I can’t decide if one coworker is ridiculously literal or what. I’m trying to convince myself the guy isn’t stupid, because you don’t have a programming career if you’re stupid but still… The best I can manage is that he’s mostly worked in a field where what he gets for specs is spelled out to Read More…
Apparently Sanity is an endangered species
At least it seems to be. On the writing front this time: the man who founded Liberty Con and whose contributions to fandom are pretty damn close to literally incalculable has been “disinvited” as Archon’s Fandom Guest of Honor. If you want more information google “Uncle Timmy” and “Archon” and prepare to weep. It reads Read More…
A lightbulb goes off
All the problems with software are caused by the absence of one critical module. Alas, I lack the skills to write it, design it, or test it. The telepathy module is the one which enables the software to know what users really want and perform that action instead of the one triggered by the button Read More…
Another week, another round of madness
On the work front, they’re actually trying to get everything on the staging server there before the end of the week so I have – HORRORS! – almost a whole week to test the integration. Whodathunkit? Even better, I got into the nitty-gritty of the Team Foundation Server Report Server and built a report that Read More…
Missing the Point – the tester edition number eleventy bajillion
This afternoon was a classic example of missing the point of having a staging server. You know, the one that is mostly a mirror of the production environment which, being one of those web applications that thousands of customers consider mission critical, isn’t ever allowed to be down. The one that is supposed to have Read More…
Why Testing is Hard
I spent most of today rerunning the same tests over and over and over and over – trying to get a fix through where each round of fixes broke something new. No, this wasn’t the developer’s fault. He’s dealing with a horribly “interesting” codebase with even more “interesting” legacy implementation choices. Take a large web Read More…
Third parties are Evil
There’s no way around this. Any software project where you have to interface with Someone Else’s Software you will run into untold suffering because Third Parties are Evil. They might be the nicest people in the multiverse. They might make the most wonderful software in several different realms of existence. But the moment your software Read More…
Everything is up to date
About Weekends
One of the first things you learn after you start work in a corporate environment is that weekends are never – ever – bloody long enough. This revelation is often followed closely by the discovery that Dilbert really is funny. It’s a remarkable dividing line. People who have worked in a corporate environment laugh at Read More…
Nothing much happened today
Not that this is surprising or anything. I was falling over at work so I left early (thanks to yesterday’s uber-long day I only needed to be at work for 5 minutes to clock up a 40 hour week. I was there a bit longer than that), then slept for an hour or so when Read More…