2 March 2001
Last year: They were like the Three Musketeers.
I was gifted with a fantastic project at work yesterday.
I'm being sarcastic, of course.
I know most of my readers aren't actually programmers, so I'll try not to be too technical, here... Wait. How about an analogy? You all know the basics of baseball, right? I don't know it all that well myself, but this will do for now...
So we programmers are the team, okay? And the project we're working on is the game. (It's not an exact analogy, so don't write and ask me who the other team is, or what the ball is, okay?) Anyway, our customer is the team owner, who communicates to us exclusively through the manager - who coincidentally enough, is our manager. Okay?
So, in baseball terms, we were in the bottom of the ninth with the score tied and the bases loaded. Which is to say we were this close to getting the damn thing done and working. And then yesterday the manager called a time-out (meeting) to tell us the bad news:
"Boys," he said, "You've been playing a hard game, and no one appreciates that more than I do. But I just got called up to the owner's box - god only know what he's been doing up there, but he just now looked out the window at the game, and boy is he pissed!
"Now I know shit always rolls downhill, guys, but you're all naturals, and I know you can do this. The owner, he wants you not only to win the game, but to end the game with clean uniforms."
We looked down at our dirty and grass-stained uniforms. We looked at the manager. "You're kidding, right?" we asked. He was not. The owner, after practically ignoring us for the entire game, had decided that we not only had to win, we had to be pretty while we did it.
"Not only that, boys," the manager continued, "but the general manager says if you can't manage that, then we might as well not play in this stadium ever again." (Which is to say, our corporate office backed up the customer's idiotic decision and said if we couldn't pull it off, then they wouldn't ever accept this sort of project for the company ever again.)
The manager sent us off to the locker room to change (work on a re-design) in a hurry. Alone, we vented. One of our players - one who could be counted on for a nice, solid double - was so angry he just left. Another looked through his locker and realized he didn't have any clean uniforms to change into. (Really. There were five of us in the meeting. One got so mad he left. The other doesn't have any useful skills.)
So, to drop the analogy for a bit, here's our situation: Three of us are going to have to strip down almost six months' work and use it for spare parts, while building a brand new application from scratch. In one week. Not only that, but the manager keeps babbling about making it look good.
I was this close to telling him where he could stuff it, yesterday. But - since a fairly significant part of this redesign on the part of our customer involves the user interface - I don't dare abandon the team. I'm their only hope of getting this user interface done in time.
Mike and I got a little goofy yesterday as we hashed out the new design and started working on the pseudocode and API. (Another analogy, for you non-programmers: An API is sortof like the signals that the players use to talk to each other. "When I show you this signal, you give me a curveball, and this signal means to steal third." Like that. Pseudocode is the practice and play design of Spring Training, and many thanks to Braz for the suggestion.)
One important thing, when you're dividing a single project up into sections like this, is for the sections to be completely transparent to each other. When my section tells Mike's section to do a thing, my section shouldn't have to worry about how he's going to do it. So we spent about an hour working out who should take what job based on who had control of what pieces. "You are Church, and I am State!" Mike waggishly exclaimed at one point, illustrating the separation of our jobs.
I was pretty punchy by then, myself. "Really? I always wanted to be a Church." I considered it. "Actually, you should be Church," I told him, "And I'll be State, because my part is what the users will actually see, while your stuff is the Invisible Higher Power that actually accomplishes things." This sent us into the giggles for a while.
Yeah. As I said, a little punchy.
Actually - and I shall beat you about the head and shoulders if you tell this to my manager - I actually work best when I'm under pressure. The functionality of my section was about two-thirds done by the time I went home last night. If you consider that we didn't get the news about the change until eleven and I didn't actually start writing code until almost three, you'll understand why I'm sortof impressed with myself.
So I might well have time to do pretty graphics, though I'm not promising anything. Especially since no one has told the customer - or the corporate office - that no more changes are acceptable.
There. I hope that wasn't too incomprehensible.
If it was incomprehensible, it's because Matt and I got on the Meade Hall last night for a plot wind-up that took until after midnight.
But it was a load of fun. It was almost as much fun seeing all the characters dolled up in their finery online as it is to see friends get dressed up in real life. And my new male character got to be extra suave and swanky and flirtatious (though of course not neglectful of the lady he was escorting!) Though it seems that she is only using him to rouse the jealousy of another suitor. Alas, alack, for his broken heart...
And my character, being only a simple bard, was pretty useless when the combat began. (Hey, it may be a strictly role-playing forum, but fighting and danger are often dramatically appropriate!) He did, at least, manage to rescue a piece of evidence from being trampled underfoot.
So instead of getting a good night's sleep and coming to work with a fresh and refreshed perspective, I've got bags under my eyes and gripping a cup of coffee like my only lifeline.
It's how us programmers work best, you know.
Word of the Day:
waggish - displaying good-humored mischief
Currently Reading:
- Pilots Choice by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller
Current Projects:
- on hold until my fingers heal.