Conference 7.286::digital

    Indeed, options 2-10 work wonderfully for Microsoft, and Apple and all
    of the other models of software engineering success...
    
    As for #1. Absolutely. As I recall, the number of bars is supposed to
    be the same. Hey, I'd swimg by at 4 in the morning with a spanner in
    hand...
    
    
                                                           q

    re: .0
    
    What does the barcode say now?
    
    Bob

    RE: .2 It says "Customers win when we deliver". Marketing types seem to
    like it. 
    
    			Alfred

	Maybe they should change it to "Don't let the door hit you
	on the way out..."

							mike

      

	Don't forget what should be rule 0.5   :

	Introduce Digital Software Engineering to the
	concept of *QUALITY*.

	You know, little things like source-code control,
	release testing, actually having someone outside
	the engineering group try to use the product before
	it hits the customers' sites.

	Fun should come *well* down the list when we're shipping
	junk that *could never have worked.*

	Maybe this way we can avoid questions like this from customers:

	"Should I  bother to install this new release ?  Or is there a
	blitz message coming my way telling me that it will
	crash my system and erase my data ?"

	Steve H

    What I really want to see is products where a problem is fixed in one
    version and not back in the next. I'm tired of hearing that a fix
    was placed in x.y but not in x.y+1. Of course my job is to find bugs
    in software so that may be wishing me out of part of a job.But I
    think the company would be better off if we didn't ship software with
    known problems. Sure you can't find every bug but why ship known
    problems?
    
    			Alfred

    Re: .6
    
    I agree wholeheartedly, which is why the product I work on has a
    policy that every fix gets a regression test written for it if at
    all possible, and that all regression tests are run before each new
    release.  I can't think of a single regression we've had in the
    four years I've been on the project.
    
    				Steve

       >10: Make it easy for engineers to sell their own code as shareware,
       >whenever that can be done without interfering with Digital's
       >business, and preserving Digital's rights as necessary.
    
    If you are so good a selling and writing code why don't you put your
    money where your mouth is and start your own company?
    
    

    did any one mentioned the environment it self too? to have fun at work
    place, things like elevator music in the background will help, i have
    been in ZKO for 15 months and i have never heared an elevator music not
    one time also have big offices with big glass windows overlooking the 
    beach and the palm trees and no more of this closed buildings but make it 
    open where the fresh air breezes in and have plenty of plants and flowers 
    in the place, i think every office should have a tree in it because green 
    make it more relaxing place to work in and make the place more in with 
    natures giving's and improve the cafeteria foods too.

    things like that are the important stuff, the others things will
    follow by itself.

    /nasser

    re .9 
    
    That's easy, make sure engineers have workstations and distribute GIF
    images of scenery, pin-up girls, etc (to be placed on the Xwindow root)
    on infoserver. Add an entry in the personnel procedure that no one is
    allow to have more than 4 windows open at any time so as not to obscure
    the beautiful/relaxing/stimulating scenery in the root window! :) :)

    Re .-1
    
    What makes you think that female engineers are lesbians?
    
    Dave

    Gee, I did say "etc" so you could substitute beefcakes in there if you
    like ! :0)

What makes you think folks want to look at human bodies at all!!! %*)
I prefer a decent ocean scene or a good sci-fi background.
Or maybe one of Nassar's completed happy turkeys, complete with scent surround!

The most important part of my workstation is the rrd42 and the windows
cd player.  Now if they could put better audio (treble, bass control, stereo,
etc.) and provide decent headphone options, my building could crumble, but
I'd keep on designing ;^)

    ! Scent surround, WoW ! :)
    
    Seriously I'd recommend running the STARS program in the root. It shows
    you the time (so you wouldn't need to run the clock, nor wear a Digital
    watch) beautiful shades of cool, soothing blue with the stars peeping
    through. It'll also show the sun (if you get your time offset right) so
    you'd know it's really time to go home (you're seeing the moon
    instead)! :)

    OK, I've been getting quite a few "Tell me more about this neato
    STARS!" mail so I thought I'd post a pointer to it. It's a program that
    will render for you, in the root window, the sky according to the Yale
    Bright Star catalog, and updated every 3 minutes. The supplied catalog
    has 2906 objects.
    
