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To: Webb B Blackman Jr who wrote (8099)	12/13/1998 10:40:00 PM
From: gonzongo	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 11149

well- I guess you need to start your own S/W company- for all I see are WIP companies- including TC2k- Qcharts- QP- MS- TF+ - GET- WOW - etc. MS always has a beta going. QP2- is a finished product. My charts S/w says it is Version 2,0,0,5. But it's advances- in the form of new builds- you can see the build number in the QP setup module. I remember Visicalc- SUpercalc- WordPerfect etal always had versions 4.4 4.5 4.6 etc. This is how software works. eom gonzongo

To: Webb B Blackman Jr who wrote (8099)	12/14/1998 7:08:00 AM
From: MechanicalMethod	Respond to of 11149

Off Topic.. sorry, Webb, I've been joint venture coding a trading idea for a couple months that has expanded beyond the scope of the original project. Your excellent management skills and generosity in sharing them here have helped me personally get my project back on track. Thanks!! Osci.

To: Webb B Blackman Jr who wrote (8099)	12/14/1998 7:42:00 AM
From: Sean W. Smith	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 11149

Brooke, I met Gary in Cleveland and think that his program is the greatest. I just disagree with the way that most software products are developed. If through beta testing or whatever, you come up with a list of features that you want in a program, you set the scope of the project and work toward an end date. If other "better ideas" come up along the way, you hold them for the next version. You do not keep on putting off a release date just to add new features. There is nothing wrong with a new version every month, so long as each one is a finished product. What we called is feature creep. Its something you have to plan for. It will always happend no matter how good your specification that things will occur during design and testing that may require modifcation. Common scenarios. We archictected wrong can shave 5% area of the chip but minor re-design. Blatantly missed a critical feature. Marketing talks to XYZ under NDA and if we want them to buy 5,000 of these boxes next year it needs to have feature ABC. Its a contant on going risk evaluation to determine what makes it and what doesn't. The enddate and at least 10 other factors are constantly kept in mind when making these decisions. The process is not as ignorant as many think. It took a long time for me to accept the fact that any project has to have a defined scope and once the scope is set, you do not change it unless you find a fault. You finish one project and move on to the next step to make the first project even better. I am working every day to improve manufacturing processes that I thought that I perfected over 25 years ago. We make things better every day, but we finish each project on time. Things are bit different in the computer industry. Companies move very fast compared to other industries. John Chambers likes to refer to them as internet years. See my comments above. Honestly, if you finish each project on time its sounds like you have a lot of people sandbagging and not pushing the state of the art. In the computer industry schedules are usely extremely agressive. I have NEVER worked on a project that hit its target schedule. Some were pretty close. Most error by 15-35%. Now thats internal. What we tell our customers in general is differnet. Marketing/Sales do often start spreading FUD to maintain account control banking on those dates which sometimes get missed by 100%. If you study who is succecssful in high tech you will find this is a common theme. One that is filled with risk but this is a extrememly competive environment where if you sit still too long you lose. Please don't take this an excuse for poor quality. You can do this and still deliver a robust product yet most don't. FYI.... The team I work with consisting of 5 engineers has just received first silicon on a chip that is over 20 Million transistors which was architected, designed, verified and sent to fab in only 7 months. Managements goal was 6 months. Everyone else in the company said is was "Impossible to build" at all in any time frame. Damn Negative Thinkers.... One of our sister teams has been working on something similar in function that is less than half the size with 20 engineers for over 3 years and has not produced working silicon yet. Results obviously vary based on talent, resources, motivation etc. Engineering is frought with constant trade offs and risk analysis. Despite careful planning things never go the way you want. Some are obviosuly better and scheduling resources and prediciting completion than others.... Sean