Re: [tlug] Running without Gnome/KDE/xfce/whatever. (was: Ubuntu 16.04-LTS Japanese Text Input)

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

Curt Sampson writes:

 > While the customers do of course see some of the blowback from
 > stuff like this, I've personally observed managers at companies
 > directly screw themselves because they refused to spend a bit of
 > time thinking about how to make a system install more
 > reliably. They ended up spending about 30% of their
 > programmer-hours over the next year doing installation support for
 > individual customers instead of programming.

Sure, and that happens both on the vendor side and on the client side.

 > I've seen enough of this that I'm convinced the majority of cases,
 > even when the cost really is mostly an externality, it's usually
 > not someone actively trying to dump costs on someone else but
 > someone just not wanting to think about the effects of what they're
 > doing.

Well, if the "someone" the first is a career middle-ish manager or a
programmer without MBA who's been promoted to manager, I have some
sympathy for them.  There's some training available in cost estimation
and scheduling for software, but very few people who need it get it,
and only independent consultants who buy their beer with accurate
budgeting[1] are likely to get very good at it without training.  So
Ms. Middlish Manager is probably getting severe budget pressure from
her boss, who not only is full of wishful thinking about software
development costs ("If I weren't so busy saving the company, I'd go
down there and show Middlish how a professional GETS THINGS DONE!"),
but is typically a real bitch, besides.

OK, the symptom is "someone just not wanting to think about [it]"
(true, they don't), but really it's a systematic problem with the
organization they're embedded in.  And it is unfortunately far from
being a unique disease.

Footnotes: 
[1]  Turnbull's Corollary: Teetotalers shouldn't be systems
consultants, their incentives aren't aligned with the market.