BKeeney Briefs

I haven’t been posting much this month for a reason.  This is, in all seriousness, the busiest January we’ve ever had for Real Studio consulting (and we’ve been doing this for over ten years!).  All three of our full-time Real Studio developers are maxed out on projects and not just on single large projects either.  We all have multiple projects awaiting our attention as soon as we have the time.

Being that busy is always a good thing-bad thing proposition.  My backlog of Real Studio training videos just gets bigger by the day.  Oh well, they’ll wait until I’m slow or want to do something completely different for a few days.

I’ll admit that I have been very critical of Web Edition – especially when it first came out.  I felt that it was released too soon with obvious bugs and holes in the frameworks, wasn’t adequate testing, and was without features that were necessary.  A lot of that has changed recently (though WebMoviePlayer still burns a hole in my stomach) and we’ve found that most projects these days have some sort of web component in them.  Web Edition fills that need for us and while it may not be the best, fastest, scalable, or comprehensive web platform to deal with it has increasingly become a part of our standard package.

I mention this because all three of our developers are working on projects where Web Edition is used to some extent in conjunction with the desktop apps.  I think it safe to say that about 1/4 of all our Real Studio work is using Web Edition.  Not bad considering it wasn’t really usable until mid-Summer 2011.

Web Edition is much like Real Studio desktop apps.  You have limited options and there are a bunch of compromises that you might not be able to live with.  If you can live with the compromises, development is very fast.  While deployment can be kind of a pain it seems that most of them revolve around three or four issues (FTP transfer, file permissions, 32 bit compatibility libraries, and the .htaccess file).  The fact that you can reuse much of your code between desktop and Web Edition is icing on the cake.

Anyway, that’s what’s up with us.  How is 2012 starting for you?

It’s been a while since I’ve posted something.  There’s a reason for that.  First, business is good and all of our developers are busy and will be busy for the winter.  That’s an awesome thing!

My Nigeria trip at the end of September really put some work on hold until I got back.  Thankfully I have some really cool (and patient) clients that are flexible in their schedule and were accommodating to the change in schedule due to travel and as a couple of emergency projects showed up.

Then we sold our house that had been on the market since June.  Then we bought a house (24 hours later).  And then moved out (and in to the new house) less than 2 and a half weeks later.  Even our Real Estate agent (who does 120 homes a year) says that this sequence is fast, fast, fast!  The one positive note is that the movers complimented us by saying we were “really organized” and I’d say so as in less than 48 hours we are about 85% unpacked.

Prospective clients keep showing up and asking for quotes.  There are a LOT of people asking for quotes from us to take their VB6 applications and rewrite them into Real Studio.  Most are scared away by the price (because there are no conversion tools so it’s really a rewrite) but a few have been serious enough to continue the conversation.

It really is a good time to be a Real Studio developer.  Every developer I know is busy and that’s a really good thing.  If you are not part of the Real Software Developer Referral Program you should be as it’s a great way to get leads.  One project and it pays for itself.

I barely have things unpacked from the house move and I’m off to the Real Studio Database Days training in Frankfurt, Germany where I’ll do a short presentation on our ActiveRecord implementation.  I must be crazy.

We’ve been Real Studio consultants for ten years now.  We also belong to the Real Studio Developer Referral Program.  We get a fair amount of consulting business from the referrals.  It’s probably safe to say that over 50% of our business is a direct result of the Referral Program.

We answer most posts that potential clients add at the Find a Developer Page and while we don’t get an answer from everyone we do talk to quite a few.  What amazes me is how few developers are responding to referrals.  A potential client told me today:

You were the first (and so far, the only) to reply.

This was a fairly straightforward project that was for a cross-platform app.  The client even knows what technologies they want to use.  How hard can that be?

The Developer Referral Program cost $495 for 12 months and $295 for 6 months.  This isn’t a lot of money (it used to be a lot more when it was bundled with priority support plans) and it can easily be made back on a single project.  If you’re looking for Real Studio development work, this is a good way to get into it.

What’s great about the Referral Program is that the people asking for developers already believe they need Real Studio.  There’s no selling them on the benefits of Real Studio – they’ve already decided on it!  Talk about shooting fish in a barrel.

Anyway, I just thought I’d share this with you.  Every Real Studio consultant I know (and I know more than a few) is busy.  There is enough work for more Real Studio consultants.

