deadlines...

I've got outlook on my machine. I've got sticky notes on my desk (also at home, which were stolen from office after office hours). I've got a things-to-do diary. What else is required to remember that I need to deliver what I committed? Only thing left is to write tattoos all over the body like tiny memos to remind myself that I've got to do the same shit on different days.

let there be bugs...

Programmers! Always in a battle against infinite possibilities and limited lines of code, limited time, limited budget and limited patience! And on top of them all limited brain.

We start development. We think we can do it all. We think we can code a perfect program. Huh! What's the big deal.

We start testing. We think those bugs are fixable. Ah! How silly. We will fix them rightaway. Tiny bugs - here we come.

We start integration testing. We think, other programmer's code sucks. We think - she must change her code - dim wit! But then compassion takes over and we believe in hope. We change our own code and move on. Don't look back - no regrets.

We start system testing. We think, we need a break. But then we change the code, add new lines to it, but we know we are slowly losing it to anonymity.

Users start testing. We wish we could go on a long vacation which would never end. Can do no more. We have already run the scripts 107 times. Someone take it away from us. We don't do anything anymore. Someone pushes us - do it! do it! do it!

Code goes live - and we say - Never again. It's ok to be imperfect. Let's just evolve. Don't be perfect. Let there be bugs.

quick and dirty...

I am currently a small drop of tasteless technical skill in the large ocean of strategic migrations. Among big waves of business process analysts, programme managers, solution architects, implementation managers and project managers, I exist as a tiny insignificant and expendable ripple that’s called a developer. By a random divine decree, which some people call fate and others coincidence, this tiny wave got a chance to whirl along with big waves and behold the glory with which they exist in this corporate valley.

Data cleansing is an important part of any migration exercise. It’s like letting go of the old and useless, and adapting to the new and useful. Migrating from an old technology to a new technology, from an old business model to a new business model always requires data cleansing to be performed on the source data.

Some of the data currently under the scope of migration needs to be migrated ASAP because it has intricate dependencies with timelines and budget. To clean and data-migrate this piece, a poor developer (not me) had come up with a ‘quick and dirty’ approach. As soon as projector projected the slide on the wall with ‘QUICK & DIRTY’ written on it, there was a burst of laughter among the members of the elite solution club. Visibly, everyone could comprehend the hidden vulgarity. For those of you who are naïve and unaware of the latent dilettante (which I hope will be very few) when someone says ‘quick & dirty’ in an American accent, it feels more like coming directly from the Sunny Leone’s or Sativa Rose’s mouth from an X rated movie. (WARNING: Please be careful if you get curious and start google-ing these names in your office systems.)

Dirty minds, if you ask me. Or may be naive big-shots who don't have knowledge of programming terms. Because according to Wikipedia, “Quick-and-dirty is a term used in reference to anything that is an easy way to implement a kludge. Its usage is popular among programmers, who use it to describe a crude solution or programming implementation that is imperfect, inelegant, or otherwise inadequate, but which solves or masks the problem at hand, and is generally faster and easier to put in place than a proper solution.”

Well, the poor person who made the slide had other intentions, in line with the wikipedia definitions. Intentions were to “quickly” set up the data even if that meant data was “not so clean” or “dirty”. Well, obviously he was misunderstood by the elite cabal. Idea was simple – given the data has no use for future processing, is static and drives no revenues or reports and needs to be set up one-off just for the reference in the database, there is no point spending time and money on cleaning the data to give it a correct & meaningful shape. After intermittent bursts of laughters and grins among all big waves, the plan is (still under review) to keep it quick and dirty, until ofcourse the management cabal comes up with some "calm and clean" ideas!

the win-win manager...

poor programmer...

Problem with the application programmer’s job is that no matter how hard I work and how smart I am, I can never become a mass celebrity or win a noble prize or a Bharat Ratn, Padma Shree or Padma Vibhusan. I am the meek supporter of a bold economy. I am the wistful spectator of a celebrity world.

I mean, a programmer cannot reach out to the people of this world. A journalist writes an article and hundreds of people read it and make opinions about the world. A programmer writes a program and nobody but the compiler understands it, and years later if someone actually dares to go through the source code (which is like the junkyard of a programmer's irrational thoughts), the poor programmer’s soul gets all sorts of critiques and curses, whereas a journalist receives the Pulitzer Prize for his years of service to the world, or even gets the Best Critics Award of the Year!
In a group of people of different professions, a programmer appears like a laid back citizen of an undeveloped world, an unevolved civilization. That’s the problem with the world of programmers. We don’t have role models. If one wants to become a great journalist or a sportsman or a politician s/he has role models like Thomas Friedman, Christiano Ronaldo and George Bush. But if one wants to become a programmer – there is nobody, everyone is on his/her own on the road to perdition.

But it is good for unambitious people who don't seek fame and celebrity status, those outcast self proclaimed geniuses who want to live unknown to the world of natural human beings and go as the tiny footnotes in the pages of history.