Re: Need some ammunition (Procedures vs. Sub-routines)

Amen, Buck!

To the OP:

This is probably not a 'fight' you can win, as such. YOU know procedures
are better, WE know procedures are better, and everyone else using other
languages knows procedures are better. If your boss doesn't, then you
trying to fight him on it won't help - he'll dig in further.

Remember also, that there is some merit in the "if it ain't broke, don't
fix it" feeling your boss may have, and it's going to be hard to change
that.

It's there any way you could get a side project - maybe upgrading a
non-core part of the software, and use that to show some examples?

In the long term, you might want to look elsewhere, if this if important to
you.

Rory
On Dec 28, 2013 10:33 AM, "Buck Calabro" <kc2hiz@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On 12/27/2013 1:21 PM, RPGLIST wrote:

I truly believe its a combination of themes, I suppose it might help here
also to list out some of the objections people have had to them and then
give a response to each objection. I was originally thinking of just
giving them bullet points and why they are better, etc. However, in
hindsight I'm thinking I need to add a list of objections and then
overcome each one.

Hi Dutch,
I've been through this many a time. I don't know your shop, don't know
you, don't know your management. So my advice comes from my experience
and what I can infer about your situation from the sum total of your
posts. Apologies in advance for the presumptuousness on my part.

You don't need ammunition: reason and logic are not going to work here.
The objections are emotional and I've never known a person to abandon
his emotional position in the face of logic. In fact, the reverse is
almost always true - in the face of logic, the emotional person clings
ever tighter to his irrational position. And surely, 'test every
program' is the definition of irrational.

That doesn't sound like good news for you, but I don't know your
situation. You might be able to buy the rest of the group some pizza
and wings and have a 'lunch and learn' and show the others how
procedures make their lives easier. Don't be the smartest guy in the
room, be their waiter.

Ammunition means you want to argue, to fight. Don't do that. Instead,
listen to the objections, realise they are emotional and see if you
can't comfort them instead. Once they are past their panic, their
reason will kick in, and then you can have them read McConnell or Knuth
or any one of a dozen internationally acclaimed authors in the computing
field. When the objection arises that Knuth is too ivoury tower and
doesn't relate to the midrange arena, try Paris or Tuohy or Pluta. If
some new objection arises, they aren't past panic yet.
--buck
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