Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips Sometimes the cheapest and simplest part of a system is the one that fails and you may have to buy half a dozen of them to find one that works. I had a bad experience repairing that large appliance in the bathroom. Did you know that you can crawl under a toilet? […]

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by Dwayne Phillips If we work hard enough and smart enough to the solution, we often find the solution collapses to something small and simple. At the end of all the work, we find the solution. The solution is messy, but it is a solution. Then we go home. Then we come back to work […]

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by Dwayne Phillips There are major differences between engineering systems and “just doing it.” The consequences are both obvious and predicted. For at least 25 years, I have heard and seen in action the mantra of “good enough software.” Get a partial solution, ship it, improve it. Great stuff. Except time has shown that the […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Depending on where we draw system boundaries, we probably aren’t doing the same thing over and over again. There is a quote attributed to Einstein about insanity being the act of doing the same thing and expecting different results. There is a debate among people who debate such things about if Einstein […]

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by Dwayne Phillips When you rely upon things from other people, you are sometimes greatly disappointed. This holds for programming computers. Are you a “full-stack developer?” Do you argue about what a full-stack developer is? Have you been asked, “Given this problem, what stack would you use?” Sigh. Since the pre-historic times of computer programming, […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Systems built by persons often have more capability than intended. Someone will arrive who will find and use these. I stumbled onto this story recently about persons in Angola who have limited Internet access. They found ways to use Wikipedia and Facebook that the creators of those systems did not intend. The […]

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by Dwayne Phillips If a system designed to last a few months last 12 years, is that a success or a failure? A recent story hailed the success of the NASA Mars rover. The rover was “designed” to last a few months, but is still going after 12 years. Wow! What a great design and […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Questioned if I noticed little patterns in the data, I asked back about little tools. Several decades ago, I interviewed for a job in some sort of computer center that processed some sort of data. The descriptions were intentionally vague because the person speaking to me felt that it was all too […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Systems analysis is merely a few basic skills in what a person notices. From time to time I analyze systems. I analyze all types of systems, and most of those systems are usually not recognized as systems. I suppose I have a broad idea of what comprises a system. A fundamental skill […]

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by Dwayne Phillips Knowing how to repair a system indicates something about its quality. I know how to start the MS Windows task manager. You press the Crtl-Alt-Del keys at the same time. A window pops and displays option. One option is the task manager. The task manager allows me to kill processes that are […]

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