Subj : Re: How much should I charge for fixed-price software contract? To : comp.programming From : Chris Sonnack Date : Wed Aug 17 2005 08:15 pm Richard Heathfield writes: >> Some of it, I'm sure, is a general corporate conservativeness. The >> internet was a "new fangled thang" until fairly recently. (You can get >> away with that when the company is 100+ years old and had 20 billion USD >> in sales last year. :-) > > I am fairly sure HTML pre-dates PDF. Is it? I'm not so sure, but I don't really have a clue. Be interesting to check into, though, 'cause now I'm curious! > If you reject HTML for being too new-fangled, then you are being > inconsistent by accepting PDF. In fact, you are being even more > inconsistent by accepting any Microsoft Word document later than > about Version 2. Consistancy is highly overrated. (-: Seriously, the difference I see is that PDF (and I do appreciate your feelings about it) and Word are the "children" of corporately respected companies and are, metaphorically, Eastern Civilization.[1] HTML is a part of the Wild, Wild West.[1] (Remember how important perceptions are in a corporate, marketing-driven environment!) [1] USAian metaphor. >> And some of it probably is, "Hey, show me you can step up." I wore a >> tie to the interviews I had last year as one way to show I could step >> up, but I doubt *anyone* expected they'd ever see me that way again. > > I can, if I absolutely have to, create a Word document. I can, if I > absolutely have to, "step up" (or down, in this case). But I choose not > to, because it's such an unpleasant process. If this means I'm going > to miss out on a particular job, so be it. Always a valid, and IMO respectable, choice. > [...] > I wasn't talking about sending a URL, although frankly > I don't see anything terribly bad about that, but about an actual > file which happens to have an HTML extension, sent as an email > attachment in precisely the same way that a Word document might be > sent. If the Word file can get through, I see no reason why the HTML > file shouldn't get through. I see what you're saying (this discussion did key off Maas' resumes on his site, so forgive me for not following your meaning). Someone else suggested sending an HTML file with a .doc extension. [shrug] Might work (and I may even be off base about the willingness to accept *tendered* HTML). I will say that *I* would never trust my resume to someone's personal HTML renderer, line wrapping, settings, etc. If I send a printed resume, Word doc or PDF, I **know** how it's going to look, and that's very important to me in this case. >> And frankly, I don't entirely disagree with the view that "the web" >> is a toy thing, not really real. > > Nobody actually mentioned the Web. What we are discussing is a highly > portable document format... That's my point. It's TOO portable. Too prone to mis-rendering. And, in this case, portability just isn't an issue. Every PC in the entire company is guarenteed to have certain tools available. If applying to some other company, I'd find out what they prefered and that's what I'd give them. >> I'm sure that will change in time (as it >> did with fax and then email), but when you consider that pornography >> is the biggest slice of "the web" and lots of kooks and hate mongers >> make up another slice, you can perhaps understand why a conservative, >> company might treat it with some contempt (I know I often do). > > The Web is a large collection of collections of (collections of...!) > information. Some of that information is useful to me. Much of it is not. > I am not overly concerned with the existence of a large amount of extraneous > material on the Web, since searching is rapid nowadays and in any case one > man's extraneous is another man's vital. Indeed, and I agree. But this isn't about you or me (who are far more savvy about such matters). It's about corporate managers and corporate perceptions (who ain't). -- |_ CJSonnack _____________| How's my programming? | |_ http://www.Sonnack.com/ ___________________| Call: 1-800-DEV-NULL | |_____________________________________________|_______________________| .