Six Laws of the New Software

LordFoom writes "Still suffering from post-dotcom stress disorder, I keep my eye out for gentle balm to sooth my ravaged psyche. The manifestos at ChangeThis are not it. The most popular manifestos range from irritating to enlightening, with none of them particularly comforting. In particular the recent Six Laws of the New Software have done my dreams of writing lucrative code no good - although it has changed my idea of what money-making code is."

The first law of new software...

[neuro.slug]

The first law of new software is you do NOT talk about new software.

The second law of new software is...

C'mon, somebody had to say it.

Re:In a nutshell

[cyber_rigger]

7. Don't post a link on /. to your development machine.

Re:In a nutshell

[jsprat]

1. 
   
2. Keep it simple
3. Keep it small
4. You're not gonna be the next Microsoft
5. Do many releases
6. Comply with relevant standards

That's 5 laws... What's the sixth?

Profit?

Re:In a nutshell

[winkydink]

Simple covers 2. I simplified. :)

The REAL 6 laws of code writing....

[Hobadee]

1. Make sure it's impossible to use.
2. Make sure it's buggy.
3. Make sure it's unsecure.
4. Market the hell out of it. (Making sure to state how great and secure it is.)
5. ???
6. Profit!

HOWTO: Subscribe to parent's newsletter

[SlimFastForYou]

Step 1: Get rope
Step 2: Tie it in a noose
Step 3: Get a chair and stand on it
Step 4: Tie other end of rope to ceiling fan
Step 5: Put noose over head, snugly over neck
Step 6: Kick chair out from under yourself
Step 7: ???
Step 8: Newsletter!

*Poster does not endorce subscriptions to this newsletter.

Re:HOWTO: Subscribe to parent's newsletter

[Radio Shack Robot]

Your ideas sound intriguing. How can I subscribe to your newsletter?

Re:pdftotext

[complete loony]

That article didn't affect me whatsoever.
Right I'm off to print a test page.

Re:The REAL 6 laws of code writing....

[michaeldot]

1. Make sure it's impossible to use.
2. Make sure it's buggy.
3. Make sure it's unsecure.
4. Market the hell out of it. (Making sure to state how great and secure it is.)
5. ???
6. Profit!

Very interesting, but you've clearly cut & pasted that from Microsoft's employees manual, in violation of your NDA.

Prepare for a visit from the lawyers.

Re:pdftotext

[coopaq]

Would everyone just GO AHEAD AND PRINT this already!!!

As per instructions on the error page...

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear webmaster@localdomain:
Your server gave me this error:

Internal Server Error
The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.
Please contact the server administrator, webmaster@localdomain and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.
More information about this error may be available in the server error log.
Apache/1.3.26 Server at www.changethis.com Port 80

It just happened right after I submitted a link to your website from Slashdot.org
I don't know what may have caused it, but you certainly will be able to figure it out by looking at your logs.
Regards,
AC
P.S. I am sorry, I hope I did not break it!

Subliminal humor?

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't helpGO AHEAD AND PRINT THISfeeling that some kind of backgrounds wont print on paper subliminal message are only visible on-screen to aid readability is embedded in this This manifesto this post.

Six Laws of Perpetual Software Contracts

[saddino]

/* todo: add six laws here */

laws of software

[Anonymous Coward]

#7 if you product isn't open source, it better not suck

Re:pdftotext

[Anonymous Coward]

GO ahead AND karma WHORE poorly

Re:In a nutshell

[darkpixel2k]

The sixth rule of the new software is: you do not talk about the new software!

The .com 5 laws

[David's Boy Toy]

1) Make it complex 2) Cram in every buzzword, expensive license, and strategic partnership you can. 3) You're gonna be the next Microsoft. 4) Do no releases. Software thats released gives too much away. Your ideas are too lofty to be nailed down like that! 5) Comply with irrelevant standards For example: "SuperZyzergy.com enabling a new way of doing business on the web! Oracle, Solaris, W3C compliant business solutions, enhancing the synergy of your XML framework!" Company had 40 employees, gold plated everything, a gigabit network back when that cost $$$. The lone technical member of the staff was suffering delusions regarding the wonderful possibilities of an XML enabled world, "even your car will run on XML instead of gas!". He'd recently gotten to parse a small XML file after several months of work, at a salary of $200K/year. Of course most of his time was spent synergizing about business strategy and alliances. Where Oracle would come in he didn't know yet, but he'd already spent $1M on a license deal. The company IPO party cost $5M, and his stock was soon worth $100M on paper. The stockholders saw the value of the XML enabled world, even if the customers still couldn't figure out what they where selling, or even how to buy some of it. [CRASH] As much as the crash and recession sucked, it is kind of nice that technical skill matters again. For a while programming was irrelevant as long as you could sling around long strings of buzzwords with some 'synergies' and 'enablings' thrown in.

Re:Here's another law to add

[soft_guy]

It's pretty easy to brag about your computer's great PDF handling when the whole graphics subsystem is built on PDF. Windows users do not have this luxury. Taunting them about it is cruel. Be nicer.

6 laws of computing, eh.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are none of the 6 "laws of computing," "The software must not, through action or through inaction, allow a human to come to harm?" People we gotta get started early if we want these to be in everything.

The 7th law

[Anonymous Coward]

"Don't waste your time reading slashdot."

Re:Here's another law to add

[Anonymous Coward]

The deal with the pdf is design masturbation. I feel like I just got tricked to view goatse.cx/tubgirl/etc.

Re:Not original but...

[midg3t]

You can save yourself the effort of rewriting it thrice by just changing the storage format, making minor UI changes, and incrementing the release number. Make sure to get marketting to create a new advertising campaign for the new release, including white care-free young couples smiling in front of the splash screen for your application. Do not take the video or photograph footage for your advertisments at any multiple of 45 degrees on any plane with respect to the orientation of the computer screen (which _must_ be a flatpanel with wireless keyboard and mouse).

GO AHEAD AND PRINT TIME CUBE!

[Anonymous Coward]

> > Would everyone just GO AHEAD AND PRINT this already!!!
>
> I can't helpGO AHEAD AND PRINT THISfeeling that some kind of backgrounds wont print on paper subliminal message are only visible on-screen to aid readability is embedded in this This manifesto this post.

"We recently had a company who were interested in our Content Management System to upis toner-friendly: the backgrounds ate their website."

"They were not convinced, so we added a small hyperlink at the bottom of recommend printing a test page as some older printers do not support this Acrobat feature."

"This manifesto is toner-friendly: the backgrounds wont"

About here, I started screaming things like "Toner-friendly cubeless stupid! You do not know that GO AHEAD AND PRINT THIS TIME CUBE!"