From: Michael Dillon <michael@memra.com> Sure it has. But a lot of professionals have the attitude that details need to be hashed out discreetly in private so that a polished, professional front can be shown in public.

Let's look at this statement and discuss professionalism a little for fun. Let's say that you and a team of engineers are planning a new program and budget. You have one idea, lets say.... 'WIDGETS r IT'. But another competing department under the same cost center firmly advocated 'GIZMOS r US'. Many bad managers and poorly organized groups of people enjoy having the two differnet positions argued in front of them because they enjoy the power of arbitrating between two different positions. Now, another firm believes in a differnet approach. The two opposing positions work together *before* going to the person with control of the money and works on a joint approach, looking at the strengths and weaknesses of the 'WIDGETS r IT' position and the 'GIZMOS r US' position. Instead of being attached emotionally to their ideas they detach from the situation personally and work together on the strengths and weakness' of the ideas and develop a comprehensive package and take it up the organization to the money person. Now, instead of arguing and a public power struggle, the organization works as a team, presenting the ideas to a decision maker who in-turn enjoys the pleasure of a team atmosphere. Of course, some managers and executives thrive on chaos and disharmony (the weak ones) and that is how they maintain control. If they can prove to their upper management that without their ability to arbitrate the mission fails or the goals are not met, then their position is secure. The Internet brings nothing to redefine professionalism, ethics nor human nature. It is just another medium to communicate. AND, just like all media, newspaper, telephone, smoke signals, telegraph..... there is good communication and poor communication. Patience, kindness, compassion, understanding, ojectivity, and ethical conscious are human aspirations that are grand human endeavors, much grander than pushing little datagrams around the wires. The problem, IMHO, are the architects and engineers whom have elevated the art of 'dump truck packet moving' to a goal loftier and more elegant than social consciousness. Nothing new nor redefining about that..... to believe otherwise is to form a opinion without being cognizant of history, human nature, and technical progress... and to exhibit a basic lack of insight into a macroview of the world. { can't see the forest for the trees; can't view the mountain living in the valley; Hmmmmm. Let's see... from eastern thought... Hmmmm. Fish believe the entire world is the ocean and fight and argue with frogs proclaiming the wonders of the land } I'll stop here. Don't want to push the 'hot buttons' on to many techno-dweebes that believe cutting code is the only worthy human pursuit :-) Regards, Tim -- +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Tim Bass | #include<campfire.h> | | Principal Network Systems Engineer | for(beer=100;beer>1;beer++){ | | The Silk Road Group, Ltd. | take_one_down(); | | | pass_it_around(); | | http://www.silkroad.com/ | } | | | back_to_work(); /*never reached */ | +--------------------------------------------------------------------------+