Tuesday, 9 August 2005

Smart, successful Scotland?

Chris writes about the nightmare of the year. Now I'm a crusty old blogger who can even remember the days of the IBM 360, so I don't exactly know all of what Chris is going on about except this: Edinburgh University isn't customer focused. And that's wrong. Hey, even I've worked out that Firefox is better than Internet Explorer and I've got a Flickr account. So why can't the University get its act together? I know, I've said it before: could it just be something to do with the fact that the University is financed by the state?
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1 comment:

David Farrer said...

Comments made on previous template:

Jim Higson
Like much bad software, this has all the traits of the second project: 
 
An architect's first work is apt to be spare and clean. He knows 
he doesn't know what he's doing, so he does it carefully and with great 
restraint. 
As he designs the first work, frill after frill and embellishment 
after embellishment occur to him. These get stored away to be used "next 
time." Sooner or later the first system is finished, and the architect, 
with firm confidence and a demonstrated mastery of that class of systems, 
is ready to build a second system. 
This second is the most dangerous system a man ever designs. 
When he does his third and later ones, his prior experiences will 
confirm each other as to the general characteristics of such systems, 
and their differences will identify those parts of his experience that 
are particular and not generalizable. 
The general tendency is to over-design the second system, using 
all the ideas and frills that were cautiously sidetracked on the first 
one. The result, as Ovid says, is a "big pile." 
-- Frederick Brooks, "The Mythical Man Month"

10 August 2005, 20:09:40 GMT+01:00
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Andrew Duffin
The IBM 360? 
 
David I had no idea you were THAT old. 
 


10 August 2005, 12:36:30 GMT+01:00
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tom
Seems more like a hideous mish-mash of enforced private sector involvement into state-funded areas, thus ensuring the absolute worst of both worlds. A state-funded body - with no obligation beyond looking like it's trying hard - gets screwed over by a private company with no objective but to sell the fanciest-looking product to the most gullible people for the greatest money. Because, if you introduce market reforms into the public sector, you get the efficiency of one with the public service function of the other... 
 
Unfortunately, Stradivarius was a terrible painter, and Rembrandt made rotten violins.

10 August 2005, 01:57:18 GMT+01:00
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Keith
Okay, that's hideous. I thoroughly detest lousy web programming. Especially when it blocks off great content.

9 August 2005, 21:32:50 GMT+01:00

8:31 am, October 22, 2012

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