GTT: Announce & Question

[Linas Vepstas]

On Wed, Sep 05, 2001 at 04:21:11PM -0500, cbbrowne@ntlug.org was heard to remark:
> Linas Vepstas
> > > least having it do basic project management is a semi wash.  The more
> > 
> > Nahhh. There's room in the world for a simple stop-watch app that isn't
> > all things to all people.  (e.g. everclear-- everything to everyone)
> 
> Well, having a stopwatch _isn't_ enough; 

Well, lets have this dicussion at different levels.

I'm just saying that there's room in this world for applications of all
sorts of different capabilities.  You don't always need the ultimate,
end-all, be-all program for some simple uses.   You don't need
the gimp just to view an image. 

> what if there are tasks that
> are done while not near to the PC to click on start/end?

Well, SOL. A web solution doesn't help there either.  Unless you're a
gadget freak, and have a blackberry or something.  Besides, most of us 
aren't gadget freaks anyway.

> There's a LOT of merit to using the same data for billing and for project
> management; 

Yes, there is, no doubt.

> if it's truthful enough to use to bill clients, then it's
> probably much better than the numbers that would get entered into a separate
> PM system...

Nah, I dispute that. Someone actually does have to review the actual
time entries for correctness.  Or you have a policy that they just
slide. Or you don't care that much.  That no one is being fraudulent.
etc.

If its just you, and you are an individual, and you really are billing
based off of this, then your probably keeping paper or alternate notes
anyway, since even a small mistake can be expensive.  

And if its just you, an individual, practical experience says most people
don't project-plan.  I never project-planned any of the time I spent on
gnucash, or the time I spend reading email.  I just do it: 'gee I feel
like hacking gnucash today', or 'lets check the email', or 'lets eat
lunch.'

On large programming projects (or construction projects), there may be a
project planner, maybe part-time, maybe full time.  Effort on
project planning is a small percentage of total effort.  Project planner
usually doesn't care about hours spent, and who spent them. They only
want to know if task is complete, and the elapsed time to task-complete.
And what headcount to assign to the task.   Project planners don't do
billing.

Peachtree time & billing has a task timer, but no project planner.
I'll bet MSMoney is the same.

Hamburger joints have multi-user punch-clocks.  I've seen
stinkin-badge-driven electronic punch-clocks in hospitals.  But ...

----------------------------
Separetely, I agree that
-- having a task-timer plugin could be useful for many apps: 
   a project manager, or double-choco latte, or gnucash, or the 
   evolution to-do-list manager.

There also the meta issue: what features should an application taylored
to a specific segment have?  Where do we draw the line?  How do we keep 
electric-eyes (the image viewer), from balooning into gphoto, and gphoto 
from balooning into the gimp?  None of which replace 'xv', which is far
and away the thing that really does suite 99% of my image needs, better
than anything else.

With gtt, as with any app, my hope is that I build something that will
solve 95% of the needs of a certain reasonably large class of users.
And I hope that it won't be 100%, since that is called 'feature bloat'.

How much of a segment-specific application should be built from 
off-the-shelf, COTS parts, how much custom?  

Separately, I have a very very interesting technical issue:  

HOW DO I WRITE A GNOME APP/APPLET SO THAT IT CAN BE EASILY USED AS A
PLUGIN NOT ONLY IN OTHER GNOME APPS, BUT ALSO IN WEB APPS, E.G.
CHOCO-LATTE?	

THAT is the magic question.   The answer is, I think, that we need a new
& different software layer/abstraction.  And I think I have some idea of
what it is.



> -- 
> Christopher Browne
> <http://www.cbbrowne.com/info/>
> cbbrowne@cbbrowne.com
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