In the first part of this series I talked about how I got involved with Real Studio.  In part two I talked about some of things I’m currently doing in Real Studio.  In this post I’ll talk a little about the future and what I think where Real Studio will be in the future and my needs and wants as a professional user.

For many people, using Real Studio is a Love-Hate relationship.  Mine is no different.  I’ve been using it for over ten years and while I find it easy to use and very powerful, there are times I feel like putting my fist through the monitor due to frustration.

Real Software releases a new version of Real Studio roughly every ninety days as part of their Rapid Release Model.  From one aspect it’s nice since I know when a new version is going to get released and plan for it.  I know that there will be some new features and a whole bunch of bug fixes.

Unfortunately getting a new version is often an exercise in futility because new releases can sometimes break existing functionality.  Since I work on so many projects I’m often waiting on a particular bug fix in the next version so I’m forced to upgrade.  The frustration of finding yet another bug upon trying the new release is sometimes too much.  If you find me grousing about Real Studio (see last summers Windows rants) it’s generally after one of these types of upgrades.

I’ve been very critical of RS in past because of new features that just plain don’t work.  Rightly so, in my opinion.  New features don’t get tested in the beta process because there’s usually no documentation and usually no example projects showing how it’s used.  Either case is bad and it has to get better.  The perception that Real Studio is buggy, wether right or wrong, has to improve.

Look, I know that every release has significant bug fixes and only a few new features.  I know because I’m part of the beta program and have been for a long time.  But as a beta member I don’t feel like the program lets me help Real Software very much.  I can’t tell you how many times I report a bug, it’s gets marked as fixed and then I have to scour the release notes looking for bug reports that look like mine.

The feedback system and releases aren’t designed to help me verify the fix.  I feel that a bug isn’t fixed until the bug reporter has verified the fix.  From my aspect it’s very inefficient and I wish it was better.  But since it’s not my system I can’t do much about other than offer suggestions.

The future on Mac OS X is Cocoa.  I expect that in the next release or two, the Mac OS X IDE will be built for Cocoa.  When that happens, you’ll know that Cocoa is really ready.  Building for Cocoa will give RB users the ability to harness some of the Cocoa goodies that Mac users come to expect from their applications.

Unfortunately, Cocoa isn’t going to help Windows or Linux as it just makes the platforms that much more different.  However, I do know that much of the work that has gone into Cocoa has involved rewriting major portions of Windows and Linux to fit the newer event models rather than the old Carbon/Classic model.  I don’t know the specifics but it wouldn’t surprise me if almost all of the frameworks was rewritten accomplish this.

I’m not sure where Windows is heading in the future.  Real Software is a Mac heavy company and it’s hard to know how serious they are about Windows.  Last summer there were some very easy and very serious Windows bugs that bit me very hard (because of the upgrade cycle) that very nearly cost me a big project.  I just don’t see much going on for advanced Windows support but perhaps that is just a byproduct of the march to Cocoa.  After ten years they still don’t have full COM support and without it there’s just a bunch of stuff that Real Studio won’t be able to do.  It’s also unknown when 64bit support is coming and when Microsoft will switch over to a full 64 bit OS.  I think this is as every bit as important as the switch to Cocoa on the Mac side.

I have reservations about Linux support.  I wonder if the time and effort is worth it in sales for Real Software.  As a consultant I get no one asking for Linux apps but perhaps that’s anecdotal evidence since I’m heavy into Mac and Windows development.  Also anecdotally my blog and website just have a few percentage points of Linux users that visit on a regular basis.

We know that a User Interface change is coming.  Geoff demoed it at the Atlanta Summit but no pictures have surfaced yet.  From what I can remember, it should reduce mouse clicks as the Project Tab will be easily accessible all the time.  Unused events will not show in the Events list until you add them (I believe the most common event(s) will automatically be added).  A new tool palette was revealed that reminded me very much of xCode/Interface Builder.

I would also expect a lot of the Web Edition editor features will make it into the new IDE.  The in-line editors are generally okay but I’m not a huge fan of them.  I really hate the new Tab Order Editor as it’s confusing once you get more than a dozen controls on the window.  I’m also not a big fan of the object handles (that allow you to resize controls) since they’re a major pain to use – they disappear when you’re resizing.  This means that controls have to have special visual modes to show their sizes unlike the current Window Editor where controls have a visible outline.