    To get the program (runs on both OpenVMS VAX and AXP, source available)
    
Directory ZPUPPY::$UTILITY:[STARS]

STARS.C;21               48/48      (RWED,RWED,,RE)
STARS_ALPHA.EXE;4        48/48      (RWED,RWED,,RE)
STARS_BUILD.COM;2         1/3       (RWED,RWED,,RE)
STARS_VAX.EXE;5          22/24      (RWED,RWED,,RE)
YALE.STAR;1             131/132     (RWED,RWED,,RE)

Total of 5 files, 250/255 blocks.
    
    zpuppy is 22.552 or 23080:: running VMS 5.5-2 so you need to relink on
    earlier systems. Define the symbol 
    
    $ stars :== $$utility:[stars]stars_'f$getsyi("ARCH_NAME")'
    
    if you're running clusters of VAX and Alpha that will let you have a
    single definitions for both. The YALE.STAR catalog must be in the same
    directory as the .exe file. I run stars in DECW$LOGIN_BACKGROUND so
    that when I logout of the ws it will run stars instead of the DEC logo.
    Never fails to wow passerbys :)
    
    Here's the usage:
    
$ stars
Usage : star longitude latitude [time_difference]

Timezone is difference from local solar time. 
Due to the widespread system of timezones and Daylight Savings Time,
the sun is not in the south at noon.
To correct this, give the difference in hours and decimals
(Brussels is about +1 in winter, +2 in summer)

No arguments given, will use position of Brussels, winter time...
 Unable to open display
    
    and here's the credits
    
**  AUTHOR :	DOMINIQUE DIERICK	DIGITAL EQUIPMENT CORPORATION	    *
**					BRUSSELS			    *
*****************************************************************************
                   YALE Bright Star Catalog (Reduced)
		             Version 2.0
		            October, 1987
          (Reposted here with three minor edits: November, 1989)

		      Reduced and hand edited by
                 Robert Tidd ([email protected])
	       Alan Paeth ([email protected])


Disclaimer: The original catalog is copyright by the YALE Astronomy Department.
            This reduction may be reposted for non-commercial use only.

rgds,
    heng-wah
             

    For those who end up STARStruck :) here's where you can get more (prod
    KP7 to enter into notebook):
    
           <<< MR4SRV::NOTES$DISK:[NOTES$LIBRARY]ASTRONOMY.NOTE;1 >>>
                 -< Buying your first telescope? See note 80 >-
================================================================================
Note 1.0       Welcome, please READ and OBEY all replies to note 1     7 replies
GOLD::WEAVER                                          5 lines  11-JAN-1984 00:33
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Use this NOTES file to discuss Issues relating to Astronomy.
Discussions about telescopes, star gazing, meteor watching, comets, the
Big Bang theory, the Inflation theory, etc... are all encouraged.

						-Dave
    

    It's less than 2 hours ago since .15 was written and STARS has been
    going like hotcakes. Anyway, if that's the stuff that'd help you guys
    relax and have fun (AFTER doing the work!) then look also at:
    
    zpuppy::$utility:[mandelbrot...]
    and
    zpuppy::$games:[000000...]
    
    Share and Enjoy!
    	- the Robots (THHGTTG)

Hmmm..  So is there a version out there for ALPHA/OSF1 ???

Alice

    I suppose you can compile the source on OSF/1, you might need to do
    some mods though. There is a separate Mandelbrot (used in DECworld)
    available on Alpha/OSF1 but it's not as neat as the one on VMS (IMHO).
    This Mandelbrot is written by Paul Winalski in PL/I, so I guess it
    would not see the port to Alpha. The current AXP version you find under
    zpuppy::$utility:[mandelbrot...] is translated code. Also only the
    calculation task is translated, you cannot run the display on an Alpha.
    The neat thing is you can run the display task on a VAXstation (you
    want the fastest one you can find), and point to as many Alpha VMS
    systems as you can find as the remote calculation servers. There is an
    iteration counter at the bottom right, just one look and your only
    reaction would be WoW!
    
    When running the calculation on a VAX, the counter ticks (you know like
    the way your cassette counter go when you PLAY). When running the
    calculation on an Alpha, the cassette counter went into "FFWD"! Simply
    unbelievable, bearing in mind the Alpha calculation is in translated
    mode, probably not more than 25% of the native Alpha performance!
    
    Prod KP7 to add the mandelbrot conference into your notebook.

RE: .19

Thanks for the kind words about my Mandelbrot program.  I've got a 
native-compiled (not translated VAX code) Alpha AXP version of the remote 
calculation server up and running now.  At some point, if I can ever find the 
time, I'm going to rewrite the display task part in C so that I can move that 
to AXP, as well.  You can get the native remote calculation server code from
ADSERV::DISK$PSW:[WINALSKI.MANDELBROT.ALPHA_BITS].  You put M_RT_CALC.EXE and 
M_RT_CALC.COM on your AXP OpenVMS system as the remote calculation server and 
use M_DISPLAY.EXE, M_LOOKUP_TASK.EXE, and M_CALC_TASK.EXE on your VAX/VMS 
workstation, in place of the usual versions of these programs.

--PSW