Quartam Reports, day late, dime short

[Brian Yennie]

Jon,

> I know nothing about this situation, other than what I read in the 
> past day or two, but it seems to me that, tone aside, some of what 
> Paul is saying IS professional.

That's exactly the point. The tone is not aside, and it wasn't subtle. 
It was an angry, rude, demanding rant. Saying "I don't mean to hurt 
you" is pretty pointless right before you intentionally step on 
someone's foot.

>  He explained to Jan specifically what his customers needed, and hoped 
> that Jan had listened.  As to "trite remarks about ... missed 
> deadlines", I'm not so sure that such remarks, if they're true, are 
> trite.

Truth has nothing to do with whether they were trite. Calling them 
trite means they were overused and lost their meaning due to the angry, 
unprofessional presentation. Shouting weakens your point sometimes.

> Explaining to the rest of us that a particular developer may not meet 
> announced deadlines, while depressing, is actually useful to 
> "professional" programmers who need to plan their schedules carefully.

Again, I never said that all of the content of the posts was false. 
Software schedules are notorious for slippage, and it's bad form to 
have your development rely on any unreleased software at all. If 
someone can calmly show me where a particular vendor is notoriously 
worse than others, with some real evidence, I'm all ears. Otherwise, 
it's hearsay.

> I know nothing about Jan or the product, but sometimes the knee jerk 
> reaction on this list is "if you don't have something nice to say, 
> don't say anything".  I'm not sure that is really in anyone's best 
> interest.

No. If there is a valid criticism, just present it in civil manner. It 
happens several times a day every day on this list, and it works quite 
well.

Hey, don't get me wrong. If anyone wants to exercise their right to 
voice their opinion in whatever tone they want, there's nothing I can 
do about it. But the heck if it makes me want to help them, which is 
what this list is all about. And that's a pity.

The signal to noise ratio on this list is damn good, and I would hate 
for that to change. With that said, I think I've put in my 2 cents.

---
Brian Yennie
Chief Technology Officer
QLD Learning, LLC
(310)-367-7364