One feature that I do like is the pasteboard that is automatically populated at the bottom of the WE page editor when placing non-visual objects (like timers).  This probably means that Dialogs will be rewritten to act just like the new WebDialogs.  One can hope that they will retain the existing methods.  I also expect the Radio Button control to be replaced by the RadioGroup – again, similar to what Web Edition did.

Some of these changes make a lot of sense from a beginner perspective.  They are common questions from new users and are a solution to aid them.  From a power user perspective I’m trying to be as open as I can to the changes.  Some will grow on me I’m sure with usage.  Others, I’m just as sure, will make me pine for the ‘old days’.

We can only hope that Real Software has a feature complete IDE when it makes it into the beta program and lets hope that they’re not adding major functionality to it during the beta.  Otherwise I expect a chorus of very vocal naysayers and boo birds.  A User Interface change is a big deal and should not be taken lightly.  I hope they do their own (very strenuous) internal testing on it before foisting it on us.

Eventually, Real Software will switch the back-end compiler to LLVM.  RBScript is already using LLVM and while that was a significant step, it’s probably going to be a lot of work to switch over all of Real Studio to it.  If my sources are correct, they’re going to writing their own linker for Windows which I have no doubt is more work than they expect (Cocoa was only going to take 18 months remember?).

Will LLVM lead to Real Studio being able to compile for iPhone and other mobile devices?  My answer is a big maybe.  I have a hard time figuring out the marketing for including mobile devices in the current product other than to saying you can reuse much of the same code, but just like with Web Edition you really have a separate product with separate editors and separate compilers.  I have no problem with a mobile optimized IDE that leaves the cruft of desktop and web apps behind.  I think it could be brought to market faster that way too.  Like much of the rest of this post, it’s pure speculation on my part.

One thing I wish was improved was the Real Studio debugger.  Anyone that’s come from the Visual Basic and .NET world understands what I’m saying.  The Real Studio IDE debugger just isn’t easy to use.  No watchpoints and always having to refer to the listbox to view variable values is huge pain (wouldn’t it be nice to hover your mouse over a variable and get the value in a tooltip?).  Many Real Studio users don’t even realize that you can view the call stack since it’s a popup menu (poor UI choice, in my opinion).  Many also don’t get the whole breakpoint and exception handling either.

There is still a bunch of essential controls missing from the standard control list.  After ten years there’s still no date, time, or calendar control.  While the standard listbox is fairly powerful, it’s a beast and you just get to a certain point where it’s too slow and cumbersome to use.  For those needing them, they’re forced to use a 3rd party set of controls.

I think much of these limitations is all based on how Real Software uses the tool themselves.  The IDE has absolutely no need for grid, date, time, or calendar controls.  You could certainly argue that the reason why the TextArea RTF support is so weak is because the IDE has no need for it.  The same with the lackluster support for TextField masks.  Likewise, to the best of my knowledge, the IDE does not use the built-in reporting tool and, it too, suffers from having no strenuous use from the company that designed it.  Modern toolbars?  Need I say more?

I’ve argued for years that RS could really use a consulting group that bids and works on projects just like the rest of us consultants.  A lot of the projects I work on run into the same constraints time and time again and I’m forced into less that optimal solutions.  I can submit Feedback reports until my fingers bleed, but until RS has to fulfill a need for themselves it probably won’t happen.  Personally, I’d welcome them into the consulting business.  Sure, it means more competition for me personally, but I’m okay with that as it will make the product better.

Sorry for the rambling post as there are lot of things that I’d love to see RS do a better job at and improve in the product.  I really do appreciate the work they’ve done as it pays for my, and my employees, salaries.  As a professional user my needs are vastly different than a majority of Studio users but as someone who spends a considerable amount of money on yearly license updates and the referral program, and spend a lot of effort selling the product to clients I feel that my needs should be aired publicly.  My time with ARBP has shown that many of you agree to varying degrees.

Those are some of my wants, needs, future predictions, fears, worries and gripes.  What say you?

 

In part one of this series I talked about the early chapters of my Real Studio story.  Today I’ll talk about some of the things we (because we have multiple employees) with Real Studio.

