18 Sep
2017
18 Sep
'17
11:40 p.m.
On Mon, Sep 18, 2017 at 01:25:41PM -0400, Clem Cole wrote:
On Mon, Sep 18, 2017 at 12:46 PM, Steve Johnson
<scj(a)yaccman.com> wrote:
Wussies, I did it twice :) Not really true, I worked a port to the ETA-10
and managed a group that was doing a bringup on a MIPS chip (Cobalt Qube).
I had more of a clue the second time around, actually quit over it.
The details, if you care, were that I was brought in as the director
of software, there was no VP, I reported to the CEO. I was assured
that I would be treated like a founder, yada yada.
OK, some time goes by and the CEO wants a schedule. Be aware that
things were a mess, no backups, no nightly builds, no source control,
engineers were hoarding "their" code on their machines. It was little
disfunctional, but I was straightening all that out, had it pretty
much under control by the time they asked for a schedule.
We were using GCC which hadn't had a ton of MIPS time under its belt,
and Linux, which was in the same state. We could boot a kernel but
it crashed (I think, this was a long time ago).
Anyway, they wanted a fast schedule (don't they always?) and I looked
around and said "6 months". Which was aggressive but I felt it was
doable, the kernel was booting, once you get that stable, userland tends
to fall into place. We were also developing a web interface to the box,
that was the whole point, it was a "web server in a box" with a web UI,
no login for you (well there was but we weren't supposed to use it).
They freaked at the schedule. "The board will never go for that!"
So I called Bill Earl, who has done more bringups on MIPS chips than
anyone, period. At least so far as I knew at the time, still don't
know of anyone who has done more. He asked a bunch thoughtful questions
and said "weeeeell, maybe you could do it in 3 months. If you don't hit
any bugs." I asked "Would you bet your kids college education on it?"
He said "Oh, hell no, I wouldn't bet $20 that you'll make it in 3 months.
You hit one compiler bug, that could blow the whole schedule easy."
So I go back to the CEO and said "6 months". He's all pissed and says
he'll take it to the board. I say I want to be there to make my case.
He says "Nope, you aren't an executive." I handed in my resignation.
Founder my ass.
--lm
???...
After the first time, there is little to learn, and the tedium of
debugging a compiler and OS on a bare machine, when the documentation of
the machine was hastily written and often incomplete, was frustrating
almost beyond describing.
???+1??? And the HW does quite work the way it claimed too....
It's fun ... once :-)