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"Unwilling to pay for (good) tools." A manager where I once worked demanded that we continue to use (the unpaid for shareware version of) WinZip on one compute

"Unwilling to pay for (good) tools." A manager where I once worked demanded that we continue to use (the unpaid for shareware version of) WinZip on one computer that was dedicated to sending data off to clients. After WinZip added the 1 second wait for every file ever processed, he implemented a 'wait and come back rule'. The count reached over 3000 at one point! I would just use 7-zip or zip it in Cygwin. But it became so that when I wasn't around clients would have to wait an extra hour to get their files. He sometimes would just sit there and wait for the count to complete. A single license was maybe $25 at the time?

umjames 14y ago
How about when the good tools are free (as far as money), but your boss doesn't want to use them because that would require him (as well as co-workers) to learn something new? My current employer still uses CVS. No one really uses it properly. I see output files committed to repositories and I think I'm the only one who writes commit messages since I haven't seen anyone else's when I look through the history. I haven't seen anyone else create a branch. I've mentioned Git both in private and in group meetings, but it always falls on deaf ears. So I use Git via Cygwin and always keep it local on my machine. I have Git ignoring the CVS directories and CVS ignoring the .git directory. The master branch is for things that I check-in to/update from CVS. All my real work is done in Git feature branches.
- orbitingpluto 14y ago
  I see your CVS and raise you having to support Word Perfect 5.1 for DOS (from 1989) in 2008 because the President's right-hand woman didn't want to have to learn to use a text editor like SciTE. (And by 'use' I mean open a file, hit a key, and press save.) To top it off, when the pre-millenium desktop exploded, she came down to my office and started screaming at me that I had destroyed the computer. She also refused to upgrade from Office XP or give up another expired shareware program from the Windows 95 era. I totally agree with you. Some people will expend a monumental effort to avoid learning anything.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- throwingl123 14y ago
  My soon-to-be-ex boss is exactly like this. As well as being guilty of one or two of the points in the article, my boss is a "used-to-be technical" guy. He is suspicious of things like application frameworks, automated testing and deployment, and basically any form of modern software engineering. This pretty much prevents us from modernizing our development process beyond the early 2000s when he was last working as a developer. Sometimes he decides to "get his hands dirty" again and simply logs in to a production server and begins editing files live. Despite constraining all development teams to this cowboy-era development, blame and punishment are wielded harshly when the resulting disasters strike, which is often. And they are baffled by my resignation.
- mtoddh 14y ago
  Got that beat. One of the previous places I was working was still on RCS (this is in 2010). CVS is what I was able to get them to upgrade to. And it was like showing fire to the natives once they realized they no longer had to "take turns" when it came to editing the same file.
- ArbitraryLimits 14y ago
  To be fair, if they can't use CVS right they're not going to use anything else right, either.
  - umjames 14y ago
    No one's born knowing how to properly use a version control system, but that doesn't mean you can't learn.
trequartista 14y ago
I totally hear you. Back when I was in the IT division of a major (really big!) automobile firm, I asked my manager for the approval to install SVN, since I didn't see anybody using any version control system. I was told that the department doesn't approve of anything "open source" and I was asked to build a version control system so that everybody could use!

umjames 14y ago

How about when the good tools are free (as far as money), but your boss doesn't want to use them because that would require him (as well as co-workers) to learn something new? My current employer still uses CVS. No one really uses it properly. I see output files committed to repositories and I think I'm the only one who writes commit messages since I haven't seen anyone else's when I look through the history. I haven't seen anyone else create a branch. I've mentioned Git both in private and in group meetings, but it always falls on deaf ears. So I use Git via Cygwin and always keep it local on my machine. I have Git ignoring the CVS directories and CVS ignoring the .git directory. The master branch is for things that I check-in to/update from CVS. All my real work is done in Git feature branches.

orbitingpluto 14y ago
I see your CVS and raise you having to support Word Perfect 5.1 for DOS (from 1989) in 2008 because the President's right-hand woman didn't want to have to learn to use a text editor like SciTE. (And by 'use' I mean open a file, hit a key, and press save.) To top it off, when the pre-millenium desktop exploded, she came down to my office and started screaming at me that I had destroyed the computer. She also refused to upgrade from Office XP or give up another expired shareware program from the Windows 95 era. I totally agree with you. Some people will expend a monumental effort to avoid learning anything.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
throwingl123 14y ago
My soon-to-be-ex boss is exactly like this. As well as being guilty of one or two of the points in the article, my boss is a "used-to-be technical" guy. He is suspicious of things like application frameworks, automated testing and deployment, and basically any form of modern software engineering. This pretty much prevents us from modernizing our development process beyond the early 2000s when he was last working as a developer. Sometimes he decides to "get his hands dirty" again and simply logs in to a production server and begins editing files live. Despite constraining all development teams to this cowboy-era development, blame and punishment are wielded harshly when the resulting disasters strike, which is often. And they are baffled by my resignation.
mtoddh 14y ago
Got that beat. One of the previous places I was working was still on RCS (this is in 2010). CVS is what I was able to get them to upgrade to. And it was like showing fire to the natives once they realized they no longer had to "take turns" when it came to editing the same file.
ArbitraryLimits 14y ago
To be fair, if they can't use CVS right they're not going to use anything else right, either.
- umjames 14y ago
  No one's born knowing how to properly use a version control system, but that doesn't mean you can't learn.

trequartista 14y ago

I totally hear you. Back when I was in the IT division of a major (really big!) automobile firm, I asked my manager for the approval to install SVN, since I didn't see anybody using any version control system. I was told that the department doesn't approve of anything "open source" and I was asked to build a version control system so that everybody could use!