Programming In The Indo Chinese Conflict

The IndoChineseConflict? is also known as the VietnamWar in the UnitedStatesOfAmerica, and probably as the AmericanWar? in Vietnam. -- StephanHouben

The Americans were only involved in the last half of the Vietnamese War of Independence (which is what I'm told they call it). The first half was against the French. -- RobertWatkins

In Vietnam, this war is called Kháng chiến chống Mỹ, which is "The American War." In more official contexts it's Kháng chiến chống Mỹ cứu nước, or "The War of Resistance against America". The war against the French is called Chiến tranh Việt-Pháp, or "The Vietnamese-French War." The conflict lasted nearly thirty years, so there's more than enough room for multiple names.

Consultant architect recently told me his difficulty with book methodologies is that he is ProgrammingInVietnam, and his troubles are so far removed from task lists that tasks lists aren't even relevant any more. Like losing the project architect and not being able to find a replacement, or having Taligent go belly up during your alpha test, or... --AlistairCockburn

A slightly different spin. I have encountered several projects that seem to have a Vietnam project management model. Unclear goals, trying to solve political/social problems with military (er, developer) force. Executive leadership is totally committed that we MUST succeed, but is unwilling to commit the resources or allow the team the freedom to change the rules of engagement as required. This environment leads to lots of behavior that seems to reflect common wisdom (eg Platoon, Apocalypse Now, etc) of what it was like to serve in Vietnam. I wonder if your source was serving on just such a project? -- BillBarnett

There is an interesting naming dilemma here. I will just say that I was repeating a quote, and did not change the speaking. The person speaking was German, working in Austria, and he said, "I am programming in Vietnam." however we might retitle the phrase, the phrase I used was his, not mine. Oddly enough, he is not old enough to have been active in that war, so I find his phrasing interesting. --AlistairCockburn

Was he old enough to watch the news during that war? I was, and it was a significant world-view alterant. Never before did we have almost live coverage of front-line activities; nightly body counts, even.' --Pete Hardie