Let’s go back to the 2008.  That was the last year that Real Software held the REAL World conference in Austin, Texas.  I begged Real Software to let me have a meeting at 8:00 AM to hold an organizational meeting for a REALbasic users group of some sort.  I was surprised at the turnout and the Association of REALbasic Professionals (ARBP) was born.  http://www.arbp.org

Starting ARBP has been a job of persistence and overcoming inertia.  Since we started with nothing: no organization, no leaders, no website, no expectations, we really had no idea what we were going to be when we grew up.  Thankfully I was supported by an awesome group of dedicated individuals that really helped push the organization, and me, along.

In three years, ARBP has hosted two conferences.  The first was in Boulder, Colorado in 2009 and the second was in Atlanta, Georgia this past March.  Both of those conferences were recorded and are available for ARBP paid members.

Besides helping organize both events I’ve spoken at both of them.  So has my #1 employee, über programmer, Seth Verrinder.  Seth has been with us for three and a half years and has been an awesome addition to the team.  Without him, we wouldn’t be as successful as we are.  Between the two of us we’ve also written a fair number of the tutorials, newer projects in the source code repository, and articles.

Sharing code with the community is great way to contribute.  Many of us ‘old timers’ have a library of code just sitting around that would contribute to the community and help people just starting out with Real Studio.  Think about adding your source code to the ARBP Source Code Repository.

Speaking of training, in late 2009 I was contacted to do some video training for Real Studio.  They only wanted about eight hours of video and I felt that I couldn’t do the language or the IDE justice in that short amount of time.  But it did start my creative juices flowing and now I have over 30 hours of Real Studio video training material available at http://www.bkeeney.com.  That 30 hours comprises over 110 separate videos including most of the common Real Studio controls for both desktop and Web Edition.  Most videos come with a project file that you’re free to use in your own projects.  I have two complete series where I start at the beginning of a project and follow it through to the end.  Needless to say, I’ve been very happy with the results and the comments I get from users are very encouraging.

What sort of work do we do with Real Studio?  Well, it varies all the time since we’re a consulting firm.  In the past year we’ve done major updates to professional athletic training system (we did version 1 as well), updates to teleprompting software (we did the version 2 rewrite), major work a Web Edition project for an underwriting company, fixed some right-to-left language support in an existing Real Studio app, updates to a veterinary management app, and updates to credit repair software.

From-scratch projects include a PDF viewer/annotation/organizer app, a military strategy simulator, a family genealogy organizer, a front end user interface to a serial lightning detection device, a neurological test for patients with brain damage, a proof-of-concept app for a Mac OS X computer to talk to a electronic keyboard that uses a proprietary ethernet protocol, and a Web Edition app to share URL’s among registered users.  Most desktop projects are cross-platform.

On top of all that, we’ve created a number of smaller, proof-of-concept/training projects for folks that want to do something specific in RB but don’t have the time or inclination to learn it on their own.  These projects are actually kind of fun since they’re very specific and allow us to explore a control or API that we’ve not spent much time on without having to worry about the nit picky details of a full-blown application.

I’m very picky on how I organize documents (I am an engineer after all) so every now and then I go through the older directories as a refresher.  We’ve done a LOT of projects over the years and not one of them is similar to another one.

So how do I find the clients?  At this point we’ve been doing Real Studio consulting for a long time and a lot of long-term clients keep coming back for rewrites and major new additions.  I’m very happy about that as the relationship is already in place and they trust us.  It’s an awesome feeling.

Believe it or not, the video training has been a nice addition to our consulting business.  The progression is that people sign up for the videos and then after a couple of weeks (or months) they send us an email asking if we are available for work.  Because of the videos we already have a ‘relationship’ even if I’ve never talked to them before because they see how I work with Real Studio.

I’m also a member of the Real Studio Consulting Referral Program https://secure.realsoftware.com/store/consulting.php.  It currently costs $495 for twelve months and $295 for six months.  It’s worth it.  By the time a potential client sends in their information to the Find a Developer Page at https://secure.realsoftware.com/support/consultants.php they’ve already decided that Real Studio is what they’re looking for.

At one Real World I said being part of the Referral Program is “like shooting fish in a barrel”.  I still believe that.  The cost is insignificant.  One very small project and it pays for itself.  If you want to start working with Real Studio on a full-time basis, this is the place to start.

