MLS Builds

There seems to be some doubt about how to distinguish between some MLS artefacts (particularly, ‘builds’). In an effort to clear this up for you, here is a simple set of definitions: just follow these and everything will be clear......

final     the definition of this is absolute: it always  means ‘last ’. What could be simpler or more unequivocal? Just hang on to this concept and everything is downhill from here!
final final     the last final
final final final     positively the last final
penultimate final     the one before the last
final penultimate     the last one before the last

last     ...now, the English language is pretty clear on the two possibilities here and I’m sure you’re already aware of the differences and use them every day. Just keep in mind the importance of ‘time’ relative to the artefact qualified by this term: specifically, the ‘last build’ is either the one you last did (that is, in the past) or the last one you’re going to do (that is, in the future). So this term means ‘something that’s happened’ or ‘something that hasn’t’: now that’s what I call a really powerful descriptor - it covers so many somethings! Great!

last final     see ‘last’ & ‘final’

I-just-can’t-believe-it’s-not-final     what the final inevitably becomes after it becomes the penultimate final

patch      the build that should have been final

     GSM

LAPD     a Layer 2 protocol named after the Los Angeles Police Department who administer the surveillance of all messages between BTS and BSC. Surveillance on this scale is, of course, horrendously expensive, so the only publicly-funded bodies which can afford this kind of exercise nowadays are Californian. [note: attempts to duplicate this effort in the former Soviet Union are now regarded as the single most significant contributory factor in the economic collapse of that country.]   Historically, this activity did actually start in this geographic area. It began in the 1940s and was driven by an obsessive interest in the movie stars of the period. It involved physically 'listening in' to phone lines in the Beverly Hills area by a local organisation attached to the Hollywood Sheriff's Office. (see HDLC)

HDLC     the Hollywood & District Listening Committee; originally, a benign gossip-obsessed collection of movie fans. Subverted in the 1950s by McCarthyite politicians who inserted malicious misinformation on individuals in order to 'frame' them before the Senate Investigation Committees.

     ManagementSpeak

"To grow at the level we’re targeting we must all be obsessively connected and aligned with what our customers require for their success."

• In all spheres of life, other than management, obsession is rightly regarded as a personality disorder.
• Most of our customers require that, for their success, they maximise their margins, which means that the sooner we align ourselves with selling at a loss, the sooner we'll conform to what the above quote demands, though, paradoxically, we'll also ensure that we can never achieve its stated intention.

"We effectively addressed operating model issues and, ..., successfully completed Phase I of the company and embarked upon Phase II."

• The first part means 'we fired some people'.
• The second part means 'we might fire some more people'.

"We are number one. But we want to do even better..."

• "Aspiration I can handle, luckily I employ people to do the math."

".....she helped integrate a geographically diverse organization and resolved conflicting goals and charters that were the byproduct of a recent merger between X Corp and Y Corp."

• "...she fired some people and exported some jobs."

"Our focus moving forward is to continue to fully fund the growth initiatives in the business units and world-wide sales team so that we can accelerate growth and leverage our operating model."

• "...we're throwing money at middle managers and sales guys - in fact, anyone who doesn't actually make anything..."

"The meeting with the European Field went very well. X, VP of Y organization, attended this meeting and provided great leadership in gaining alignment on several sticky issues. The biggest of these was gaining alignment on Z Corp."

• "...I have no idea what he's doing - it's his problem..."

"They posted operating profit of 8.3% in comparison to losses one year ago. Their transformation continues and I appreciate the tough choices they continue to make to position themselves to win."

• We've worked out the annual rate we have to fire people in order to keep the costs down to a level that ensures the shareholders are happy.

"Enablement will be a key focus for us as we move forward."

• "...I prefer to set goals which are unquantifiable, so I never risk being accountable later..."

"Building mindshare and selling clients on X Corp's entire value is an absolute necessity."

• "...making grandiose statements which have no real meaning is much, much easier than showing true leadership (and the sales guys love this crap)..."

"We expect and are committed to maintain the synergies between X and Y, including an aligned probe strategy and additional R&D leverage of shared components, taking advantage of the intimacy in the Z labs to succeed with the operators, and leveraging sales, support, and services across the value chain."

• This sentence is a masterpiece: to combine a 'synergies', an 'aligned', two variants of 'leverage' & one 'value chain' in a single entity and, on a cursory first reading, still make it sound like it may actually have real meaning is awe-inspiring. Its subtle use of 'intimacy' to suggest that it is, in some way, connected to human experience is exquisite. I am humbled in its presence.

     EngineerBollockSpeak

"With hindsight we know that this software module was misnamed: so, the meaning of the name has been changed to something that makes sense now."

• For years we've been told that good software production is all about process: there's no reason why semantics can't be included, but, in engineering, it's optional.

"We collected all the standalone patches together and put them in one, big standalone patch."

• Meaning is so overrated, let's not let it get in the way of tidiness.

"You make this simple one-line change... ...and it should all just work"

• This will be the start of weeks of heartache poring over Standards, Specs and out-of-date documentation... ...before giving up and re-implementing the whole thing.

     Making jam from the low-hanging fruit

"...will transition into her new role..."	start
"facilitate"	do
"leverage"	do
"..have a passion for.."	do
"synergy"	just about anything other than its true meaning
"remarketing"	doing the stuff that the Marketing Dept cocked up first time around

     Sense

"There is no problem so huge, so complex or so mind-fuckingly bizarre that it can't be run away from."

"It's terbly, terbly portant to nunciate"