Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips These new chattering bots like ChatGPT are great word multipliers. Do we need word multipliers? That is the question. Try this at home: I am now up to 2,500 words in ten minutes. In another ten minutes I will have 5,000 words. In an hour I will have 50,000 words. 50,000 words […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Sometimes, the better way to do something isn’t as much fun. A few years ago, I wrote a book on software project management. I began the book with the words, “I like to write software.” I did and still do like to write software. I am simulating a machine that does wonderful […]

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by Dwayne Phillips BYOD or Bring Your Own Data is a big deal. It has been in computing since the start of computing. Nothing new here folks, but it is still important. Everyone is a data scientist (sort of). Everyone works for a data-centric organization (sort of). Data is the new oil (sort of). Data […]

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By Dwayne Phillips Sometimes we need to remind ourselves what it is that computers can and cannot do. Computers are taking over the world. Well, maybe not. Let’s recall what a computer can do. A computer can tell if a light bulb is on or off. That’s about it folks. Nothing more. Everything else is […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Managers want to hear the summary. The details are delegated. It is unfortunate that the summary rarely agrees with the details. “Summarize it for me. Give me three choices. I delegate.”—managers everywhere all the time. Simple statement from the managers. They have manager tasks to do. They delegate work to others. The […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Productivity leaps are possible and happening. I am sorry to write that fortunes can be made while employing just a few persons. I recently learned of a game called Among Us from a company called InnerSloth. In November of 2020, there were 500 million people playing the game. InnerSloth has four employees. […]

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by Dwayne Phillips The search to find a method to develop software tended to pass over the fact that smart people were doing a good job while those who struggled simply struggled. Back in the early days, smart persons were writing software. They did it well, their software ran correctly. Look at the first word, […]

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by Dwayne Phillips An old person, who was around in the 1970s, looks back at the Waterfall process of software development. The waterfall process. Of course the pure waterfall doesn’t work, that is why competent persons never used it. Go way back when and realize that graphics programs (Paint, Draw, Misio) weren’t available. It was […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Sometimes research leads old guys to remember lessons from way back. Crisis helps us forget to our peril The other day at work, we were speaking with a thought leader in an area of technology. This person truly is an expert and a thought leader in the future of his area. The […]

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by Dwayne Phillips I don’t like the metaphor of the software “pipeline,” never have. Here is one explanation why. I recently wrote of my distaste for the metaphor of the software stack. Now I express a similar distaste for the software pipeline. Perhaps this goes back to the Unix pipe—shown with the “|” vertical bar. […]

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