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The kitten thing might be hyperbole, but I've got to agree with everything else in that article. Plus, who wants to be the guy stuck with maintaining some lame thrown together in house CMS system.
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And it fails to account for many developers not liking kittens?
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I would agree as well. However, it's not that way working in smaller companies. What tends to happen is they read about something that sounds great, then you have to show them how to use it. When they can't figure something out, you have to learn that feature. Then, when something either is missing or happens to not "work correctly" you are expected to "patch" the third party program they've adopted.
Also, I find it difficult to get management to buy tools. Especially if they believe it's cheaper just to "write something real quick" instead of pay the fees for third party stuff.
Overall though, I agree with what the guy is saying. I think if people spent more time using things that are already available it would be good for everyone. Not only would we not have to write stuff that already exists, but I think users would become more accustom to software as a whole... which would help us/me in the long run.
Elephant elephant elephant, sunshine sunshine sunshine
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I work in a medium size foundation, there are about 80 people spread around the globe and I've worked in a startup of about 25 people, and haven't had that problem, but both places focused on hiring smart technical people across the board.
For my current job, we have a really solid breakdown of things that are unique to the mission of the foundation, things that directly support the mission, and everything else. We build custom software for the unique things, and then buy software for the others, which is working out well.
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[Marketers] must run experiments, tag, and track new events all the time. They can’t afford to wait for a developer to tweak a graph in the dashboard. [Marketers] need data, and they need it now.
so...yeah. That's killer logic right there. "We need data! Data! Data! Data! And we don't have time to wait for anyone to make it available for us!!!"
In general, marketers need to get over themselves that they may be the ones that determine the criteria for information (in the hierarchy of signals: noise->data->information->knowledge->wisdom) but "give me all the things and give them to me now" is not a reasonable request from marketing. I can dump a log and I can spool every message that has passed through the queue pretty easily and you can spend 3 months looking for a needle in a haystack that will mean nothing to you by the time you find it. OR, you can know your place, leave the data analysis and software development to professionals, provide me requirements, and then I will deliver your information to you.
It's kind of cliché, but you don't see business passengers interfering with aerospace engineers trying to modify their designs of an airplane "I need to get to my destination faster and I need the plane built quicker. Chop chop chop!"
The paradox of our profession is that we're supposed to make it look easy for someone like a marketer to procure the things they need to perform in their role. There is no physical product being delivered; no planes to fall from the sky, no buildings to topple over, "just" software. So its importance and complexity gets trivialized by neophytes that think they know better.
Bad Marketer. Bad.
"I need build Skynet. Plz send code"
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Alaric_ wrote: "We need data! Data! Data! Data! And we don't have time to wait for anyone to make it available for us!!!" ... "give me all the things and give them to me now"
Alaric_ wrote: I can dump a log and I can spool every message that has passed through the queue pretty easily
I don't see the problem here. Dump the log and say here is all the data. I'll have more for you as it comes in. 
Once you lose your pride the rest is easy.
I would agree with you but then we both would be wrong.
The report of my death was an exaggeration - Mark Twain
Simply Elegant Designs JimmyRopes Designs
I'm on-line therefore I am.
JimmyRopes
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On the other hand, if these guys are saying that a quick and dirty hack today beats a carefully thought out plan too far in the future to matter...
A medium complicated spreadsheet that the marketer can use, is 'better' than a simple database, if clicking on the 'sum' button is the upper limit of computer skills.
It's an old story - this is how VisiCalc sort of won out over mainframes - impatience is sometimes a force for progress.
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His underlying point is valid, but he's pointing his finger at the wrong party.
If your company's CMS requires development efforts to do something new, but Wordpress doesn't, then that's the company's fault for trying to roll something that an off the shelf solution already has.
What does this guy think is going to happen if he needs a feature that doesn't exist in Worpress? He's going to have to wait for developers. In this case, Wordpress developers.
Companies expect world-class software from devs paid at third-world rates. Not gonna happen.
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Exactly. Or the off-the-shelf product won't integrate with the new application. "Sure, we can install that CMS, but it'll be empty unless you tell us how to feed data into it."