One last note on ARBP.  I’m happy, and a little sad, to say that today is my last official day as leader of the organization.  Tonight is our board meeting where a new board will take over and a new president will lead ARBP into the future.  I’m still on the board as Treasurer (assuming no one else wants it) but the day to day stuff will no longer be in my hands.  I urge you to volunteer as it’s a great organization that is always looking for help.  You don’t have to be a Real Studio expert (or professional) help out.

So those are the current chapters in the BKeeney Software Real Studio story.  What sort of projects are you working on?  How are you finding work?

 

At the Atlanta Real Studio Summit a few weeks ago several presenters were showing off beta code or showing code that they had modified earlier in the day.  Of course you know what happened – there were embarrassed developers saying, “I swear, it just worked a minute ago.”  It’s the Law of Demo’s and happens as soon as you use code not thoroughly tested before you show it off, or when you veer from your script.

When I told my son that they violated the Law of Demo’s he replied rather quickly, “Oh, you mean they tried to modify their program the day of the presentation?”  Smart kid, but then we had learned that lesson the hard way during our First Lego League robotics season.  Trust me, there’s nothing worse than your team (full of 9 and 10 years olds) feeling horrible because they didn’t keep a backup and the modified program just doesn’t work.  Lessons learned the hard way are always the best.

The same goes with consulting and contracts.  I’ve recently been in a spat with a client over unpaid invoices.  Because this person was a referral and well known to many in the Real Studio community I made a verbal agreement to do a lot of work for him.  It was a Web Edition project, which was new to me at the time, so I agreed to a lower rate since it was a good way to immerse myself in a new technology.  In general, I thought the project went rather smoothly while using alpha and beta editions of Web Edition.

Normally, all communications are via email and text iChat so I have a record of all conversations.  This client, however, likes to talk via video iChat.  The drawback is that iChat doesn’t automatically save these (there is an option but I didn’t find out about this until I started doing the research).  So now that the project is done, the client is 60+ days past due on his invoices and is *surprised* that he has a large unpaid balance.

How he can say this with multiple invoices being emailed automatically and the multiple emails and phone calls trying to engage him is beyond me.  He now claims there was a spending cap on the project and says he ‘told me this’ early on.  Right, I would have agreed to two days on-site coding (after a months worth of offsite work) for him since those two days alone are higher than his supposed cap.

The funny thing is that after the project was done he still tried to engage me to do more work.  Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately depending upon your viewpoint) the hourly rate he wanted to pay was so low that I couldn’t have made payroll.

The lesson learned is never to do anything verbally when it comes to money.  At a minimum, after a video chat and/or phone call, send an email confirming the details.  The paper trail, while a pain to maintain, is the only way to cover your bases.

A contract is better, of course, because that’s a legally binding document.  The sad thing is that I presented on this very topic at multiple REAL World conferences so that means I obviously didn’t learn my own lesson.  But then I guess I was blinded by the connections this person has with Real Software (not that I hold them responsible) and the community.  The referral was from a trusted colleague too which made it ‘safe’.  When money is involved there is no trust.

As a word of warning, this person is trolling the forums looking for Web Edition coding help.  Make sure you get a signed contract from him before doing any work.  Get everything in writing, which, of course, is good advice for all business dealings.

Will I get what’s owed?  I sure hope so but somehow I doubt it.  Regardless, I’ve relearned a valuable (albeit costly) lesson.

REAL Studio Developer Issue 9.3 (March/April 2011) came out this week.  My column topic in this issue was the risks and rewards of being a consultant.

I don’t think being a REALbasic developer is any different than any other consultant.  There are times when you’re so flush with work you can’t sleep and there’s times you’re looking for work.  There’s always the ‘next project’ on the horizon.

Cash flow is just one of the many risks of being a consultant.  The rewards though, are nice when they happen.

Did I leave anything out in the column?  Something I should have talked about?

The July/August 2010 edition of REALbasic Developer Magazine is out.  This months column title is “Having a Thick Skin: Take the Emotion out of Your Tech Support”.

I talk about the pitfalls of providing tech support when people asking for (or is it demanding!) for tech support aren’t nice.  Email and forums posts are awful mediums for communicating to each other so you have to take the emotion out of the equation.

Do you have any horror stories, tips, or jokes about tech support you’d like to share?

If you have your own business, are a consultant, or even simply sell your own stuff (whatever that stuff is) I recommend the article at http://www.thelaunchcoach.com/insecurity-doesnt-pay-the-bills.

