Command Line Applications

I'm old -- I admit it -- and I feel that command-line applications are still very, very important. Linux, for example, is packed full of almost innumerable command-line applications. In some cases, the Linux GUI tools are specifically just wrappers around the underlying command-line applications.

For many types of high-volume data processing …

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The Politics of Estimating

Computerworld, September 12, page 10.

MicroburstIT Disasters According to a study of 1,471 big IT projects, 15% turn out to be money pits, with cost overruns averaging 200%.

How is this a politically-charged statement? We hear this kind of thing all the time.

As developers (or project leaders …

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Brain-Damaged Data

We process a fair amount of externally-prepared datasets. 40,000 rows of econometric data that we purchased from a third-party. Mostly, the data is in a usable format: .CSV or .XSLX.

Once in a while, we get CSV with |. A few times, we got fixed-format COBOL-style records.

Recently, we got …

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Spam Email Footers

I don't want the spamilicious email. I'm trying to actually unsubscribe. The footer says "If you are not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of any information contained in or attached to this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message …

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