Ontario, CA. A Red State mind that somehow has been shoehorned
into a Blue State still a mind with limitations and gaps.
Of course you do not understand and naturally fall upon
an example that has very little to do with what a CI does.
While there are all sorts of differences between automobiles
there is nothing like trying to code for a Sony LCD, a
cable box, lighting, shades, UPS, "green programming",
HVAC, Blu-ray players, HDMI,networks and so on. There
is a vast panoply of systems foisted upon me over which
I have no control and yet for which my receiving final
payment demands I solve. To wrap your mind around this
problem requires more then using all ten toes and all
ten fingers to count to 20.


Clearly you have never done a real programming job or
a large installation. The actual time it takes to code
and install a job almost always exceeds the value for
these services as line item. I am not, in this instance,
even making the case for the time it took to build modules
or draw and code the GUI. I am speaking of the known
time it takes to perform the data entry and deal with
any issues on site.

Let us make this simple for you. If I am paid 7500 to
code a system and my hourly rate is 125/hr I am being
paid for 60 hours of labor. That gives me somewhere between
6-8 days to do all the data entry and troubles shoot the
code. The sort of system I am speaking about here often
involves 2-3 days dealing with network issues unrelated
to the code but necessary as there are devices sitting
on that network with which I must talk. There may be
testing of new drivers written for that drive or worse,
stupid setup manufacturers impose on you in order to keep
chip sets from going to sleep and losing communication.

There is more time lost to setup, addressing, firmware
upgrades and code uploads. Finally, you have to solve
any installation issues that may have entered the universe.
HDMI may not work--thank you Sony. You have to deal
with changes where the client originally asked for X but
now wants to do Y. But since this involves coding secondary
systems such as shades or lights, security or HVAC, you
now have to completely redo your GUI, GUI code and control
code. Sometimes you write a code work around to solve
some physical issue in the system. Emitters fail, serial
communication is lost, more network issues, Installation
issues such as misterminated wires, mislabeled wires,
ground loops, RF issues, WiFi issues, does the cable box
support power on numeric or does it require current sensing,
interface issues into sub-systems, power issues, HDMI
issues, all crop up and need to be solved. IT IS NOT
JUST CODE. The system needs to work and often the issues
have nothing to do with the code. That firmware you spent
hours upgrading now causes broke code that heretofore
worked. The client doesn't care if the problem is in the
installation, the product or the code. He wants it fixed.
That job where 6-8 days are budgeted always takes 14-20
man days. It is known at the time the job is signed that
the line item is too small but it is also known that if
21000 were placed on the line item for programming the
client would balk. It is a dirty secret that is well
known that the true costs of installing the job are paid
for out of other line items. The only time this comes
to the clients attention is if he ever needs to have his
system recoded and there are no other items to subsidize
the installation.

There client never pays the real costs to install and
program his system. He never pays the first time but
if he does have to have the code rewritten it is why he
screams. For the first time he comes to terms with the
real costs of installing and programming an automation
system. Sure there is the issue of intellectual property.
Sure there is the issue of copyrights. Sure there is
the issue of the time it actually took to prefect a module.
Sure there is the issue of the time it took the draw the
GUI and code it. Leaving all of that aside, and just
accounting for the number of days and hours it takes to
complete a job and you discover that the real costs of
bringing a system on line are not paid for by the client.
Since other parts of the job are underwriting the costs
of the installation the client has not paid for the code.
He has paid to have a working system. Let us not even
bring the R&D aspects of code writing into the equation.
Just pay for the actual number of hours it took to make
the system work and I'd be more susceptible to Julie's
or our friend from Texas' point of view and be less argumentative
about turning over the code.

Would that Julie would turn her considerable skills to
educating the public about what hoops a CI needs to jump
through to make his system work. With falling margins
on equipment it is CI profits that are in fact funding
many installations.

Alan