Re: OT Re: the electrix repeater/estimating software jobs

[Mark <sine@zerocrossing.net>]

What video software?  Huh? Huh?  It's a bit off topic BUT I've used video 
loops
triggered via midi using both Vidvox and Arkaos, and I believe "Looper's 
Delight"
says nothing about visual loops, but we can always take this off the list. 
 I find
that the farther "out" my music is, it is better received by non "out" 
music
listeners if it has a visual component.

Mark

"Emile Tobenfeld (a.k.a Dr. T)" wrote:

> As a professional software developer currently involved in very
> complex video effects software, I can sympathize.
>
> Here is my partly tongue-in-cheek algorithm for estimating a software 
>job.
>
> 1.      Estimate the amount of time the job would take if nothing went 
>wrong.
> 2.      Allow for the fact that things will surely go wrong, as they
> have in the past, and double it.
> 3.      Allow for the fact that, in addition to the things that have
> gone wrong in the past, new things will go wrong. These will be even
> harder to fix, so double the estimate again.
> 4.      One of the things most likely to go wrong is the initial
> estimate i step 1. Allow for this by doubling your estimate again.
>
> If you work hard, and are reasonably lucky, you won't exceed this
> estimate by more than 100%.
>
> Although the above analysis was  conceived of as a joke, I suspect
> that it would  be reasonably accurate at estimating software jobs.
>
> Back to tweaking loops on a Nord Modular so I can twist the input of
> s sax player friend who is coming by tomorrow.-:)
>
> At 9:42 PM -0700 8/3/01, Mark Hamburg wrote:
> >Here's my guess as to what's happening at Electrix. Software is hard. 
>Big
> >software is really hard. People who've written small pieces of software 
>and
> >had them work don't always realize that it doesn't all just scale 
>linearly.
> >
> >Add to that the fact that there are probably a lot of time-dependent and
> >parallel operations going on in the unit and you've got a debugging
> >nightmare. Things go wrong but you can't make them go wrong again.
> >
> >So, if you'd be prepared to only do the things they demo'd in the 
>sequence
> >and with the timing they demo'd them, you'd probably be fine. Some 
>tester
> >probably didn't stick to the script and had something bad happen, but 
>they
> >are having a horrendous time reproducing it reliably.
> >
> >My first job in the commercial software industry was working for Ann 
>Arbor
> >Softworks. At the time A2S was famous for FullWrite Professional being
> >vaporware (though in total it was less than a year late). I joined at a
> >point where we spent several months operating under the lines: (a) 
>we'll be
> >done in two weeks and (b) if we don't ship in two weeks we're going to 
>go
> >out of business. A few years later I was talking to one of the lead
> >engineers on the team and he confessed that he'd realized afterward 
>that he
> >and the other lead engineer could hold about two weeks worth of work in
> >their heads. Hence when asked how long it would take to finish, they'd
> >reflect for a while and come up with the answer "Two weeks".
> >
> >My question is: Has anyone at Electrix read _The Mythical Man-Month_?
> >
> >Mark
> >
> >on 8/1/01 6:04 PM, Mark Sottilaro at sine@zerocrossing.net wrote:
> >
> >>  I'd love to here an
> >>  uncensored version of what's going on at Electrix from an 
>engineer/software
> >  > engineer.  I'd bet we'd all have a nice chuckle.
> >  >
> >  > <nelson> Ha ha </nelson>
>
> --
>
> "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable man
> persists in adapting the world to himself. Therefore, all progress
> depends on the unreasonable man.
>
> --  George Bernard Shaw
>
>                 Emile Tobenfeld, Ph. D.
> Video Producer                  Image Processing Specialist
> Video for your HEAD!                    Boris FX
> http://www.foryourhead.com              http://www.borisfx.com