ThomasCantrell.com Tech Blog

I’m guilty of using this phrase:

Which leaves the question: can I be trusted as an engineer? I hope so…

Dilbert:

My experience is unless engineers and their management are careful, testing always gets the shaft. However, towards the end of the project it becomes clear that testing is still essential. Therefore it must be forced into the schedule. Once that happens there are two options: push back the release date or sacrifice your health.

I’ve worked on teams that chose each of those options. While neither is preferable, I would prefer work on the team that doesn’t cause health complications. However, it would be far better to hire people and schedule time for testing.

A few years ago I attended a talk given by Ross Anderson on the Economics of Security. In the talk, he asserted that “software companies should hire more software testers and fewer but more competent programmers.” However, testing is typically disconnected with marketing and sales revenue. Programmers, on the other hand, create the products and are directly connected to revenue. Therefore, companies are incentivized to hire few testers and many programmers. Then when testing starts getting the shaft, the only course of action is to ask the programmers to do testing in addition to their other responsibilities.

I can’t help thinking about IPsec VPNs as I read this Dilbert:

For those of you who have ever tried to set up a VPN for the first time, you’ll know what I mean. I don’t mean one of those wimpy VPNs that your network administrator sets up, but a real IPsec VPN with all the settings and proposals.

It’s often hundreds of settings that have to match identically other VPNs in order for the VPN to work. If a single one of these settings is off, the negotiation fails and the VPN does not come up. True, it’s not hard after you’ve done a few. However, that’s if you survive the pure frustration of setting up the first one. You could easily end up stabbing yourself.

Is the IETF IPsec working group just a shim for a secret government military plot designed to drive it’s enemies insane? You decide.

Yesterday one of my co-workers was chatting with a member of the sales force about product schedules. While I like our sales force, I always have to worry that things like the following happen:

I really appreciate it when managers are honest about layoffs, instead of simply blaming it on economic conditions. Dilbert explains:

As I wrote about earlier, there is a risk that reports will hyper-analyze their manager’s non-verbals in a bad economy. Dilbert explains:

I’m packing for a business trip tonight and remembering this Dilbert:

I want to dress well, but sometimes I wonder if I should just pack some crazy ThinkGeek t-shirt to help my street credibility. If I look too “business like” can I be trusted?