   > Indeed.
2023-08-11 11:16:07 <KipIngram   > One of my gripes about the corporate model is that it tends to form this "mold" that it wants everyone to fit into.
2023-08-11 11:16:22 <KipIngram   > While on the other side of the room preaching the value of diversity.
2023-08-11 11:16:50 <KipIngram   > Makes me think that they're really only talking about a particular flavor of diversity, and other kinds are still undesired.
2023-08-11 11:17:17 <veltas      > I couldn't say, it doesn't seem like a conscious decision, you're fighting the hivemind there
2023-08-11 11:17:26 <KipIngram   > I think so too.
2023-08-11 11:17:43 <KipIngram   > Lots of 'corporate outcomes' seem almost inevitable consequences of the structure.
2023-08-11 11:18:37 <KipIngram   > So much so that sometimes I find myself thinking we should just forbid that structure.
2023-08-11 11:19:05 <KipIngram   > Part of it is that it diffuses responsibility so much.  Things happen, but "no one" is *responsible*.
2023-08-11 11:19:07 <veltas      > That would be just as arbitrary and stupid though, unfortunately
2023-08-11 11:19:12 <veltas      > I do get your frustration though
2023-08-11 11:19:14 <KipIngram   > You can't point to anyone and say  "you did this."
2023-08-11 11:19:28 <veltas      > I can point to some people but it just betrays my personal ideology
2023-08-11 11:22:35 <veltas      > I think Plato needs to get back in the cave until he beats my highscore
2023-08-11 11:24:50 <KipIngram   > Ugh.  Just had to fight a round with "SSCA."  SSCA is a database we have here at IBM which holds "security data" on every single machine on the network.  They've got THOUSANDS of questions in there, for each system.  A subset of them are "required," some "recommended" and others "just there."
2023-08-11 11:25:17 <KipIngram   > But they come around every few months with an expansion of the required list, and you've got to go through every entry you're responsible for and answer a further round of questions.
2023-08-11 11:25:30 <KipIngram   > And man, if you miss EVEN ONE they know about immediately, and you get nastygrams.
2023-08-11 11:25:39 <KipIngram   > Then your boss gets nastygrams, then his boss, etc.
2023-08-11 11:25:57 <KipIngram   > They've devised themselves a system they can use to justify their existence FOREVER.
2023-08-11 11:26:19 <KipIngram   > I despise the thing.
2023-08-11 11:27:23 <veltas      > That's such an IBM story
2023-08-11 11:27:28 <KipIngram   > And you need to be careful how you answer the questions - certain answers trigger the need for "formal documentation" of various types you'll wind up on the hook for.
2023-08-11 11:27:56 <KipIngram   > I've often wondered what the "true cost" of maintaining that system is.  I suspect it's *enormous*.
2023-08-11 11:28:14 <KipIngram   > Except it's not a cash cost - it's a lost productivity cost.
2023-08-11 11:28:51 <KipIngram   > And if you fall behind because you had a lot of SSCA work to do, they expect you to find the time to catch up.  No one will actually say that out loud, but it's there nonetheless.
2023-08-11 11:29:36 <KipIngram   > I could see this level of scrutiny for certain systems - ones holding "crown jewel" information and so on.
2023-08-11 11:29:45 <KipIngram   > But not for every single thing on the network.
2023-08-11 11:30:16 <veltas      > It's pretty much a cash cost because you're paying a load of people to do this busy work
2023-08-11 11:30:31 <KipIngram   > Yes, but I suspect the productivity cost dwarfs that.
2023-08-11 11:30:41 <veltas      > But also a productivity cost because every distraction adds five minutes or whatever
2023-08-11 11:30:47 <KipIngram   > That cost you cite is what they actually get JUDGED using.  I doubt the other one is even computed.
2023-08-11 11:31:03 <veltas      > I doubt anyone judges them
2023-08-11 11:31:19 <KipIngram   > Well, I'm sure they report to some executive.
2023-08-11 11:31:22 <veltas      > But step back and wonder, is *anyone* really doing anything productive?
2023-08-11 11:31:49 <KipIngram   > Well, we are regularly delivering new drives with improved performance etc., so yeah, I'd say SOME work is getting done.
2023-08-11 11:32:14 <KipIngram   > Probably not nearly as much,  per capita, as a good small enterprise would deliver, though.
2023-08-11 11:33:19 <thrig       > good thing the government has been on the ball about breaking up too big companies
2023-08-11 11:33:43 <KipIngram   > Heh.  The last time I remember that happening was the AT&T / Bell breakup.
2023-08-11 11:33:56 <KipIngram   > They pretty much just stopped doing that in the late 70's / early 80's.
2023-08-11 11:34:30 <KipIngram   > Microsoft, Google, and Facebook are OBVIOUS targets for that, but... nada.
2023-08-11 11:49:59 <KipIngram   > Funny story on that SSCA stuff.  I suffered that for quite a few years, and then apparently somewhere off in the bowels of the company proposed a new team that "helped people" with SSCA.  A pilot program was formed.  A manager here in Houston who was likely tired of hearing me gripe about SSCA heard about it and put my name in to participate in the pilot program.
2023-08-11 11:50:19 <KipIngram   > I don't know if it ever because a full scope program, but at least for now I have a guy in India who helps me with this.
2023-08-11 11:50:42 <KipIngram   > So my round of work this morning was to bring one machine, out of a list of eleven, into compliance, and now he will copy those responses over to the others.
