Computer Bodgers and Tinkerers

[tek-monkey]

As mentioned in another thread I worked out how to create outlook meeting requests on the fly the other day, 20 minutes of my time well spent as its a great addition to a training booking system I wrote last week.

 

[hop]

Most my photo work is in Lightroom/Photoshop. Somewhere further down the list is using a command line to drive Photoshop automation. At the top of my list is writing a cron job to backup wordpress websites. Only got as far as writing some pseudo code - will be a shell script that reads a configuration file. The configuration file will detail the ftp server/MySQL server and login credentials and the backup frequency.

Interesting food for thought all the same

Use Rsync. It is smart enough to only copy the delta changes.

 

[tek-monkey]

Just rolled out a mostly untested booking system to over 700 users, let the fun commence! I do love live product development

 

[hop]

Just rolled out a mostly untested booking system to over 700 users, let the fun commence! I do love live product development

How unprofessional. Ever heard of TDD, IoC, Mocks, MVC, Interfaces, Dependancy Injection and automated builds. I judge the quality of a system by the speed and number of tests. You should have thousands of automated tests and these should run within a second or 2. If that means using lots of mock objects so be it. Your nightly build can do the main integration tests which interface with the databases and might take 30 mins.

 

[tek-monkey]

When development timeframe > deadline then code on the fly. As it was any anomalys were perfectly within parameters and dealt with immediately, only 3 users had delays over one minute before their accounts were manually activated. As all account activations were via email a small delay was expected by the users, who were unaware if a reply was automatic or manually processed. I may not follow the 'rules' but I know my ****.

 

[wmrcomputers]

That reminds me of a customer who's brand new replacement hard drive failed after just 2 months of being replaced. Obviously I was very apologetic and offered to replace it again for free as these things sometimes happen, to which he replied... "Well, didn't you test it before you let me have it back?"

I think he was missing the point

 

[John Marwood]

Are all hard drives still made in that one single giant factory on a floodplain in Taiwan?

Or was that another cheese dream?

 

[hop]

When development timeframe > deadline then code on the fly.

Except this is never the case. The effort involved in writing a unit test is minimal. Having a system with a full suite of tests saves time since future bugs are identified automatically.
Refactoring becomes simpler since there is confidence that no issues have been inadvertently introduced.

It is in your own interests to adopt a professional working practise, if only to just salary increases

 

[tek-monkey]

I'm beginning to think you work in project manager land, where there are colleagues aplenty and budgets run free. I'd love to see you function under local authority conditions where you're lucky if the person you'd normally collaborate with hasn't been made redundant and your budget is less than your expenditure planned out 2 years ago.

Hypothetical question then, If you were asked for something that takes 5 days to develop to be delivered in 4 days what steps would you cut? There is no extra funding or manpower available and you're already working extra hours (and it is company policy not to allow remote work). I'm genuinely intrigued which part of the development lifecycle you'd cull, but I suspect the answer I'll get will be to throw more non-existent resources at it.

 

[wmrcomputers]

Are all hard drives still made in that one single giant factory on a floodplain in Taiwan?

Or was that another cheese dream?

That's almost correct. There are (or at least were) a few factories in that location that all suffered flooding. I remember a laptop sata hard drive rising from £32 to £130 at one point. Several customers chose to buy new laptops instead of having their old ones fixed, and left me with their old one for my troubles. Needless to say I had a few laptops to sell when the prices eventually dropped again

 

[tek-monkey]

That's almost correct. There are (or at least were) a few factories in that location that all suffered flooding. I remember a laptop sata hard drive rising from £32 to £130 at one point. Several customers chose to buy new laptops instead of having their old ones fixed, and left me with their old one for my troubles. Needless to say I had a few laptops to sell when the prices eventually dropped again

I remember that well, had to delay a few builds because the storage costs became prohibitive.

 

[hop]

I'm beginning to think you work in project manager land, where there are colleagues aplenty and budgets run free. I'd love to see you function under local authority conditions where you're lucky if the person you'd normally collaborate with hasn't been made redundant and your budget is less than your expenditure planned out 2 years ago.

Hypothetical question then, If you were asked for something that takes 5 days to develop to be delivered in 4 days what steps would you cut? There is no extra funding or manpower available and you're already working extra hours (and it is company policy not to allow remote work). I'm genuinely intrigued which part of the development lifecycle you'd cull, but I suspect the answer I'll get will be to throw more non-existent resources at it.

Lol the day I find a project manager who understands what I talk about I will be flabbergasted.

I'm not having a go at you as much as you might thing so, but I think you are basically coasting along and only working on 2 cylinders. Under the hood there is a V8 which is dieing to come to life.

I run a development company.

I will not ship sh1t. It does my company and the end client no favours.

I have high standards and expect any developer to be able to code using TDD and IOC and I expect them to have mastered multiple languages. If they can't offer this why shouldn't I just use a boot camp programmer from Mumbai or Pune....

Development is based on agile incremental deliverables where the client can feedback regularly and changes can be accommodated.

But testing is deemed to be very important. It's mostly about finding the right tools.

Have a looked at things like active record. Do you use an ORM or roll your own data acess layer (dal). If your stuck in the world of classic asp do you write the bulk of your logic in com automation servers.

Seriously testing saves you time. You need to learn how to write tests these have be low level. Your code needs to use interfaces and the like.

Think of it as an investment in your career. Don't expect your employer to pay for it. If they can keep your salary down they will. Spend some time training yourself and reach the top of your game, do this and you won't be living in Holmcroft anymore you will be living in the finest house in Eccleshall or wherever you choose.

Serious get a pluralsight subscription it's free for a month and advance your skillset as quickly as you can.

 

[hop]

If you want to experience TDD and be enlightened I would suggest reading a book called 'Agile web development on rails' which is part of the pragmatic programmer series. You should be able to find a version online but if your going to try it out try and make sure your version of ruby and rails match.

I'm not recommending this book because of the rails framework or ruby language but more because it is quick paced and starts from a test driven perspective.

We all hate books which are too basic and teach flow of control.

Once you had had read it head over to pluralsight.com and get a free subscription for a month and learn as much as you can.

 

[SharkBait]

Hop is right. I've worked in public sector and private sector and the difference is immense. I've gone from working in a environment where they deliver two releases a year to one every two weeks, using methodologies such as SCRUM (instead of SLC/RAD) and XP techniques including TDD and IOC.



TDD I understand.

1.Write a test.
2.Run your test. It fails.
3.Write some code.
4.Re-run test
5.Repeat 3 and 4 until test passes.

IOC I can't quite get my head around.


I learned to write code procedurally and never quite got my head around OO.
I find it a bugger to read and debug. When I was exposed to OO I worked as an integrator, not a developer and I never found the time to learn it properly.

I'd like to try it again one day - now I'm not doing it for a living under immense pressure, I'm developing an interest in it again.

 

[SharkBait]

Use Rsync. It is smart enough to only copy the delta changes.

Check.
Rsync is my tool of choice already for this sort of thing. I'm currently managing four/five websites so I want to write something that's configurable/reusable as/when more are added to the fold.