roncli.com blog

I had the unfortunate need to read over an old rant of mine, the one about programmers and egos. I say "unfortunate", because I seem to have run smack into one rather large programmer's ego lately. And the subject matter is completely stupid, which just made me believe even more in what I wrote over two and a half years ago.

Some background. I was given a task by my boss. This basically resulted in me investigating an application that had been around the office for way longer than I've been there. The call center manager had told me they had stopped using that application entirely, and instead were doing the process manually, because the program no longer worked.

So far, no problem. I investigated the problem and found out that there was a rather annoying bug with one of the web services. There also was a security issue since they were running the application over the Intranet. The Intranet zone is too secure for that application to run, so you have to make an exception for each machine. There was also a third issue that no one really knew anything about, and no one could reproduce it for me. Whatever, I essentially ignored it.

Still no problem. I go to look into fixing the first bug, and find that the solution is checked out to the resident IT guru, so I email him explaining that I wanted to fix a bug and needed him to check it in. I also asked if he wanted me to upgrade the solution to the newer Visual Studio. He responds, saying that there are a lot of old dependencies that would make recompiling difficult. Fair enough. He also asked me what was the specific bug was.

I had something creeping into the back of my mind at this point that I was somehow getting set up for something I wasn't going to like. I simply explained to him the first bug in detail, went over the second bug, and touched lightly on the mystery bug.

Now we have a problem. "I could have told you about this in 5 minutes of my time. On both problems."

First of all, I'm thinking to myself when I read that, thank you Mr. Know-It-All for letting me know about this, what's your point? I'm also thinking to myself, how long has this application really not been working that there are known issues with it, and why was I not informed of these issues when I started investigating it?

I respond to him explaining briefly how I came to the conclusions I did, and how it didn't take much time at all to resolve.

That last reply happened Tuesday afternoon. Wednesday, I skipped out of work to attend Vincent's funeral. Needless to say, I wasn't at all in the mood to deal with what I found waiting in my inbox for me Thursday morning.

He went over point by point and explained not only the specific problems, but the solutions that would need to be carried out for each. For the security issue, there was an .msi that had to be ran on each machine that was taken out of the users' startup some time ago, and that the call center was aware that the application would stop working on newer computers. For the red x issue, apparently it was a data issue, a null value was causing it. For the web service, it would not make sense to continue it as a web service because of all the dependencies, and it should be rewritten as a WCF. He also added that the call center loved the application when it was rolled out, although I have to question that, especially when one of the supervisors was quoted as saying it "never worked right".

So I got a lot of useful information out of that email. He could have stopped there and have been done with it, he provided information I was looking for to give me the ability to decide how to proceed, which in short was that we weren't going to proceed if the fix was going to take some time, which it was clear it was going to.

No. He had to pull out this gem: "You need to start communicating with me." That's his emphasis. He went on to say "you operate in a vacuum", explain how much he knows about the company, the company's code, and coding in general, and how he has this vast pool of knowledge. "Use it," he said.

All of this, of course, copied to the boss.

I was literally seething when I read that part.

Let's never mind the fact that the email I sent to him was, in fact, me communicating with him. This is the same guy I have sent countless emails to that have went unanswered. And I'm not talking about little cutesie emails that don't impact anything, I'm talking serious, major enhancements to the application I was trying to work on. I can't count the number of times I've had to read and interpret his code (he's a wonderful coder, by the way, all people should code like he does), and then write a solution that fit my needs, because I couldn't get a simple question answered. Not even an "I'll get back to you later," just no answer.

Oh, and never mind that the email stated "If I'm busy, I'll usually get back to you." I suppose "usually" was the operative word.

And I'm the one that needs to start communicating with him?

...idiot programmers... Never Wrong... must control fist of death...

One line from the original rant that rang true with this situation was about what these kind of programmers can do. "These programmers are the ones that can take a well-established team environment and wreck it in a matter of seconds. They can deflate the confidence of other members of the team by imposing a ridiculous set of standards that don't make sense."

