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Project from Hell (2008)

projectfailures.wordpress.com

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Re: Project from Hell (2008)

#91

Post by astrodust »

commandlinefan wrote: post #74
recursive wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What in the actual fuck? I can't fathom how this would even theoretically work. Like people ostensibly would just memorize every api and library they might ever have to use in advance?

> memorize every api and library Outside of work hours, of course. You're paid to program, not to learn.

Maybe at a hell company like this example, but in most that are sane you're encouraged to learn on the job.

At the end of the day you're not paid to program, you're paid to solve problems, and typically that's easiest to achieve by producing code.

Sometimes the problem is you don't know a particular language or toolkit even if it's the best fit for a problem domain...

Re: Project from Hell (2008)

#92

Post by rosser »

TheCoelacanth wrote: post #63
sjm-lbm wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also started, if I'm doing my arithmetic right, in 1996. Honestly, I could see C++ having been their best choice back then. Every language I would rather do a large project in is either newer than that or would have been pretty immature for a large project in the mid-90s.

C++ was pretty immature for a large project in 1996. It was first standardized in 1998.

I worked on a mega-LoC (millions of lines of code) C++ project in the late 90s. It wasn't even (to the extent I could honestly tell at that point in my career, anyway) a particularly hellish codebase or design, and suffered none of the madnesses described in The Fine Article.

(Of course, we were sub-sub-contractors working only on designated parts of the application. The stuff I did touch was consistently sane enough, though, that I don't think I'm too out of place in positing a legit minimal degree of not-terribleness across the rest of the project.)

Re: Project from Hell (2008)

#93

Post by ordinaryperson »

cpeterso wrote: post #49

So what was the ultimate fate of the project? The 2018 follow-up post [1] says the boss was jailed for fraud, but doesn't say whether the project eventually shipped or was killed (or, even worse, is still in development). [1] https://projectfailures.wordpress.com/2018/03/24/follow-up-o...

My best guess is the article referred to Louvois, France's attempt to build a military payment system.

An article in French about it: https://www.franceinter.fr/emissions/secrets-d-info/secrets-...

In 2018 it still does not exist. The French government has decided to try again, awarding the contract to the same company.

Re: Project from Hell (2008)

#94

Post by sokoloff »

kakwa_ wrote: post #87
fnordsensei wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the fallacy with hourly billing. The alternative model is value-based pricing, where you price the solution/intervention upfront. Of course, this becomes more expensive upfront as well, because the consultant takes on the risk. Hourly billing seems cheaper to the client, since they have to take on the risk instead.

Public contracts (like the one mentioned in the blog post) are "valued-based" ("contrat au forfait" in french). But you can circumvent these by over-billing contract additions/change in requirements ("avenants" in french). In theory those are limited to 20% of the original amount, but with contract renewals and if the government agency already sunk large sum of money into the project it's possible to bypass this limi…

Which leads to situations like this:

http://www.quartetservice.com/wp-content/gallery/boat/cs-pic...

Re: Project from Hell (2008)

#95

Post by sokoloff »

bigcheesegs wrote: post #65
desertrider12 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

C++ is only "fast" because people who care about performance use it and a lot of people who are good at compilers work on gcc/intel/llvm. If the LLVM team decided to spend 5 years making python "fast", I bet they could make it benchmark just as well as C++.

There's more to it than that. C++ is designed for implementations to produce fast code. "Leave no room between C++ and Assembly" has been a guiding principle of C++. This is not true of Python, and thus the engineering effort required for an implementation to reach the same level of performance is huge, if at all possible.

I view C and C++ as "portable assembly language".

(I happily and productively used C++ for many years; there's no hatred in the above sentiment.)

Re: Project from Hell (2008)

#96

Post by allannienhuis »

sokoloff wrote: post #94
kakwa_ wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public contracts (like the one mentioned in the blog post) are "valued-based" ("contrat au forfait" in french). But you can circumvent these by over-billing contract additions/change in requirements ("avenants" in french). In theory those are limited to 20% of the original amount, but with contract renewals and if the government agency already sunk large sum of money into the project it's possible to bypass this limi…

Which leads to situations like this: http://www.quartetservice.com/wp-content/gallery/boat/cs-pic...

hah! I saw the original boat in person and laughed at the time, but didn't see the name on the dingy. Awesome :)

Re: Project from Hell (2008)

#97

Post by recursive »

commandlinefan wrote: post #74
recursive wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What in the actual fuck? I can't fathom how this would even theoretically work. Like people ostensibly would just memorize every api and library they might ever have to use in advance?

> memorize every api and library Outside of work hours, of course. You're paid to program, not to learn.

Wow. So it's acceptable to spend a month re-inventing a wheel, but not one hour learning that it already exists? I wouldn't have thought such a backwards employer exists.

Re: Project from Hell (2008)

#98

Post by bitwize »

lainga wrote: post #2

Doing a first checkout requires taking an appointment with the version control team, usually granted a week later. Editing files is not permitted without authorization from middle management. Ah, I recognize this. It is a special level beyond workplace hell, Tokugawa shogunate hell , where the entire organization is structured to provide as much busywork for as many superfluous management layers as possible. Fifteen…

The Tokugawas liked to spy on their daimyo and samurai, the better to maintain and consolidate power. Giving each samurai fifteen porters was a great way to make sure that eyes friendly to the shogun were on that samurai at all times.

I'll leave the workplace parallels as an exercise.

Re: Project from Hell (2008)

#99

Post by inestyne »

commandlinefan wrote: post #74
recursive wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What in the actual fuck? I can't fathom how this would even theoretically work. Like people ostensibly would just memorize every api and library they might ever have to use in advance?

> memorize every api and library Outside of work hours, of course. You're paid to program, not to learn.

Jeez if my guys didnt learn on the job they’d know only the wrong things. If anything, lol...

Surely what they learnt at bootcamp is less than worthless.

:)

Re: Project from Hell (2008)

#100

Post by kelvin0 »

This is the 2nd 'French' horror story I've heard. An ex-colleague (ex-pat french man) told me an almost exact same story (different software: numerical simulations). Of course bad software happens all over the globe (Looking at you Canadian Phoenix pay system).

However (to me) there are some cultural issues which make things even worse it seems : a VERY rigid chain of command structure and a strict 'political' hierarchy which makes changes happen very very slowly and not always towards the best outcome (for the project, billing is $$$ great).

As mentioned each country has issues, but I don't know if I could go into such a strict hierarchical corporate environment.

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