We have an architect on the project. The architect makes no decisions, judgement calls, directives, etc… Everything is up for grabs by developers from the basic class syntax all the way up to authentication.
Again, this is a longer term employee that appears to be following the company path. Maybe there is enough history that people who have done so get hammered for making decisions that turned out to be ‘bad’.
Well, our fundamental client is the DOD. I would assume such a bureaucracy is risk averse. I would further guess that changes downstream on a project are treated very badly. Lots of huffing and puffing.
Now, you have some lower level line manager that should be making calls. They should be doing so. But I guess everyone around them is saying don’t do that. Don’t make a decision. Investigate further. Take your time.
How can an industry like this encourage risk taking?
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Industry
Our group is composed of mostly non-Java developers. We have recently started looking at error messages that have to bubble up to the ui. The natural course is a resource/property file.
However, the implementation pattern we are to follow involves using a wrapper that has enum’s of every message (to avoid collision) which we must access to get to a resource. So, every time we add a message we are also changing source code.
It seems to happen a lot in this company (and another defense co): we keep deciding that we can do something better than an off-the-shelf solution. So, we put a wrapper around good, solid functionality that drops features and usually adds noise to the system for no other reason.
And further, the incumbent players will argue to death that wrapping is a good idea.
Just painful.
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Industry
Talking to a number of companies that are looking for software people. I guess the first thing to notice is: there are quite a few postings out there these days. Take a glance at craigslist for your area, guaranteed at least a hundred jobs per day.
Secondly, talking to a small shop in town they are turning down work below a certain $N,000. Talking further, the bigger shops in town are turning down work for less than $N0,000.
It really feels like the press has been so caught up with the stupidness of banks lending money to people that could never pay. The result is they are ignoring the apparent large scale demand for services, at least for technical people.
Third hit point was a survey run by a pretty good outfit that should only have gone to hiring managers. The number one question was “how are you dealing with the shortage of technical pool?”.
I guess things are still in pretty good shape (for s/w companies anyway).
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Economics, Industry, Job Hunt