Please Help me Out...

[Joshua Cranmer]

Even prejudice against a whole race of people?

First off, congratulations on your invocation of Godwin's Law.

While that statement might be twisted to claim Mr. Uppiano's support for
eugenics, I don't think he meant that in the slightest. After all, he
said "tempered prejudice."

To inject my beliefs on the matter, we are talking about generalizations
derived from cultural norms. Culture inherently derives from groups of
people sharing similar experiences, and its foundation lies the core
notions of religion and philosophical beliefs and a group's application
of those beliefs to daily life. In many cases, major divisions between
these cultural norms lie along racial boundaries, which makes a race
almost a necessary portion of cultural inspection.

All his statement was saying was that generalizations of other groups of
people has justification in some cases, not that these generalizations
are necessarily right or that all generalizations are justified.

 

[Karl Uppiano]

Even prejudice against a whole race of people?

Okay. I guess you've earned this then. Wear it with pride:

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Oh, for pete's sake. There's a bit of overreaction to a very measured
statement.

 

[Karl Uppiano]

Even prejudice against a whole race of people?

Okay. I guess you've earned this then. Wear it with pride:

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Prejudice: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/prejudice
1 : injury or damage resulting from some judgment or action of another in
disregard of one's rights; especially : detriment to one's legal rights or
claims
2 a (1) : preconceived judgment or opinion (2) : an adverse opinion or
leaning formed without just grounds or before sufficient knowledge b : an
instance of such judgment or opinion c : an irrational attitude of hostility
directed against an individual, a group, a race, or their supposed
characteristics
-----
I am actually surprised that definition 1 is the most common meaning. I
always thought that 2(1) was the primary meaning -- given the Latin roots
prae- (meaning before) and -judicum (meaning judge). Definitions 1 and 2(2)
would be unacceptable behavior in my opinion.

In the absence of better information, we all rely on prejudice (previous
experience, and conclusions drawn from a variety of previous experiences).
It is when we neglect to update our prejudices when given new information,
that we risk drifting into 2(2), to everyone's detriment, including our own.
You will note that I did not mention race in my original post. Although race
is one of the many things that all people have prejudices about, whether
they realize it or not. It is how they act on it that determines their
humanity.

Now, back to Java.

 

[Arne Vajhøj]

Except for rare exceptions, I think you absolutely must have a very well
defined, self-contained or unit-testable specification, or your project
is doomed by outsourcing.

If software people that does not know the domain has to be successful,
then they need good requirements.

Having good requirements has positive side effects internally as
well.

Arne

 

[Karl Uppiano]

If software people that does not know the domain has to be successful,
then they need good requirements.

Having good requirements has positive side effects internally as
well.

Yes. I think a lot of software is created based on sloppy, or informal
specifications. This approach can work, but you need high-bandwidth
communication channels between all of the stakeholders. I think many
organizations underestimate the effort required to produce an airtight
specification. The cost of doing that may offset any savings due to
outsourcing.

 

[Karl Uppiano]

Yes. I think a lot of software is created based on sloppy, or informal
specifications. This approach can work, but you need high-bandwidth
communication channels between all of the stakeholders. I think many
organizations underestimate the effort required to produce an airtight
specification. The cost of doing that may offset any savings due to
outsourcing.

P.S. By high bandwidth communication channels, I mean "in the same room,
3-d, in front of the same whiteboard, and around the same water cooler" high
bandwidth.