I can’t even begin to tell you how much this post struck a chord with me.  I feel like this all the time with my blog posts, my REALbasic training videos, my software products and even my consulting.

I have to push myself past the insecurities every day.  I am my own worst enemy because whatever you think about me, my internal monkey chatter tells me the same and much worse – trust me on that one.

Thankfully, my fear of regret is bigger than my fear of failure.  And yes, I’m just as messed up as you – probably more.  ;)

We’ve all met people like this.  Within ten minutes of meeting them they’ve worked it into the conversation that they belong to Mensa, have you heard of it?  Oh, you haven’t, it’s for people that are really smart.

Really?  I’m happy for you.  Really, I’m being honest.  But I don’t care.  You see, I don’t care about your intellectual IQ.  I care about how you relate to other people and to the problems at hand.  Do you listen to me to learn or to put up with me?

(Before I get the hate mail, I have plenty of friends that really belong to Mensa and have never mentioned it until they asked me if I was interested in joining.  I’ve always declined, thank you very much.)

I’m being cynical because people like this drive me nuts.  If it’s their idea it’s THE PERFECT SOLUTION because, well, they’re the smartest people in the room.  Never mind if you have practical real world experience that says that idea, while good, isn’t the ideal solution.

I’m not a farmer, but I grew up in farm country.  All of my neighbors were farmers and while most of them never had a college education they were practical people.  The old joke was that you give a farmer, baling wire, gum, and a welder, they can fix almost anything.  They were practical smart because plants and animals either do well or they don’t and if they don’t they didn’t stay farmers very long.  The best part, is that they never went around bragging that they were very good farmers – they didn’t have to nor did they want to.  Heck, most of them would admit they weren’t very  smart, but they knew how to manage their business with thousands of different tasks, machinery, animals and plants and make a profit (in most years).

The smart people, the smartest people in the room, don’t bother to ask the pertinent questions, or make measurements, or ask for previous results of tweaks because they are, well, the smartest people in the room.  They assume they are an expert at everything they put their mind to.

I look back at Apple in the late 90′s and early 2000′s and I think they had a fair amount of the “Not Invented Here” syndrome where if they didn’t make it, or code it, it wasn’t going to make it into their products.  We all know that Apple was in dire straights back then.  When Jobs came back to Apple he got rid of a lot of projects and now their very focused and they use a ton of ‘open’ standards in their operating system.  Why?  Because they get to expand upon the ideas of hundreds of thousands of developers rather than a few thousand.

In my engineering days I saw plenty of engineers that would re-engineer a solution because it wasn’t the way they’d do it.  It generated a lot of unnecessary work and wasted money.  The software industry isn’t any better.  They feel that because they have user interface designers they need to tweak the user interface on every release.  Every major new version adds a bunch of new ‘features’ that the average person won’t use because they need to keep the developers busy.  That’s called software bloat.

If I had one bit of advice for people that own their own business is this:  hire people that are smarter than you.  I mean it.  Hire people that are as close to an expert in their field as you can afford.

Let them challenge your (the boss’) ideas and assumptions.  Make an atmosphere where their ideas get a fair hearing without shooting them down right away because they’re not smart enough.  If you listen to the smart people you’ve hired to get things done you will probably learn a few things.  After all, don’t smart people want to learn new things?  Don’t smart people want their ideas to be challenged?

If all you do is hire ‘yes’ people then your product will suffer.  Your product won’t have focus.  Ideas that should be shelved for another time get put in now because the boss wants it and no one can tell him no.  Ideas from customers are ignored because they’re ‘just customers’.  When customers quit using the product, ask them why – you might just learn something.

Neither do you want design by committee.  What an awful thought that is.  It’s the exact opposite of being focused.  A good leader or leadership team will pick the good ideas out and let their people run with it.  The bad, or not so good ideas, will be stored away and revisited every now and then.  What was a bad idea might be a good idea in a year or two.

I’ve rambled enough for now.  I’m sure you’ve all had ‘leaders’ in your organizations that were never open to ideas unless it was their idea.  They used circular reasoning to shoot good ideas down and to keep their ideas alive.  Are you still with that company?  Is that company still around?  Is it financially stable?  My educated guess says that they’re not as smart as they think they are and you’d agree.