The worst part is that over the next few working days, I need to work with him on a couple of things with my application. I wonder how he expects me to sit with him face to face and take him seriously when it is clear he doesn't take me seriously.

It's days like these that make me wish I didn't have to work. And of course, you know this coming after a funeral didn't help matters. I found the most interesting part of this whole thing was that the boss avoided me the whole day.

Of course, I did respond, but only after careful consideration as to how. I chose an approach that is apologetic for doing my best while pricking his inflated talking points with what I hope is enough truth to make him realize how ridiculous he sounds.

Good god, if you're line of work is going to be programming, don't do something like this. That is, unless you actually want to look like an ego-maniac.

Labels: Editorials

Thursday, March 01, 2007

Rant: 'Net Drama!
Posted: 4:18:00 PM 0 comments

Over the past couple of months, I've been playing a good amount of World of Warcraft. In fact, it's eaten up a ton of my time. The good news is that Kathy's into it, too, so I have someone I enjoy playing with.

We joined a guild on the server we're on that had about 30 people - small by WoW standards. The guild master invited me in once after I had resurrected him at random. He was looking for mature players (ie: players that simply have to yell, use caps, or type every word with at least one number in it, a la l33t sp33k), and so I figured this would be a nice, fun, laid back guild where I could find other people to quest with.

Not so fast, this is the Internet we're talking about here.

I've experienced this with Trax in Space, the D3TL, and Achaea, the three main things on the Internet that I've really grown attached to before World of Warcraft, so I really shouldn't have expected WoW to be any different. Surprise, it's not.

Only three months into existance, "T3h drama" has reared its ugly head. Perhaps it happens because everyone's playing behind a monitor instead of face to face, but people just seem to get pissed off at everyone for little or no reason. The GM is at odds with one of his officers because apparently said officer ignores his polymorph marks in parties. The officer counters, saying that the GM is a terrible leader. A second officer leaves because the GM left during the middle of a party where he promised to help get her an item. All after everyone's all stressed out over Real Life issues and decides to take it out on each other in the game.

The Internet's really become a bastion for those who want do things that are immoral, but would never be brave enough to do it in a public setting. I can't help but wonder if this attitude has extended to the 'Net Drama I'm seeing. I've started to take such drama with a grain of salt, and in this case I've decided to play from the sidelines and see how it pans out. There's no reason pouring your heart into something that's just going to stress you out if you get involved, like it has already happened to those in the game that just let too much stress get to them.

Chill out, it's only a game.

Labels: Editorials

Friday, December 15, 2006

Year in Review
Posted: 2:51:00 PM 0 comments

What a hectic end to 2006, where to start.

Work. Metro seemed like a decent place to work. The environment was laid back, the pace was healthy but not too quick. The people were great to work with. It had its problems, though. I never got a salary review, but didn't feel like I needed it, as the money I was making there supported me and then some. It came crashing down in late July, however, when my boss either got laid off, one among 100, to cut costs. We were now managed by a guy out of New York City, a long ways away from Houston. Consultants were hired for a project, sending off warning alarms. Why spend more money when you just cut back? Perhaps the lay offs were done to allow this, I don't know, but it looked silly. Then I started hearing some rumors about the future of the department and the office I worked in, all of which were bleak. Given what I knew within the company and taking the rumors with a grain of salt, I still got the impression that it was going to be a good idea to bail, and that's exactly what I did.

Shortly after Thanksgiving, I started a new job with US Interactive, a local company that does defensive driving websites. So far, it's not been bad, I'm just going through the usual bits of getting up to speed. They do C#.Net here, which actually is pretty nice. I'm liking working with it so far, but I have much to learn about how they do things here, and that is a challenge I feel I will enjoy in the coming months.

