My thesis is that CIO's are herd animals, making purchasing decisions based on the perceived direction of the herd. They sense this through Gartner research reports. There are many competitors, but Gartner is the name-brand.

If Gartner signals a shift in the herd, then alternatives may become interesting. How will …

See /dev/null 's post "And the Braindead Award goes to... " for an interesting tale of things that turn up in spite of 100% test coverage.

Here's the recap:

1. They have 100% test coverage.
2. Yet, they uncovered an error in an abstract superclass.

How is this possible? How was it …

Why does IT have such a high turnover?

• Technology appeal?
• Money?
• Boredom?

No. None of those. We can look at Maslow, but it's too high-level.

• Self-Actualization?
• Self-Esteem?
• Belonging?
• Safety and Security?
• Physical Needs?

Most IT jobs pay pretty well, above the median income. Look at MCP Magazine or InformationWeek , for …

What is the reward structure for open source?

If a corporate IT team builds software using open source components, CP insists, they've made a fundamental blunder. I forget CP's litany of concerns, but he worries that the software is unproven, untrustworthy, risky, etc., etc.

My argument that "you have the …

Hobbit says:

"Everything in the windows world does not directly work with the "rapidly-evolving" windows api's (for example, c# devs rarely concern themselves with api calls.) If there is such a lack of clarity in these API's causing a "barrier to innovation," why is windows still the easiest and most …

I've had this conversation more than once.

Me: "We can download something like POI to read the Excel™ files. Or I can spend months writing something."

Them: "We have a policy against open source software."

Me: "Do you use Apache ?"

Them: "That's different."

Me: "How so? Be specific in enumerating …

My point -- always -- is that I'm not here to convert anyone. I'm just here to respond to the need for open source consulting skills.

As a parallel example, TH explained (at length) that there was NO earthly reason to retire a perfectly good IBM z-series mainframe. The z-series represents cheap …

A comment on Offshoring Shows How Valuable Code Is floored me: "Another answer [to the 'what do you value?' question] could be to show cost reduction for the quarter. Its the old short term thinking to make Wall Street happy."

First, I concluded that "cost reduction" is somehow separate from …

See Schrage in CIO magazine on March 15 http://www.cio.com/archive/031506/schrage.html?page=1.

When we outsource of offshore some coding, what are we saying is valuable?

We're saying that the net effect of the installed software has value. We're saying that no existing product does …