Steve P has just sent me a couple of links to stories about Geoworks for whom we both used to work.

They are being kicked off the Nasdaq! The original stories here at yahoo and here at yahoo.

Geoworks don’t seem to have issued any press releases since May!

They closed today at 5 cents!

Some good news today though, the UK office is definitely being purchased by Teleca. It shouldn’t be too unpleasant for the staff, as several ex-uk geoworkers ended at teleca.

Tony at work has just sent round an email claiming
I look like the Larry Blackmon from 80’s band Cameo
 

I can’t see it myself 😉

I’ve had a very stressful day today. I’m not sure exactly why, other than that I had a release to do, after I finished implementing and testing some new functionality. That dragged on a bit (some of the code I had to get working was terrible) and the decision to release without this functionality complete was made. And then having to find out what changes other people had done (for the release note), and then having to back out some of those changes coz they shouldn’t have been made on that branch! But, I got the release out on time.

I also seemed to be plagued more than usual by silly little interruptions today. Either emails or people coming round to my desk asking me something, nodding wisely at my answer, scuttling off back to their desk, and then having to come back and ask me to explain! If you don’t understand the first time, speak up! There and then! Don’t waste our time by pretending you understand and then having to come back!

Grrr

I had cause to have another rant at work today. A project my team have been working on, and in which I haven’t been involved for a few weeks, was released last week for preliminary testing.

It was released with the full knowledge that not all of it worked. It was a “Let’s get these two systems together and see if they will talk to each other” kind of thing. An attempt to find out whether there were core incompatibilities. OK so far. I don’t have a problem with that.

But today I discovered that at least one part of the system doesn’t even compile! Now, as a professional developer I find that to be inexcusable. I know that on the first pass not everything will function correctly, particularly with a project as complex as this one; but to release a file which doesn’t even compile! I was staggered. I practically saw red.

A little background information may also help to understand my anger:
We, as a company, inherited this code from another company who were, quite frankly, not very good at this kind of project (they have since abandoned Java/JSP projects to return to their core business — which they do very well). Moreover they were especially bad at managing the code. Because of this there was an aura of distrust emanating from the client which we inherited. This made it very difficult to introduce new ideas, suggestions, and particularly new processes.

For the past 18 months I have been trying to build our reputation as professionals who can deliver what the client wants, without any of the code management based problems the last lot had. This has taken a long time. Almost exactly 12 months ago we had a set back when I delivered a release which didn’t compile, this at a time when we were doing daily releases to try to meet a deadline. It made me look and feel like an ass. It set back the company’s reputation with the client somewhat, particularly the clients IT department who mostly come across as olde worlde mainframe stalwarts who can’t be doing with this “new fangled java stuff”, and could be heard muttering “this lot are as bad as the last lot.”

So I changed our process and since then I have never released code which doesn’t compile. And I’ve done more than 80 releases since that day. Oh sure there have been bugs, stuff that didn’t work, etc. But you have always been able to actually run the code to test it.

On the back of this confidence building, I have been able to get the client’s IT guys to agree to changes to the system, to configuration, etc. which we knew were for the best, but which in the past have been strongly resisted, often with no technical reason, other than an implied (sometimes explicit) “we don’t trust you”.

And now this! Boy! I was angry! Anyway, I went for a smoke to calm down, then returned to vent my spleen at great length! I’m still simmering now, as I write this.

I’m sure some people would regard this as “over the top”. Perhaps think me a little too obsessed. After all “it’s just a job”. But funnily enough, it isn’t. Just a job. It isn’t over the top.

I enjoy my job. I consider myself extremely lucky, blessed even, to get paid for doing my job. If I had an independent income, I would still do this job. Maybe not for the same company, but I would still code.

Irrespective of that, what ever I do, professionally or personally, I try to do the best that I can. I really do.

I care. I care about trying my best. I care about taking the time to figure out how to do things properly. I get passionate about attempting to do the right thing to the best of my ability. Rather than making do, or producing something that is good enough.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a perfectionist. I’ve been in this business long enough to know that realities of budgets and deadlines mean that one can never attempt perfection. At work and away from work, I don’t expect everything to be perfect, or expect that I will do something right the first time. But whether for clients or family I will always try my best.

And you know what? At work when I’m amongst my colleagues I expect the same from them. I expect that whilst they are in the office, getting paid to do the job they do, they will also try their best. I expect that, like me, they will wish to learn from their own and other’s mistakes. I expect that they would want to improve themselves, so that they can do the next project better.

And every day I am disappointed.

Perhaps I’m a fool.

Ho hum…

I’ve just finished updating my work installation of Bugzilla. Man!, that was painful. Mainly Perl modules not installing properly, I’ve still got a couple of the optional ones missing.

Going to bed now!

Looks like I chose work. I’ve just finished a new release of the code. 🙁

I’m going to read a chapter of my book and then bed.

Wow, I’ve had an incredibly busy day today. I just don’t seem to have had a moment when I’ve not been under pressure. I ended up working to 8pm and still didn’t get everything done I wanted to.

I guess it didn’t help, my oversleeping after last yesterday’s party. As the non-drinker I did a bit of taxiing.

Anyway’s I shall probably try to have an early night tonight. Ooh, no later than midnight!

Between now and then, I can either connect to the office and do some more work, or do some more b2 tweaking. Hmmm… But first, I should deal with my backlog of emails.

Earlier this morning, we got a report of a serious (revenue-reducing) bug on the production system. I read the bug report, reproduced the problem, found the cause, fixed the code, tested the solution, created the release, it was deployed to pre-production, re-tested, and deployed to live production all before lunchtime.

If only they were all like that…