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Once upon a time (that is, my previous employer) I stopped production (I was the only programmer) and started to reorganize and consolidate the entire program. They weren't too happy but let me proceed.
Soon after, when changes were needed, they found I could now do them in a few hours instead of days. Often the changes were customizations they charge the requestor for dearly.
Final status: they never complained about me cleaning up the program again and seemed actually happy when I went about it as it, realizing it to be time well spent.
| Ravings en masse^ |
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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That's why I miss my first programming job. I had come through for the company from day one (emergency 3 week contract -> full time), so I was free to make most decisions on my own.
I once provided estimate of 2 days for a job I could do in ~3 hours. The reason was that it involved code I had been looking for an excuse to change for 2 years. 2 days later the new feature was in-place and fully tested. The long range bonus (for me) was that any similar feature could be completed by me in ~15 minutes. Oh - it also eliminated the disconnected dependent code+structures that was one breath of away from the BSOD (translation BOOM!).
INTP
"Program testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to show their absence." - Edsger Dijkstra
"I have never been lost, but I will admit to being confused for several weeks. " - Daniel Boone
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Actually, always, now that I'm my own boss. But when I had a regular job, I realized that the industry in which I was working sorely needed application frameworks (though framework had yet to be used in that context). Once I had approval to start the first one, it's what I ended up doing for most of my career. I used what would now be considered an agile process, reading requirements documents early in a release to anticipate what developers would need, and reading their design documents to see what I'd missed. Unless there was a crisis, my managers had the sense to let me decide what would make developers more productive.
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I originally planed to be my own boss. But, my first job as a programmer was very close. Accept I did not have to do paper work and set my own hours. I was the programming department. I designed the software, created the framework(s) and tools to make my life easier, and was the last stop, if anything actually broke (on very very rare occasions - OK twice in 9 years). The problem was that I put my plans on the back burner and never did go into business for myself. Now I do corporate programming and I am some times amazed the the software actually works.
INTP
"Program testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to show their absence." - Edsger Dijkstra
"I have never been lost, but I will admit to being confused for several weeks. " - Daniel Boone
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John R. Shaw wrote: I am some times amazed the software actually works.
I assume this means the software as a whole, perhaps because of technical debt, and not your software! 
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Correct - I am often amazed the exiting software worked.
Some years ago I spent 2 days fixing a recurring error through out the code base I inherited. My mistake was not doing them one at a time w/testing, because at least one out of the ~150+ warnings (actually a major coding error) broke code when the fix was applied. The code base still exists without the fix.
INTP
"Program testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to show their absence." - Edsger Dijkstra
"I have never been lost, but I will admit to being confused for several weeks. " - Daniel Boone
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All of our project priorities are decided by a steering group
Every day, thousands of innocent plants are killed by vegetarians.
Help end the violence EAT BACON
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Oh - I'm so sorry for you.
Like pretty much anything else (car, ship, airplane), when you steer by committee you will be lucky if you just go 'round in circles instead of crashing into something.
I usually refer to "Steering Committee's" as a "Group Grope[^]".
| Ravings en masse^ |
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| "The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein | | "If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010 |
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Do you mean a group of steers?
Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.
-- 6079 Smith W.
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Leslie Lamport, well known in the field for more than a generation, at one conference gave the introductory speech for a panel discussion on "What can we learn from theory?". He opened by referring to one dictionary defining a "theory" as "a body of theors", and a "theor" as "a person who communicates directly with the gods". So, Lamport claimed, The question to be answered in this panel discussion is "What can we learn from a group of people who communicates directly with the gods?"
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I actually left my first job due to the steering group. They repeatedly directed me/us to implement functionality that had been available for several releases, or functionality that made no sense whatsoever in the given context, and those who thought they knew programming prescribed how we should extend this and that data structure for a given functinality, but no such data structure had ever existed in the code. (I guess that fellow had been working on a similar system in another company, taking for granted that ours were made exactly the same way.)
Today, I guess I would have just nodded an OK, ignoring the detail directions, later presenting that old functionality as if it were new, and if they asked for the nonsense functionality, explained it to them then. But at that time when I was young and excited about my own expertise, I found it tremendously frustrating to receive orders from a steering group without a clue.
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I think the survey focuses more on devs picking the project they work on (from a list of projects selected for implementation by the steering group).
/ravi
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Right now I'm focusing more on choosing which projects not to work on.
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