Outside projects. I had started a project with my friend Saurin a while ago. Originally, I was going to be the main developer and all-around technology person, something the HP I've mentioned in earlier posts is being used for. Things quickly went south when it was decided that PHP would be the better path, a language I previously have known nothing about. I didn't put up much of a fight for ASP.Net, as I wanted to keep an open mind when it came to server performance and what not. Another developer was brought on board, and it made sense for him to be the lead. After a couple of weeks of studying and writing PHP, I quickly realized that this project had become something I had no real interest in anymore. Saurin wants this project to move fast, and I can't deliver on that. Now, he's a great friend and all, and he's probably more than willing to wait for me to learn PHP, but quite frankly he's shooting himself in the foot by not getting himself a seasonsed PHP developer that can write more than one page a week. Earlier this week, I decided it was in my best interest to discontinue this project.

Another project I've been working on outside has to do with website building, and I'm not really interested in that either. It was another project that started as something big and turned out to be a lot less than what it was. I plan on removing myself from that project today.

It seems like with the new job and two less big projects to deal with, 2007 promises to be the year of the fresh start.

I have been contemplating for a long time to return to doing a weekly Internet radio program, similar to the TiS Weekly News, which ran as a test beta for two weeks before I decided it wasn't worth it. My format would basically be commentary on the digital music scene, spiced with a bunch of tracks from around the digital music community. Well, I think I'm finally going to start doing this, with the first show airing Monday, January 8th, 6 AM GMT (1 AM U.S. East Coast). The idea is for it to run an hour to two hours, depending on how much music I have to play and how much I have to talk about, including possible interviews and Internet callers. The show would of course be podcasted and archived for future listening. I don't have a name for it yet, but I'm going to be taking care of all the technological concerns this weekend before I head to Buffalo for Christmas and New Year's.

As for my personal projects, I've pretty much lost interest in a lot of them. It happened during the 4th of July weekend when I reformatted my computer and had days of trouble afterwards. After that, my frustration with things grew, and I realized I didn't have the patience to deal with making things work, so I passed on the projects for a while.

One project that hasn't died completely is OSMusic.Net. You may not see anything new there, but I am working on a basic graphical interface that will replace the clunky-looking boxes that I've grown to hate. No idea when I'm going to finish this project, as it's going to take quite some time to morph all of the tables, but it should look pretty cool.

I've been doing a lot of gaming lately, mostly for relaxation. I got hooked on to Aveyond through Kathy's Shockwave subscription. Aveyond is an RPG reminiscent of the old Nintendo RPGs, like Dragon Warrior. Then Kathy got me into Westward, an RTS based in the old west. It's hilarious. Both highly recommended.

My latest obsession, though... yeah, yeah, I know it's cliche, but I've finally broken down and started playing World of Warcraft. It was actually something I have tried under the advice of my new co-workers, most of which play, but it's something I've been considering trying for a long time. Kathy was none-too-pleased, largely due to some of the negative stereotypes found around the 'Net. She didn't get Leeroy, either. However, I have found the game to be quite different from what I was expecting, something I'll save for another post.

One thing I did accomplish this year was to finally get out of debt. Ever since the end of 2000, I've been in debt, and it's taken 6 long years to finally get out. I almost have the feeling that I can do just about anything now, and even have been thinking about finally getting some real music gear to do some real recording with. I probably won't be doing that until at least the second half of 2007, though.

2006 was crazy, especially in the second half of the year when I probably overwhelmed myself with responsibility, but I've been able to take a step back and recover. Kathy noted in the days up to my leaving Metro that I was a different person, nervous and unhappy. I knew this, and the night after my last day I was back to my normal self. I knew I would be, stressful things like this never last for long unless you let them, and I have a habit of eliminating unnecessary stress. You can't go through life worried and unhappy, you have to do what it takes to make sure that you don't stress yourself out for long periods of time.

