What do they teach them these days?

[Karla]

I think to be honest that a lot of people just lack curiosity.

This.  It's not so much what they're taught (which, in the normal engineeringy scheme of things, is only going to be a wider context for real-world skills), it's what they learn.

It all sounds so familiar

[Beardy]

My main problem with Excel encompassed in a single frame
https://xkcd.com/1906/
I have an aversion to copying data from one sheet to another when there is a possibility of automating it. Of course I extend the challenge of data handling by refusing to use VBA. I do get very grump though with peoples insistence in using spreadsheets when databases would be more appropriate.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I think to be honest that a lot of people just lack curiosity.

Hmmm.  I think that it may be that they have it beaten out of them by the corporate machine, specifically bean-counters.  Curiosity costs money.  I've lost count of the times I've heard replies along the lines of, "No you can't investigate an alternative solution.  We want this delivered yesterday and for nothing so get on with it."  In the end people give up trying and go with the "tried and tested" even when it's patently NBG.  I should imagine much the same applies in most jobs not just programming.

This, kind of. When I was in a big corp it taught me they value time and money over quality. Most people come in trying to do the best job they can, and then find or work out that what is wanted is not the best they can do, but the quickest they can meet a set, fairly low, standard. And it's not that they don't value innovation but that they take the idea and subject it to multiple levels of cynicism, again based on time and money.

[Polar Bear]

Maybe I am being a bit subversive then. Meet the spec to standard and you get a B. Bring in something else, go beyond and you will get the A grade you desire.
Looking stuff up and finding out things that you haven't been taught that are relevant are learning objectives.

But then go from academia into business and it becomes: Meet the spec to standard and you get paid. A certain amount. Bring in something else, go beyond and you ... still get paid the same amount.
What's is more fruitful however, in business, is using curiosity to figure out how to do it not necessarily better, but faster.

This is the ultimate and oft repeated mistake of IT outsourcing.   The in house bods know the systems inside out and understand the business requirements all ways round.  As soon as you outsource you move from a scenario where things are done to improve because you can to a process where everything is done to a cost.  You lose the value add, the knowledge and most importantly, the edge.   

Still, on paper accountants love outsourcing...

[ElyDave]

My main problem with Excel encompassed in a single frame
https://xkcd.com/1906/
I have an aversion to copying data from one sheet to another when there is a possibility of automating it. Of course I extend the challenge of data handling by refusing to use VBA. I do get very grump though with peoples insistence in using spreadsheets when databases would be more appropriate.

I know how to use spreadsheets, I have no practical experience or knowledge of databases. I assume many others in the same boat?

[ian]

We have people who have been using Excel for decades and it's a key part of what they do. They wouldn't know a pivot table if poked them in the ribs and said hey, I'm a pivot table, let's pivot baby. Yet, it's one of the simplest and most powerful uses of Excel (something I'm finding difficult to replicate elsewhere, leastways with that kind of fast, intuitive simplicity). I honestly caught someone making a 'pivot table' by copying the values onto a piece of paper. They were amazed when I showed them how to do it and then they went back to doing it on paper (because they 'forgot'). Things like VLOOKUP and MATCH are voodoo. Good god, I created a frequency distribution with an array formula for someone the other day. I think cerebrospinal fluid squirted out of his nose (at least I hope it was that). How did you know how to do that? he gasped. The mere expedient of Googling it may be a first foot on the path to enlightenment.

Of course, some realism, while I know I could probably better use a database for some of the projects I do, I don't realistically have time to learn and do this (and my bosses would argue I'm paid too much for that kind of dibbling, for which they would be right, but then I don't have another resource to delegate it to).

And of course, there are dangers. I'm forever being asked to create graphics for important presentations, which is nice, but none of the people who request them realise that they take time, and sometimes a lot of time. I have to work with the data teams, get the data, figure out what the data is, work with the data team because wtf-does-that-mean, analyse the data, etc. and then figure out ways to graphically present it in ways that are both informative and appealing, and then design and produce the final product (usually in a couple of formats and versions). This can be several weeks work. Not an afternoon because you need something impressive because you're meeting a government minister in the morning. I get this all the time.

