Buuu-kake!

I think the world has moved beyond command line executables as user deliverables. The little fuckers lack both visual cues to guide users and the ability to respond to events appropriately once execution has begun, in addition to the fact that their console output in .Net seems dependant on the machine settings where they are run and/or the build process used to compile them.

I can’t believe we let two of these little bastards through our development process on my current project and out into the hands of the system administrators. When I think of the time spent in vain wondering why the utilities in question seemed to work in the development environment but not in the quality assurance environment (since in the latter they produced no console output), I want to kick myself in the balls.

Never again shall this happen. I forswear the console line. I would rather have my reputation stained like Tom Brokaw’s during the infamous bukkake incident than let this happen again for the simple reason that we didn’t want to waste time writing a one hour Windows forms GUI.

Software development practicum

A hard day has taught me a couple of extra lessons about the software development process. The first lesson of the day was that no one should ever listen to the voice inside one’s head that says it’s okay to make a small tweaks to the source code after final testing and release the result. That voice is evil. Shoot it if you come across it or if you hear it coming from the mouth of another.

The other lesson is more of a best practice than a lesson, but I was going over the Joel Test today with some peers and I realized that we have a tendency at my company to hold project meetings without actually having the schedule, project plan, and the specification in front of us. After careful thought, I conclude that we must shoot this practice as well.

I can think of no better way to ensure that project is managed improperly over time than to have the documentation involved absent from its meetings, the one place where ideas can be tossed around, scribbled out, and later, accurately transcribed to a digital format. I wouldn’t ask a waiter to remember the orders of fifteen tables without having a written tab. Neither should we expect ourselves to remember what schedule changes are required since yesterday’s meeting.

To do anything else would be uncivilized.

Suffocation by principle

We need to move beyond the "inbox/sent items" metaphor for email, because it doesn’t reflect the way that people use email anymore. Google was the first vendor that I am aware of to recognize that the "inbox/sent items" metaphor sucks and visually present each email along with all of its replies and re-replies as a single item. Since email has evolved into a conversational tool rather than a correspondence tool, this is a far more interesting and useful method of categorization for me.

In fact, since I have become accustomed to using that layout, I organize my Outlook email at work to resemble it. I no longer have an inbox and a sent items folder. I just have categories and subcategories with messages in them from myself and others interspersed so that I can view entire discussion threads as I initially experienced them.

I still wish that Outlook would do it for me, though, so I am going to hold my breath until it does.

Ranting on interfaces and flippin' the deuce

I really, really hate the message box in Windows that tells me I cannot do what I want to do because the thing that I want to do whatever it is to is being used by another process. I would hate it less if it told me what the process is and why the process is fucking with me instead of forcing me open up the task manager and kill suspect processes until I find the right one. Also nice would be if it told me who initiated the process. I can't believe how many hits the contents of this inarticulate message box garner when searching newsgroups, and for god knows how many different reasons. It's an amazing example of a programming artifact that leads people to question the usefulness of computing by picking up sledgehammers and taking aim.

Another such example would be the “Submit” button that appears on many websites in many different contexts with many different conotations. Although I have been guilty of the sumbit gambit in the past, I have learned my lesson from experience. I really wish that everyone would take the time to relabel thier buttons “Login” or “Finish” or some verb that actually means something in the context of its use. And on a more personal level, I think that all of these “Submits” are having an ill effect on my self confidence in general and I'm currently deciding on whether or not to instigate a class action lawsuit.

Garh!

P.S. A few of my earlier posts were edited out due to thier expression of my political viewpoint or egregious activities that may have a negative impact on my ability to impress prospective employers. So if you would like to find out how trashed I got while partying on any given weekend or what I think of our current political climate, call instead.

P.P.S. You never call anymore.