OT: Evaluating an Application

[Laura Brody]

I have been using "good, cheap, or fast; pick any two" as a test. If the
customer "gets it" and picks which two are most important, I move forward
with giving him/her a quote. If I get a blank stare and a "I want all 3"
demand, it is time to cut them loose. The potential customer is too stupid
to deal with and will cost me 10x in aggravation and Tums than I will make
in profit. Red flag. Warning Will Robinson! Abort, abort, abort! In the
past, I have ignored this red flag and I got burned every single time. I
don't care what my cash flow is at the moment, this customer is going to
make me wish that I never got into the computer business. They are going to
drive me nuts, work extra hard to clean up a mess I will warn them about
and as a cherry on top, they will try to stiff me with the bill when
everything goes to hell because I did it the way they insisted that I do
it.  Just not worth it.

I recently heard about a movie called "Idiocracy" by Mike Judge. It tells
of an average Army guy who volunteers to go into a hibernation box for a
year. He wakes up 500 years later. He is arrested and sent to jail. They
test his IQ and he is the smartest guy on the planet, by far. The movie
explains that smart people wait until their careers are set and the market
is good, etc. and never have kids. On the other hand, dumb people are
having sex with anyone that is marginally willing. Our example dumb guy has
7 kids and the wife is pregnant again. "I thought you was on the pill". So
is the neighbor lady, and his other girl friend. A couple of generations of
this and we have 300+ people with an IQ below 75. I don't think that we
have to wait 500 years for this to happen. I peg it at 50 years or less.


Laura Brody

On Tue, Dec 17, 2019 at 3:58 PM Richard Kreiss via Filepro-list <
filepro-list at lists.celestial.com> wrote:

> I have a client that asked me to quickly write a new module for his
> application.  I did it and asked him to test it before going live.  He said
> the y did not have time to test it and put it into production.  The had
> made certain assumptions when giving me the specs for the job, however,
> they left out a bunch of things which would have come up if tested.  The
> program worked as the specs required.  It took me 2 days of work to add the
> features they had left out and it took them 2 weeks of 12 people working to
> update the records they had created.  One person testing the program would
> have caught what needed to be added but they were to too much of a rush to
> get the module in place and working to test it.
>
> Ys there is a development location that they can use for testing new
> programming.  The also use that database for teaching new hires how to use
> the program as they can add and delete records from the main files without
> creating a problem.
>
>
> Richard Kreiss
> GCC Consulting
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Filepro-list <filepro-list-bounces+rkreiss=
> verizon.net at lists.celestial.com> On Behalf Of Bill Campbell via
> Filepro-list
> Sent: Tuesday, December 17, 2019 12:28 PM
> To: filepro-list at lists.celestial.com
> Subject: Re: OT: Evaluating an Application
>
> On Tue, Dec 17, 2019, Fairlight via Filepro-list wrote:
> >On Sun, Dec 15, 2019 at 02:42:59PM -0500, Laura Brody via Filepro-list
> thus spoke:
> >> That should be "God knows"......
> >>
> >> Being this detail oriented is great if you are proofreading books,
> >> articles, websites, etc. <g> In Internet posts, it often is the first
> >> volley for an ugly fight more often than not.
> >
> >What?!  That's -never- been a source of problems!!!  :)
> >
> >> > owners don't care about. Just deliver "faster, cheaper, easier" and
> >> > you
> >
> >But not necessarily 'better'.
> >
> >Isn't it Bill Campbell who has the sign in his office:
> >
> >"You can have it good, cheap, or fast; pick any two."
>
> I had that as well as the one I had in my race car shop:
>
> Speed costs money.  How fast do you want to go.
>
> Bill
> --
> INTERNET:   bill at celestial.com  Bill Campbell; Celestial Software LLC
> URL: http://www2.celestial.com/ 6641 E. Mercer Way
> Mobile:         (206) 947-5591  PO Box 820
> Fax:            (206) 232-9186  Mercer Island, WA 98040-0820
>
> Property must be secured, or liberty cannot exist. -- John Adams
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