mike.mainguy

This is an enabling concept and should be a key component of effective military (or business) doctrine. If every commander in the military had to ask the boss what they where supposed to do when they encountered an unspecified problem, how effective would they be? Imagine the Tank Commander on halting his tank and radioing to the platoon leader "hey LT, there's a building in my way, what should I do?" and then the platoon leader radioing to the company commander... all the way up to the president. Wouldn't be a very effective fighting force would it? The idea of "Commander's intent" is that it relies on subordinates having an understanding of what the overall mission is and how they fit into it. It specifically frees subordinates to act in accordance with their understanding of what they are being asked to accomplish. In essence, the commander formally recognizes that specific details are the responsibility of the lower echelon and it the the lower ...

Update from previous blog post about retailers and their non-widescreen compatible layouts. I was commenting on how nobody seemed to get how to properly design a web page so it could be stretchy... kmart.com has done it! Congratulations guys! I also like the new experience, it really looks nice. I will say the left nav is a little disconcerting. I was initially confused when I clicked on the department and the popup disappeared and showed the details down below. It took a few seconds to understand what the heck actually happened.

I recently sat down with a group of technical people and I made a statement that now haunts me. The statement was: "If a developer doesn't know exactly what they are supposed to do, they should just GUESS what they think should be done and move on. " Once the words left my lips, a technical team lead at the table paled and began to argue about how that statement was totally incorrect. I was puzzled for a moment, but then realised this person probably thought I was implying that they should not EVER go back and ask what should be done. In addition, I think they heard me imply that developers shouldn't ever ask questions in general. This was not really what I intended to communicate and in retrospect, my choice of words was unfortunate. To clarify, I obviously think people should ask questions, they should openly challenge requirements that are vague, ambiguous, or contradictory. More importantly, they should be free to use their best judgement in the absence of sp...

OK, I've had it with my old clunkly Dynex keyboard. Normally my typing speed is somewhere up around 80+ wpm, but with this keyboard it sinks down to around 70wpm... that's over 10% and just not acceptable when I'm knee deep trying to get ideas out of my head and into a computer before they disappear. So I thought what I'd do is go online and see which local retailers have my product, and, more importantly, which one's had my product in stock in my local store. The only reason I would go to a Brick and Mortar site for electronics is because either: I want it NOW!! it's so expensive/heavy that I want to make sure I have a real person to yell at if something goes wrong Off the top of my head I know I picked these stores due to their proximity and my inclination that they may have what I'm looking for. Best Buy (800lb gorilla).. I have a bias toward them because it is very close to my house and I know they have keyboards I can test drive. Wal Mart (close by...