unhd (Roger Gonzalez ) (10/25/90)
Funding agent: "We're interested in X, Y, and Z." Management: "We can do X, Y, and Z! X, Y, and Z? No problem! We'll even do W for you! We can do anything, you know." Funding agent: "Fine. Here's $$ for man hours on W, X, Y, and Z." Management: "Ohhhh, thankyouthankyouthankyou!" (later) Engineer: "We're going to do WHAT??? With HOW much?? What about maintenance? What about upgrades? What about.." Management: "Details, details. I have confidence in you." (several hacks, a kludge, and a little spit and duct tape later) Engineer: "Zzzzz.. what? Oh yeah, it does W, X, Y, and Z. Its a miracle, but it'll do it. This is the last time we can do this though. The PROMS are full, the CPU's are overloaded, the depth sensor says we're 10 miles down, and it takes us years to offload data over this pathetic serial line. We need a new computer system! Yesterday! Something off the shelf, none of this homebrew junk! Otherwise we'll never be able to do stuff again." Management: "Look, there's no money for that. You must be doing something wrong. Here's a dollar. Go buy a system, and stop bothering us." (back at the engineering cave) Engineer1: "A dollar. That'll buy us what?" Engineer2: "A TRS-80. This dollar needs to be split into two target systems and a development system. Even the license for the RT operating system we need costs $2. Looks like we'll just rebuild the system we've got. *&#$!?!." Engineer1: (sighs resignedly) (Our heros bondo the largest holes in the system, cover the rest with some hi-gloss paint, and the cycle starts over again.) --- Seriously, though. Is it just us, or is there only ever enough funding to meet the flashy, sexy research needs, and never enough to provide dollars for NECESSARY things like maintenance and upgrades. Are we just not chasing these dollars rigorously enough? Any comments? -Roger -- "The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than the question of whether a submarine can swim" - Edsgar W. Dijkstra rg@unhd.unh.edu | UNH Marine Systems Engineering Laboratory r_gonzalez@unhh.bitnet | Durham, NH 03824-3525