Firewall Wizards mailing list archives
Re: tunnel vs open a hole
From: Mike Frantzen <frantzen () w4g org>
Date: Wed, 9 Apr 2003 22:42:26 -0400
The last time I was managing a bunch of software engineers, I bought 2 licensed copies of CodeCenter (a terrific tool literally worth its weight in gold) and 2 copies of Purify. Nobody ever used them except me and, I think, one other guy a couple times. I guess, as "management" I failed because I simply expected that engineers would be professional enough to care? No, that doesn't wash - the bottom line was that some of the engineers I've worked with (so called "software engineers") didn't even know how to use a debugger because they thought that using printf()s was "faster" and they were on a tight schedule and didn't have time to learn gdb... I'm sorry, but that, to me, is not professionalism. Managers have to demand it, and have to support their engineers in taking the extra time to use the tools and follow the procedures to write rock-solid code. And they have to be able to help control executive's expectations as to schedules. Everyone, across the board, has to do their job right.
As someone who worked within floor shaking distance of Marcus' office music, I'll add another perspective. When we were first looking at the Rationale and Rationale like tools, we would have had to deal with the "process" and the pointy hairs (not that Marcus has pointy hair unless he's resorted to hair gel recently) to get something purchased. It turned out to be easier to spend two days to hack up a malloc() and family replacement that does the detection of memory problems (usage after free was a bitch since not every OS is POSIX compliant w.r.t the siginfo_t fault address). Automatically link it in and run the entire regression testsuite with full diagnostics every night. Lesson learned, just do it right. If it isn't going to impact the schedule, don't bother letting it perculate up too far through management since it can often result in more time in meetings (scheduling, reviews, APIs, documentation, blah blah) than development time. Second lesson we didn't learn the hard way, don't let upper management know about any automated regression testing. Getting a few weeks straight of failures is common during the initial development phase of a project. Having to explain that the code "isn't even alpha grade, leave me alone", detracts from the heads-down development phase -- I'm only comin up for air and alcohol so you better be handin me a beer. The other reason not to widely disseminate knowledge about an automated regression testsuite is to keep the QA dept honest. There is no use in them running the exact same tests the developers ran. Hi Marcus. Now that you're no longer our "boss", I guess we don't have to worry about you suddenly sprouting pointy hair ;-) Don't go spillin the beans now. .mike frantzen@(nfr.com | cvs.openbsd.org | w4g.org) _______________________________________________ firewall-wizards mailing list firewall-wizards () honor icsalabs com http://honor.icsalabs.com/mailman/listinfo/firewall-wizards
Current thread:
- RE: tunnel vs open a hole, (continued)
- RE: tunnel vs open a hole Marcus J. Ranum (Apr 09)
- Re: tunnel vs open a hole George Capehart (Apr 09)
- Re: tunnel vs open a hole Marcus J. Ranum (Apr 09)
- Re: tunnel vs open a hole George Capehart (Apr 09)
- Re: tunnel vs open a hole Marcus J. Ranum (Apr 09)
- Re: tunnel vs open a hole R. DuFresne (Apr 10)
- Re: tunnel vs open a hole Bill Royds (Apr 10)
- Re: tunnel vs open a hole Marcus J. Ranum (Apr 10)
- Re: tunnel vs open a hole George Capehart (Apr 09)
- Re: tunnel vs open a hole Dave Piscitello (Apr 10)
- RE: tunnel vs open a hole Marcus J. Ranum (Apr 09)
- Re: tunnel vs open a hole Adam Shostack (Apr 09)
- Re: tunnel vs open a hole Mike Frantzen (Apr 10)
- Re: tunnel vs open a hole R. DuFresne (Apr 10)
- Re: tunnel vs open a hole George Capehart (Apr 10)
- Re: tunnel vs open a hole Joseph S D Yao (Apr 10)
- Re: tunnel vs open a hole George Capehart (Apr 10)
- Re: tunnel vs open a hole Duncan Sharp (Apr 10)
- Re: tunnel vs open a hole George Capehart (Apr 14)
- Re: tunnel vs open a hole Duncan Sharp (Apr 14)
- Re: tunnel vs open a hole Duncan Sharp (Apr 16)
- Re: tunnel vs open a hole Magosányi Árpád (Apr 11)
- Re: tunnel vs open a hole Gary Flynn (Apr 10)