journal for 2002-09-18
work
Work was pretty good again, today. I was busy like crazy fixing weirdness in one of our big databases, but it wasn’t critical. It exposed me, yet again, to stupid design probably caused by the stupidity of VB. Anyone who learns VB as their first language is surely doomed—or at least hindered.
My “Fix This Stupid Crap” initiative is going well, and I’m hoping to get a major step accomplished by the end of this week. I think that, once people see how much more I can do when they trust me, things will get even better. I’m OK with restrictions, but I think that people need to keep an open mind when it comes to software implementation.
Too many muggles say: “I have this solution for you to implement,” instead of: “I have this problem for you to solve.” I will admit that I can’t solve their engineering problems, but I’ve found that you need to know very little about a process to implement it; you just need to know how to ask questions and get them answered.
On the subject of implementations, I just finished writing the revision spec for some of our record-keeping software. I got the real feeling, this week, that my boss didn’t want me to talk to the guy who asked for the changes. I am hella uncomfortable with that: middle-men in the software development process just lead to confusion. Anyway, does he think that I’ll scare the suits? I think I’m a pretty amiable guy.
My trip to the UK is still on, although it seems (to me) increasingly unlikely that we’ll be able, before I get there, to put together a suitable spec for what I’m doing. I fear getting there and then finding out that the project is undefined. If that happens, I better get sent home early. I don’t want to spend three weeks implementing an unspec’d, unwanted project.
animal crossing
Gloria has moved into town! I’m excited to have a neighbor! I watched her play for about an hour and a half, and now it’s about time for me to go send her some housewarming gifts!