Re: whats with this love of kaffiene?

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On Thursday 26 April 2007, Tim wrote:
>Gene:
>>> But I have to ask again, where in tuncket are the docs on this stuff?
>
>Ed Greshko:
>> Dare I say this is "normal"?  Speaking in generalities, developers don't
>> enjoy doing documentation.  Also, generally speaking, developers make poor
>> documenters.
>>
>> I worked for a company that transitioned from a hardware company to more
>> of an integration and software company.  The demographics of the company
>> remained largely the same.  i.e. Mostly engineers and techies.  The
>> result, good software, horrendous documentation.  And, these folks were
>> paid.
>
>Sounds like they need to, also, employ someone who used to be a teacher.
>Someone who's used to the idea of having to train, as the main thing
>that they do.

On the face of it, that is a good idea.  Till that old saw about "those who 
can't do, teach" comes crawling up out of the back of my mind, having had it 
quite amply demonstrated in my nearly 57 years of chasing electrons for a 
living.  The other corollary to that is that those who can do, and then try 
to teach, have a hell of a time trying to reduce the language to something 
that actually works for TV-101 classes.

We can get so far over their heads just discussing a physical phenom in a 
klystron amplifier caused by the relativistic speed of the electron beam and 
the fact that the mode of amplification there is beam velocity, not 
amplitude.  The net effect is that the tube seems to be longer at the higher 
power levels.  Now, think about the cause of all the sync spikes coming out 
of an analog uhf transmitter that used those amplifiers, and how many times 
has the GM asked engineering to 'fix' the sync buzz.  Very very difficult to 
compensate for with the tools we have.  And now largely a thing of the past 
to a measureable degree because the klystron's several grand a month power 
bill has made it certain that the minute a more efficient power device is 
invented, a hundred million dollars worth of transmitters will be replaced as 
fast as the makers can build them.

There are a few reading this list who will know what I just wrote, but I dare 
say that 99% of the readers will just say huh? and ignore me.  I lost their 
attention at 'relativistic'.

But, Albert Einstein was right, so we DO have to pay attention to the man 
behind the curtain who is really running the show. :-)

>--
>(This box runs FC6, my others run FC4 & FC5, in case that's
> important to the thread.)
>
>Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored.
>I read messages from the public lists.



-- 
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
 soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)
Think honk if you're a telepath.


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