2023-08-11 11:50:48 <KipIngram   > So... that helps a lot.
2023-08-11 11:51:08 <KipIngram   > A lot fo things he just takes care of, but he needed input from me this time.
2023-08-11 11:51:54 <KipIngram   > I just try to answer as many questions as I can with "Does not apply."
2023-08-11 11:52:39 <KipIngram   > Also, it used to be a Lotus Notes database, and the tool for working with it was clunky as hell, especially the part related to figuring out what was missing in non-compliant entries.
2023-08-11 11:53:09 <KipIngram   > They sunset Notes a few months ago, and now it's a web-based thing.  This morning was the first time I'd used that, and it was a lot more straightforward.
2023-08-11 11:59:18 <veltas      > I've never heard of Lotus Notes before today
2023-08-11 11:59:29 <veltas      > I've heard of Lotus but only 1-2-3
2023-08-11 12:20:03 <KipIngram   > Oh, Notes was around for a long time - we even used it in the late 1990's at BP Micro.  Somewhere between then and now IBM bought Lotus and adopted the tool internally.
2023-08-11 12:20:12 <KipIngram   > And now we don't use it anymore.
2023-08-11 12:20:45 <KipIngram   > It was fairly function way back then, but I think it got bloated over the years.
2023-08-11 12:21:31 <KipIngram   > Used to drive BP Micro's IT director crazy - I and one other department head created our own Notes databases.  He hated that - he felt that was an "IT function" and that we shouldn't have that access.
2023-08-11 12:21:52 <KipIngram   > But the owner had the right perspective on IT and HR as "service groups" and didn't see fit to cater to the IT guy.
2023-08-11 12:22:28 <KipIngram   > That company was thoroughly dominated by engineering and manufacturing, and I ran engineering so I usually got what I wanted.
2023-08-11 12:22:47 <KipIngram   > Those were the days...
2023-08-11 12:23:10 <KipIngram   > When I hear that Springsteen song "Glory Days," that's the period I think of.
2023-08-11 12:25:36 <KipIngram   > That fellow, the IT guy, subscribed to Fast Company and dreamed of having us operate in a "truly corporate way."  But the owner wanted to operate like a small company for as long as we possibbly could.
2023-08-11 12:25:54 <KipIngram   > In the end the growth stopped before we outgew that mode.
2023-08-11 12:27:11 <veltas      > Yeah in my company engineering used to run a lot of stuff, but more and more has been going to IT control
2023-08-11 12:27:33 <KipIngram   > 1995-2000 revenue went up 50% or so a year, and it felt like nothing could stop us.  Then in late 2000 the tech bubble burst and in 2001 revenues just cratered.  Our success was tied to tech sector GROWTH, and well, in 2001 the tech sector didn't grow, so our customers didn't need new equipment.
2023-08-11 12:27:33 <veltas      > Which has mostly been good because it's not stuff we were meant to be doing, it wasn't productive for us or in our job description
2023-08-11 12:28:08 <veltas      > But on the downside now IT can be unhelpful sometimes and just say 'no'
2023-08-11 12:28:13 <KipIngram   > I think bigger organizations just can't be as flexible as small ones, and that kind of specialization becomes more and more necessary.
2023-08-11 12:28:21 <KipIngram   > Right, exactly.
2023-08-11 12:28:39 <KipIngram   > I think HR and IT almost run a lot of companies.
2023-08-11 12:28:39 <veltas      > It's institutional though, the changes have been necessitated not by business but by regulation
2023-08-11 12:28:47 <KipIngram   > And that makes zero sense to me.
2023-08-11 12:28:51 <veltas      > HR is its own fiefdom
2023-08-11 12:29:24 <KipIngram   > Back then, at that company, once an employee was "on board" HR had practically no influence over him or her.
2023-08-11 12:29:45 <veltas      > HR doesn't really have that much influence at my company
2023-08-11 12:29:46 <KipIngram   > Their job was to find candidates that we liked.
2023-08-11 12:30:20 <KipIngram   > No real involvement in anything so esoteric as the "company culture."
2023-08-11 12:30:52 <KipIngram   > And also to usher people out the door if we became unhappy with them.
2023-08-11 12:32:56 <veltas      > The only thing worse than the old system is the new system
2023-08-11 12:33:23 <KipIngram   > I just don't really see how you can compare the importance of those functions (HR and IT) with the functions of a) designing products, b) building products, and c) selling products.  Those are the life blood of a business.
2023-08-11 12:33:51 <KipIngram   > HR and IT are there to "facilitate" those processes.
2023-08-11 12:34:12 <KipIngram   > Who's the dog and who's the tail is a very clear thing in my eyes.
2023-08-11 12:36:44 <KipIngram   > I think the change on that front is a consequence of our "acquisition culture."  Companies usually don't "grow" these days - they swallow other companies.  And the PTBs want the result to feel like one company, no matter how different the original pieces were.
2023-08-11 12:36:59 <KipIngram   > HR and IT fancy themselves the drivers of that process, and maybe that's not an unfair position to take.
2023-08-11 12:40:53 <KipIngram   > It's pretty easy to see what's going to happen when a company like IBM buys a company like Texas Memory Systems.  That's like a whale swallowing a minnow.  I bet it's a lot more contentious when the acquired company is also a pretty big one.