June 18,1997                               
Dis-Oregon-ized
  Simple Quick Lose
9:26 pm
    --- Over the past week I've been developing my hatred of mSQL, simple database engine. The web project I am working on requires a low-level HTML compatible system of pages which draw information from a large database and present them in various pretty forms. It's for a school district in Portland somewhere, to help their teachers keep track of what they should be teaching and when it will be tested. For each subject there's a dynamically generated page of data cells, showing what gets evaluated when. Clicking on one of those cells takes you to a page of information on that particular evaluation for that particular division, for that area of that subject.

    Note all the 'that's. That means something like 300 or so pages. Timeline? 2 weeks. Ya know, usually when you're developing something, you a development cycle or two. This thing is going to get kicked out the door (day after tomorrow!) with zero time for debugging, testing, or even for trying to figure out what it is supposed to look like. Oh, and they also have to be able to add pages to this thing, without knowing anything about HTML or the web. Well, I think I've got it covered. But I'm not well known for my bug free code, or flawless mathematically proven program design. (At least not after two weeks. TWO WEEKS! What were the sales people THINKING!?) (Someone's .sig on a mailing list I'm on: "SALES PEOPLE don't hunt elephants but spend time selling elephant they haven't caught, for delivery two days before the season opens.")

  Priorities
    --- So, they want it done before the end of this month. Did they take into consideration that my vacation starts on the 20th? Noooo. "In that case," said they, "you have to have it finished by the 20th." "In fact, it's not really an option to not have it done." Well well well. I guess you haven't dealt with my amazing ability to create options out of thin air. I will give them some code on Friday. I will then shut my ears and walk out the door, because my vacation has started and there is another database programmer who gets paid thousands and thousands of dollars more than I do who A) can debug it for them and B) should have been doing it in the first place.

    Simultaneously, Steve will be taking his leave of this company to go work for Taos. Good ol' Steve. He certainly deserves better than he has got. With Steve and I gone, there will be one person left who can fix the servers if they go down. That's Rick (RiX0r!). He spends a lot of his time on his cell phone, walking around trying to avoid meetings. Meetings, as those who work for large beauracracies know, take up lots more time than they're worth. Communication may be necessary, but the Network Operations crew does(did) a pretty good job without meetings, using IRC to communicate. IRC is actually a decent info exchange tool when you take away the idiots ('anyone know anything about computers?') and horndogs ('r u m or f?').

  Bad Pun
    --- I've got to move 2 tons of crap up to Seattle, and I haven't packed it yet. Dad's gonna drive a U-haul down here, we're gonna load it up, and then Him-Haul it back up to his house, where it will live until I find another house. And if that house isn't in Oregon...well...(ominous music) I guess I can work from Seattle. (Or, GST can fire me, which would mean the end of the astronomical salary and mighty prestige this job gives me.)
    Yup, we're bored again
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6-9-97 June 6-23-97

©copyright 1997 Andrew Denyes. Opinions expressed are mine. Everything else is true.