Right now I am in a pretty comfortable position, and I think that 2007 is going to be a year of new things. I turn 30 in June, and a lot of thoughts about where to take my life from here have crossed my mind... we'll see how much I get to do in the coming 12 months.

Labels: Editorials

Monday, June 12, 2006

Mistakes
Posted: 10:57:00 PM 0 comments

Courtesy of World of Quotes:

"Every great mistake has a halfway moment, a split second when it can be recalled and perhaps remedied." -Pearl S. Buck
"An error is the more dangerous in proportion to the degree of truth which it contains." -Henri-Fréderic Amiel
"Always acknowledge a fault. This will throw those in authority off their guard and give you an opportunity to commit more." -Mark Twain
"Mistakes are the usual bridge between inexperience and wisdom." -Phyllis Therous

Labels: Editorials

Thursday, March 23, 2006

Overkill Computing
Posted: 11:47:00 PM 0 comments

When I put my specs for a "dream machine" together, apparently I've come up quite short.

Dell has put out the XPS600 Renegade, the ultimate in overkill. It's a limited edition machine that boasts a 4.26 GHz processor, 2 GB of memory, 4 graphics cards, 650 GB disk space, and something called a physics accelerator. I've never even heard of a physics accelerator before now.

It's topped off with a paint job by Mike Lavallee, the signatures of him and Michael Dell, and a modest price tag of $9,930. Wow.

Labels: Editorials

Friday, November 04, 2005

A story
Posted: 3:33:00 AM 0 comments

It amazes me how history repeats itself sometimes.

Several years ago when I first got involved in the so-called "tracking scene", I got to know quite a number of people through my involvement in Trax in Space. One of them was a musician of incredible caliber, one that I still can only dream of being as good as.

Some people just have a natural talent when it comes to certain things. For him, it was music. Shortly after I heard of him online, I somehow got a last-minute chance to meet him at an airport on a layover stop. We talked, things seemed pretty cool, and we went on our way afterwards.

Time passes, and a side of this guy shows through that really didn't appeal to me. His attitude towards things he didn't like was completely destructive. His criticism was often filled with sharp, hateful words, and it seemed to me that he wouldn't think before opening his mouth. In a hurry, this amazing musician turned into someone I didn't care to know anymore.

Well, of course, this incident didn't even come to mind when I met a couple of people at an airport on a layover a couple years back. It was a friendly meeting with a couple of amazing individuals which has given me a fond, lasting memory.

But time has passed, and things have changed. Slowly, I see the destructive attitude setting in. I watch as the sharp, hateful words fill their criticizm. They have started to speak without realizing what they are saying. What should be simple mistakes that they could easily correct are getting blown out of proportion because of this. Otherwise amazing individuals that excel at what they do, they are rapidly joining the ranks of the aforementioned musician.

It hurts to watch this. Perhaps even more so, knowing that I'm watching it happen again.

Labels: Editorials

Sunday, July 10, 2005

Rant: Programmers and Egos
Posted: 12:02:00 AM 0 comments

Now playing: O - Zone - Dragostea Din Tei (3:34)

Some may remember my old rant series I had way back when on roncli.com... While this is not about the digital music scene (or whatever it calls itself these days), this is in that vein. Be prepared for bad grammar, spelling, language, and attitude.

Pardon my hypocracy for a moment.

I've been a programmer now for 7 years by trade and 20 years by hobby. It is to the point where programming concepts come naturally to me, and there is very little that I can't figure out. When presented with a limited set of programming tools, I can push those tools to the limit. I know for a fact that my ability, skill, and talent in the field is well beyond what many people who call themselves programmers even strive to become. Therefore, when I say I know programmers and programming, I know what I'm talking about.

I prefer to work alone. The reason being is that when I program things by myself that the logic is mine, the errors are mine, and I can be extremely self-critical when it comes to my work. And, I can do this all without pissing myself off. Because it's me! I don't get mad at myself when I'm programming because I've discovered that I've done something the wrong way. I just fix it. I am, however, able to easily tolerate working with a team.

