Custom Development???

Reading Joel's article today on Set Your Priorities, I'm having problem getting past this paragraph:

Custom development is that murky world where a customer tells you what to build, and you say, "are you sure?" and they say yes, and you make an absolutely beautiful spec, and say, "is this what you want?" and they say yes, and you make them sign the spec in indelible ink, nay, blood, and they do, and then you build that thing they signed off on, promptly, precisely and exactly, and they see it and they are horrified and shocked, and you spend the rest of the week reading up on whether your E&O insurance is going to cover the legal fees for the lawsuit you've gotten yourself into or merely the settlement cost. Or, if you're really lucky, the customer will smile wanly and put your code in a drawer and never use it again and never call you back.


I don't get it. Why would doing custom (software) development be any different than any other type of development? Sparky, why the heck did you wait until you finished building the whole darn thing before showing it to your customer? Hint hint: Iterative Development

My First IM spam!

I got this message on Skype today:


Damn spammers!!!
Since when did spamming start spreading onto instant messaging (IM) systems, I wonder.
I also wonder if spamming really work for them. I mean, what rate of response do these spammers get from their unsolicited messages anyway.

Oh well, here comes opportunity for IM spam filter software to bear.