I made the mistake the other week of breaking my own no-video rule and producing a quick show-and-tell for a new feature (because our video monkey has a four-month backlog). Scribbled a storyboard, figured out how to use Camtasia to do some basic screen capture and narration, did a few animations in Keynote and graphics to lead in and out, sewed it all together. We're talking Uwe Boll and not Steven Spielberg here. Well, you can guess what happened. Oh could you do...

[Beardy]

I think to be honest that a lot of people just lack curiosity.

Hmmm.  I think that it may be that they have it beaten out of them by the corporate machine, specifically bean-counters.  Curiosity costs money.  I've lost count of the times I've heard replies along the lines of, "No you can't investigate an alternative solution.  We want this delivered yesterday and for nothing so get on with it."  In the end people give up trying and go with the "tried and tested" even when it's patently NBG.  I should imagine much the same applies in most jobs not just programming.

This, kind of. When I was in a big corp it taught me they value time and money over quality. Most people come in trying to do the best job they can, and then find or work out that what is wanted is not the best they can do, but the quickest they can meet a set, fairly low, standard. And it's not that they don't value innovation but that they take the idea and subject it to multiple levels of cynicism, again based on time and money.

Or to quote a 'Grown up' on the development of a now ubiquitous part of all our lives, 'Good enough is by definition good enough' He had no interest in the engineering teams improving the design or development towards any form or excellence, nor in them 'wasting time' looking for clever or future proofed solutions. Of course, he was a the head of the queue to complain when he wanted bells and whistles adding, only to be told that it would cost lots more than the value of the added bells and whistles because the whole needed to be redesigned and redeveloped to make adding anything practical.

Very few, if any decision makers have any form of medium to long term thought, mainly because they are bonused annually and often transient in post due to their 'career trajectory'

[DuncanM]

Maybe I am being a bit subversive then. Meet the spec to standard and you get a B. Bring in something else, go beyond and you will get the A grade you desire.
Looking stuff up and finding out things that you haven't been taught that are relevant are learning objectives.

But then go from academia into business and it becomes: Meet the spec to standard and you get paid. A certain amount. Bring in something else, go beyond and you ... still get paid the same amount.
What's is more fruitful however, in business, is using curiosity to figure out how to do it not necessarily better, but faster.

Exactly.  If you offer the program manager 3 choices: 1. Brilliant, but will take a while, 2. OK but meets your timescale, 3. Worse, but faster, you would expect them to pick #2. It's amazing how often you offer that, and they pick #3.

[Kim]

Some years ago I got the book recommended by others on here (Musson), read it, hunted through man-cave for bits with which to experiment, built one, didn't kill myself riding it,  bought some better quality bits, built a pair, tested them by hurtling down a hill as fast as I could (about 15kph than I had ever managed on whatever I was riding before), gave the original to son who rode E2E on it....
In contrast my next door neighbour has the book, the rims & hubs, but won't even open the package of spokes until I'm there to hold his hand.

Sounds like he's doing okay on the curiosity side, but is thwarted by fear - perhaps of damaging something, or of a less-than-perfect result.

IMHO one of the most important things you can do in life is allow yourself to break things and be a bit crap.

[ian]

There's a thing though. We have a product and we put some effort into getting (mostly) well-thought-out and fully fleshed features into the releases. It took longer. The main competitor, on the other hand, would shove what they could into their product regardless and make a big splash. So we'd get the 'why don't you have that feature?' And no matter how much we explained that their version was mostly shit and we were going to do it right, anyway, we have minimum viable whatevers now.

It's the same for and entire product. If there's a market, getting their first is what counts. There's rarely much point delivering a better product a year later. Customers don't wait, they'd rather get something today and complain than wait for something better.

Sometimes there's viable business reasons for the way things are. But equally, you should understand those reasons and not just do things because that's the way things always got done.

[Polar Bear]

Maybe I am being a bit subversive then. Meet the spec to standard and you get a B. Bring in something else, go beyond and you will get the A grade you desire.
Looking stuff up and finding out things that you haven't been taught that are relevant are learning objectives.

But then go from academia into business and it becomes: Meet the spec to standard and you get paid. A certain amount. Bring in something else, go beyond and you ... still get paid the same amount.
What's is more fruitful however, in business, is using curiosity to figure out how to do it not necessarily better, but faster.