Most of the time.

One thing I have discovered is that programmers have an ego about their own work. Even I do. When someone changes something I wrote, I want to know why. Did I make an error? Did I not understand the required logic? Just tell me, and my ego is satisfied. And, thankfully, most people are like this. If you show them an error they made, they are like "OMGLOLZ, I can't believe I did that, thanx."

Then... there are the idiot programmers that are Never Wrong.

These programmers are the ones that can take a well-established team environment and wreck it in a matter of seconds. They can deflate the confidence of other members of the team by imposing a ridiculous set of standards that don't make sense.

How do they do this? By taking offense at every little thing that is directed at their work. Let me give a few examples.

"It's not a bug/limitation/problem, it's a feature." - The canonical developer response. Believe it or not, some people use it. It's synonymous with, "I'm lazy, and I'm not changing it." News flash: If you're lazy, programming isn't for you. Programming can be redundant work, and if you're not willing to step up and do all of the work required, don't bother.

"I can't do that because it encourages bad programming." - This interesting one was told to me by someone who developed a scripting language. Basically, the script I was writing would error out if someone provided the script with an invalid number. The reason it would error out was because I had no way to test whether or not the number provided was valid. Upon asking for that, this was the response I got. Of course, this is in an environment when scripts are required to be approved before they are used. When suggesting that those who are approving the scripts could watch for scripts that don't handle user input correctly, I instead got a piece of his mind about handling user input.

"You're not supposed to do that." - What, I'm not supposed to use the tools you've given me to do what I'm supposed to do? Then why do I have them?

My favorite one as of late: "The scripting is supposed to be slow, it was designed that way." - What the fuck are you on?! If it's designed to be slow, you are not going about programming correctly at all, and should consider a career change. Seriously. You aren't a programmer if you can't figure out how/don't want to optimize something. Is scripting slower than compiled code? Yes. But you can visit any of the ASP websites I have designed - which is *ALL* script - and you will find that not one of them runs slowly. Scripting != Slow - and if it does, either the script that is slow was written wrong, or the scripting language itself needs some serious optimization.

These same programmers are almost always the same people that want to design something from the ground up without having a clue of what they are doing. They will run into problems that they don't perceive as problems, because they designed it and it must be right. When programmers like this are in positions of authority when it comes to software design, your product is either going to be very low quality, or it's going to fail miserably.

So programmers, you have an ego. I know because I have one, too. Get over it. Learn from your mistakes, realize you have much to learn, and stop being a roadblock to productivity and innovation.

Labels: Editorials

Saturday, March 12, 2005

Comparing Cherries to Pears
Posted: 5:35:00 PM 0 comments

Now playing: roncli, The Nightstalker - Cent Credits (2:37)

Read a blog post today about the product CherryOS, which is essentially a Mac OS X emulator for Windows. It turns out that CherryOS stole most of their code from PearPC, and are categorically denying it.

How stupid do you have to be to rip off someone else's software? I mean really, in this day and age when people will sue at the drop of the hat for ridiculously stupid things, this company's really gotta have its head in the ground if they believe that just because it's open source means that they're not going to get sued. Sure, the people running PearPC may not have the time or resources to start a lawsuit, but it's just a matter of time before someone does on their behalf.

Incredible the idiocy of some people.

Labels: Editorials

Wednesday, March 02, 2005

Attention BitTorrent Client Writers
Posted: 10:53:00 AM 0 comments

Have you ever heard of MULTITHREADING for Pete's sake?!

I've now downloaded four different BitTorrent clients, all of which choke on the MAME complete ROM set, because there's thousands of files to download and whoever coded these lame BitTorrent clients didn't realize that it would be used for that purpose. Come on, people, have a little decency and be nice to your users, make your GUI not lock up when it's got a lot to do...

Labels: Editorials