Science: fun!
Software development: glamorous!
Version control? Boring.
Code reviews? Boring.
Builds? Boring.
Testing? Boring.
Packaging? Releases? Boring.
Zzzz.
I'm not the guy who models obstructed water flows around oblate spheroids in S-shaped pipes, using pentagonal, finite elements with moving boundaries.
I do boring, practical stuff. I'm the guy who unclogs your toilet.
It's worth knowing how to work a toilet plunger. Otherwise, you always have to pay a plumber, and we're expensive.
Come spend an hour learning a little more about software manufacturing than you know now. It'll be fun and glamorous. Oh, okay, it won't. But it'll be worth knowing.
I'll say things you can use.
Jeffrey S. Haemer is Software Configuration Manager at Aztek Networks, in Boulder, Colorado.
Dr. Haemer has worked and consulted on various aspects of software manufacturing since 1983, when he helped produce the first, Intel-based, Unix system: PC/IX on the IBM PC/XT.
He has done Unix and Linux education and training for organizations like Uniforum and the University of Colorado, and in places like Romania and Kuwait. He has served as Standards Representative for the Usenix Association. He is a contributing author of The Linux Administration Handbook and has published over a hundred articles and papers on software engineering for Unix and Linux.
He coordinates the monthly, speakers program for the Boulder Linux Users Group.