Exactly.  If you offer the program manager 3 choices: 1. Brilliant, but will take a while, 2. OK but meets your timescale, 3. Worse, but faster, you would expect them to pick #2. It's amazing how often you offer that, and they pick #3.

Possibly but the PM will have different pressures, mainly cost and time.  Quality is usually forsaken simply due to the massive pressures of no money and want it yesterday.  The PM will ask "will it do what we want?".  The key is to dump 3, relegate 2 to 3, 1 to 2, then add a new 1: Genius but will take an awful long time and cost three times the entire budget.   Then you get a minimum of OK.

No nous these youngsters.      

[DuncanM]

Maybe I am being a bit subversive then. Meet the spec to standard and you get a B. Bring in something else, go beyond and you will get the A grade you desire.
Looking stuff up and finding out things that you haven't been taught that are relevant are learning objectives.

But then go from academia into business and it becomes: Meet the spec to standard and you get paid. A certain amount. Bring in something else, go beyond and you ... still get paid the same amount.
What's is more fruitful however, in business, is using curiosity to figure out how to do it not necessarily better, but faster.

Exactly.  If you offer the program manager 3 choices: 1. Brilliant, but will take a while, 2. OK but meets your timescale, 3. Worse, but faster, you would expect them to pick #2. It's amazing how often you offer that, and they pick #3.

Possibly but the PM will have different pressures, mainly cost and time.  Quality is usually forsaken simply due to the massive pressures of no money and want it yesterday.  The PM will ask "will it do what we want?".  The key is to dump 3, relegate 2 to 3, 1 to 2, then add a new 1: Genius but will take an awful long time and cost three times the entire budget.   Then you get a minimum of OK.

No nous these youngsters.   

This usually happens after the customer asks the PM how long it will take, and the PM makes up a number without asking the devs.
So he shows up, and asks for an estimate that meets his number.

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

Maybe I am being a bit subversive then. Meet the spec to standard and you get a B. Bring in something else, go beyond and you will get the A grade you desire.
Looking stuff up and finding out things that you haven't been taught that are relevant are learning objectives.

But then go from academia into business and it becomes: Meet the spec to standard and you get paid. A certain amount. Bring in something else, go beyond and you ... still get paid the same amount.
What's is more fruitful however, in business, is using curiosity to figure out how to do it not necessarily better, but faster.

Exactly.  If you offer the program manager 3 choices: 1. Brilliant, but will take a while, 2. OK but meets your timescale, 3. Worse, but faster, you would expect them to pick #2. It's amazing how often you offer that, and they pick #3.

Possibly but the PM will have different pressures, mainly cost and time.  Quality is usually forsaken simply due to the massive pressures of no money and want it yesterday.  The PM will ask "will it do what we want?".  The key is to dump 3, relegate 2 to 3, 1 to 2, then add a new 1: Genius but will take an awful long time and cost three times the entire budget.   Then you get a minimum of OK.

No nous these youngsters.   

Give them the third best to go on with; the second best comes too late; the best never comes.

Radar Pioneer Sir Robert Watson-Watt, 'Three Steps to Victory' p.74, 'The Cult of the Imperfect'. 

[jsabine]

Sundry other clichés too - done is better than perfect; the perfect is the enemy of the good; Dali's advice to have no fear of perfection, as you'll never achieve it ...

But I'm certainly guilty of giving free reign to my curiosity in a vain attempt to analyse my way to an unattainable perfection.

[jsabine]

I do get very grump though with peoples insistence in using spreadsheets when databases would be more appropriate.

Isn't one issue that most business versions of Office include Excel, but most users don't have access (see what I did there?) to database software or the skills to use it?

[ian]

I do get very grump though with peoples insistence in using spreadsheets when databases would be more appropriate.

Isn't one issue that most business versions of Office include Excel, but most users don't have access (see what I did there?) to database software or the skills to use it?

Yes, Access isn't a standard component of Office – certainly we have to request it and provide a reason why. I could, of course, download something but truthfully, I don't have time to learn databases and to deploy one (I'm trying to cadge the services of a data scientist) and Excel might not be elegant and may drag to a crawl reminiscent of a injured sloth with huge datasets, but it tells me what I want to know.

And no, I'm not sure what a sloth is doing with datasets, but it should worry us all.