It's likely that marketers and salesmen only listen to other marketers and salesmen -- who all say that their product can do everything "right out of the box".
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PIEBALDconsult wrote: Or the off-the-shelf product won't integrate with the new application. "Sure, we can install that CMS, but it'll be empty unless you tell us how to feed data into it."
Let the marketers feed new information into it. When they realize that the off the shelf application doesn't let them customize the product they will either have to live with it or request (pay for) an in house solution. 
Once you lose your pride the rest is easy.
I would agree with you but then we both would be wrong.
The report of my death was an exaggeration - Mark Twain
Simply Elegant Designs JimmyRopes Designs
I'm on-line therefore I am.
JimmyRopes
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As one client told me, "it's only rules. All you have to do is change the rules." Oops! There goes another kitty.
I may not last forever but the mess I leave behind certainly will.
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If they bought some off the shelf system have them deal with customer support.
Once you lose your pride the rest is easy.
I would agree with you but then we both would be wrong.
The report of my death was an exaggeration - Mark Twain
Simply Elegant Designs JimmyRopes Designs
I'm on-line therefore I am.
JimmyRopes
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Not to mention, faster and better.
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All those poor dead kitties...that's all I'll say, it wouldn't be KSS.
Have you ever just looked at someone and knew the wheel was turning but the hamster was dead?
Trying to understand the behavior of some people is like trying to smell the color 9.
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I have bought a kitten and am going to make it wait for me...there's no reason why this should work in reciprocal, but it's worth a try.
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Not quite sure what he means...
But I agree wholeheartedly, marketing department should not be stopped by pesky things, such as reality checks! 
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The really dangerous marketers are the ones that know the way to R&D and talk to us; if you're foolish enough to tell them about your latest blue sky project, they want, want, want, and pretty soon it's on the list of future features before you even get past feasibility.
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it's already sold to 10 customers for 1 million each! 
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Too bad it's not "every time a kitten is forced to wait for a developer to feed it, a marketer dies."
Software Zen: delete this;
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That's horrible, think of the kittens!
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Not only marketers, everyone waits for a developer. The director of an internet publishing dept told me that his dept was in fact the corporate communication center. He had to participate in almost every meeting in the corporation.
TOMZ_KV
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Wow, I was hoping this kind of stuff was stopping, not getting worse.
While some of the points are not so far out there, the level of insanity is quite high.
It reminded me of an interview for a lead developer position. The company was behind schedule,
it was all the developers fault, of course. They were hiring me to get them over the hump and
lead things better after that. But get this. They bought a Major Ad spot in 3 magazines, that
were going to start the next month. They were clearly 90 days behind being able to do this.
Lets just say... I didn't take the job. I ran from that interview.
And the funny part, is that on another team, I had a marketing guy pull me and and write on MY Whiteboard:
Product - Sales = Shht! (without the typo)
So I wrote up there:
Sales - Product = Fraud!
After a short while of talking it out, we got each other, and it all went quite well after that.
He agreed to not market what we don't have, and I agreed to push for ONE "MARKETING" feature per quarter
to make it in the software.
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Wow.
There seem to be some legit frustrations in what the author is saying, but he is clueless when it comes to blaming the developers, it sounds like a collection of management/process issues.
What really struck me is when he says that:
"All landing pages have a lot in common: they include compelling sales copy supported by a nice image or video, and they invite the visitor to press a big, shiny button or to fill out a lead generation form. Nothing crazy here — no animation, no bells or whistles. So why the heck would you need a coder to do this for you?"
So, in other words, if he can't see a bunch of fancy animations on the page then it must not take any coding at all. Nevermind that the fancy visual stuff is the designer's territory and not much of a coding thing. Nevermind what happens when that button is clicked.
He is clearly absolutely clueless about back-end processing, which shows that he has absolutely no idea about what the developers are actually doing. Which makes his rant about developers asinine.
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Starting a couple of days ago, I've been seeing the site in plain html mode, no color, etc. in chrome. When I check the messages, it seems I'm getting a too many redirects message, so the script and css are not loading. Anyone else experience this? Sorry if this has already been asked, I can't see the messageboard in it's original format anymore 
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