[SteveC]

The real problem I have with Excel isn't people using it where a database would be possible or even sensible.
It's where the organisation is relying for really serious business decisions on uncontrolled 'magic' spreadsheets which have no specification and where nobody really understands how it all works any more. When things get that serious you should really be using some sort of proper project or financial management tool.
Scary.

[Feanor]

How did you know how to do that? he gasped. The mere expedient of Googling it may be a first foot on the path to enlightenment.

I work in a software mine these days, but my role is 'product champion', whatever that means.
I'm pretty sure I don't.
But they pay me for it, which is nice.

Anyways, I often find it useful to hack out 'proof-of-concept' code to pass onto the developers, to show what it is we need to be doing.
My code is not production-standard, with no error checking or anything.
It's pure proof-of-concept stuff that works with sanitised example datasets.

When I'm hacking around, I often need to google for sample code.
This usually lands me at StackOverflow and the like.
So someone else has asked this question before.
Let's look at the answers...

"Why do you want to do that?"
"You don't want to do that."
"You should re-engineer your code to use this method"
"No, you should re-architecture your entire data model and use this thing."
"That's not possible"
And all the tangential arguments that stem from these responses.

Buried on P94 is the actual answer:
"That's fairly simple. You should look at this method: <msdn link to something actually relevant>"

[ian]

The real problem I have with Excel isn't people using it where a database would be possible or even sensible.
It's where the organisation is relying for really serious business decisions on uncontrolled 'magic' spreadsheets which have no specification and where nobody really understands how it all works any more. When things get that serious you should really be using some sort of proper project or financial management tool.
Scary.

That's why the controlling mind of our mothership was called Copy of Copy of Copy of Copy of Bugeting%20%SsPreaDshe202012 (recovered).xls until the overthrow. You madam, are referencing an empty cell!

To infinite reiteration and beyond!

[Somnolent]

The real problem I have with Excel isn't people using it where a database would be possible or even sensible.
It's where the organisation is relying for really serious business decisions on uncontrolled 'magic' spreadsheets which have no specification and where nobody really understands how it all works any more. When things get that serious you should really be using some sort of proper project or financial management tool.
Scary.

Many years ago I was considered to be something of an Excel guru at my then place of work.
This was very much a reflection of the standard of my co-workers rather than great skillz on my part, but in the months before I left I created a number of spreadsheets (with some very simple VBA) to automate some simple repetitive tasks.  Many years later on a visit back there I was told they were still using them, but that although legilative changes meant they now needed tweaking no one had the ability to do so, and worse there was no one left who could remember how to do the manual process they had replaced. 
They just carried on using the spreadsheet and fed the answers individually into a calculator to apply the appropriate fudgeration factor...

[PaulF]

Yes, Excel shouldn’t really be used for anything mission critical.

Years ago, as a freshly hatched graduate trainee, I was responsible for the daily market report for one of th major merchant banks. Whilst trying to understand the spreadsheet that I’d inherited I realised that someone had typed over a dynamic link to the exchange rate feed and the rate was at least 6 months out of date.

As an aside I went cap in hand to the Director expecting a rollocking but was rewarded for taking the initiative but was also assisted by the fact that a. It was the Greek Drachma rate to which we had little exposure and b. I’d come in armed with the impact that it made

[ElyDave]

The real problem I have with Excel isn't people using it where a database would be possible or even sensible.
It's where the organisation is relying for really serious business decisions on uncontrolled 'magic' spreadsheets which have no specification and where nobody really understands how it all works any more. When things get that serious you should really be using some sort of proper project or financial management tool.
Scary.

Have you been watching us?

We finally stopped that earlier this year.

[Asterix, the former Gaul.]

Sundry other clichés too - done is better than perfect; the perfect is the enemy of the good; Dali's advice to have no fear of perfection, as you'll never achieve it ...

But I'm certainly guilty of giving free reign to my curiosity in a vain attempt to analyse my way to an unattainable perfection.

Was told once that hand woven Persian carpets always contain one deliberate error. The reason being that only the Almighty could achieve perfection and that for a mortal to attempt it was bad for their soul.

[ElyDave]

80:20 rule is there for a reason

[Pingu]

In my work it would seem that Excel is for writing out lists of stuffs with lots of garish coloured backgrounds.