Thursday, July 14, 2005
Five, four, three, two...
Nearly there. Only a few more hours to go and then I hit the road.
Once I'm on vacation, you're not going to hear anything from me, because
I'm not going anywhere near a computer while I'm on my vacation.
I'm going to take the following advice:
Time to switch off and slow down (I hope the URL doesn't prove to be transient).
Once I'm on vacation, you're not going to hear anything from me, because
I'm not going anywhere near a computer while I'm on my vacation.
I'm going to take the following advice:
Time to switch off and slow down (I hope the URL doesn't prove to be transient).
In the meanwhile, I've got a few more updates to make to a document!
Wednesday, July 13, 2005
Phew! It's hot.
"One more day to go.
One more day of sorrow.
One more day in this old dump,
I'll be gone (the day after) tomorrow."
I've finished what I need to do to the interfaces documentation. I have to say this whole thing is moving at a pedestrian pace. My ex-colleagues involved in Xtreme programming would have a real laugh. They'd have written the damn thing (probably three or four times) by now. Anyway, I've done my bit. Now it's over to others.
In the meanwhile it's baking hot here. I don't know what the temperature is but the strategy of opening windows and using fans is nowhere near as effective as it was yesterday.
This evening all I have to do is pack the car (which won't take long). So, there may be a posting tomorrow or there may not.
PS And just to demonstrate how hot it is, I've got perspiration running down my forehead and dripping from the end of my nose! Lovely!
One more day of sorrow.
One more day in this old dump,
I'll be gone (the day after) tomorrow."
I've finished what I need to do to the interfaces documentation. I have to say this whole thing is moving at a pedestrian pace. My ex-colleagues involved in Xtreme programming would have a real laugh. They'd have written the damn thing (probably three or four times) by now. Anyway, I've done my bit. Now it's over to others.
In the meanwhile it's baking hot here. I don't know what the temperature is but the strategy of opening windows and using fans is nowhere near as effective as it was yesterday.
This evening all I have to do is pack the car (which won't take long). So, there may be a posting tomorrow or there may not.
PS And just to demonstrate how hot it is, I've got perspiration running down my forehead and dripping from the end of my nose! Lovely!
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
Nice day here and...
...I'm getting ready for vacation.
The day is beautiful. The sky is blue, there are a few clouds and a gentle breeze. It isn't too hot. I'm stuck in the office, but even that isn't too bad. The windows are open (we don't have air conditioning) and, with a couple of fans moving the air around, the atmosphere is pleasant.
I see signs of movement with the old interfaces. Our developers and their developers have been discussing an xsd, so it would seem that at long last we have got down to the "nitty-gritty".
Meanwhile, back at the bat-cave I'm getting on with the functional description of some of the function hidden behind one of our interfaces. Summarising stuff so that others can understand it sometimes improves one's own understanding.
Time marches on. I'm going to get what I have to do done by the time I depart on vacation. Only two full days to go. Ta-rah, ta-rah. You won't see me for dust on Thursday night. Two whole weeks with the family. That's worth a lot.
The day is beautiful. The sky is blue, there are a few clouds and a gentle breeze. It isn't too hot. I'm stuck in the office, but even that isn't too bad. The windows are open (we don't have air conditioning) and, with a couple of fans moving the air around, the atmosphere is pleasant.
I see signs of movement with the old interfaces. Our developers and their developers have been discussing an xsd, so it would seem that at long last we have got down to the "nitty-gritty".
Meanwhile, back at the bat-cave I'm getting on with the functional description of some of the function hidden behind one of our interfaces. Summarising stuff so that others can understand it sometimes improves one's own understanding.
Time marches on. I'm going to get what I have to do done by the time I depart on vacation. Only two full days to go. Ta-rah, ta-rah. You won't see me for dust on Thursday night. Two whole weeks with the family. That's worth a lot.
Friday, July 08, 2005
Amber
When I drove into work today the flag at the entrance to the site where I work was at half-mast. The sign which declares the "Alert Status" proclaimed "Amber". I can only remember seeing it at "Black" or "Black Special" before. I know this seems a bit like shutting the stable door but, in the circumstances, if the security staff didn't do these things, then we really would have grounds for complaint.
Back at work, "the interfaces" lumber on. Today we've kicked off getting an estimate done for one of the components which supplies the data to one of the main interfaces. Everyone agrees that this is a real monster. It involves doing some statistical sampling of a set of data. The test manager and I have been discussing just exactly how to test that this thing is working properly. Not test that it works (without falling over) but that it gives the right results and selects the right samples. Hmm. I think we may be discussing it for a little while.
Back at work, "the interfaces" lumber on. Today we've kicked off getting an estimate done for one of the components which supplies the data to one of the main interfaces. Everyone agrees that this is a real monster. It involves doing some statistical sampling of a set of data. The test manager and I have been discussing just exactly how to test that this thing is working properly. Not test that it works (without falling over) but that it gives the right results and selects the right samples. Hmm. I think we may be discussing it for a little while.
Thursday, July 07, 2005
Puts things in perspective...
Let's be clear about this, I'm really not the most athletic of people. Dispite this, even I was interested in the prospect of London getting to host the Olympic games in 2012. I don't want to go. In fact, I don't plan to be working in England by then.
After the excitement of yesterday I settled today and have made pretty good progress in laying out some overview documentation to help plan the migration of a particularly knotty function associated with the "b%$$&y interfaces". I glanced at a news web-site during the morning, so I saw the shocking news from London. A few minutes ago I got a 'phone-call from my wife. She's in Ireland and because she knows I move about so much she tends to worry about what might have happened to me. Of course, I'm in the same scruffy and disreputable state as usual and I was able to reassure her.
The point is, worse things happen all over the place and it is very nice to feel loved even if from time to time it can feel a bit stiffling.
It is very disturbing when terrorists strike. We shall have to see who claims responsibility for this (which always seems to me to be an inappropriate phrase). They exploit the open society in which most of us like to live. A disturbing thought which passed my mind was to ask whether there is any connection between the announcement of the Olympics and the attacks today? I can see that creating the association would lend the attack greater impact in the minds of the attackers. It also creates the disturbing possiblity that there may be an equivalent gang waiting in Paris.
Still, back to "the interfaces". They're paying the bills and life must go on.
After the excitement of yesterday I settled today and have made pretty good progress in laying out some overview documentation to help plan the migration of a particularly knotty function associated with the "b%$$&y interfaces". I glanced at a news web-site during the morning, so I saw the shocking news from London. A few minutes ago I got a 'phone-call from my wife. She's in Ireland and because she knows I move about so much she tends to worry about what might have happened to me. Of course, I'm in the same scruffy and disreputable state as usual and I was able to reassure her.
The point is, worse things happen all over the place and it is very nice to feel loved even if from time to time it can feel a bit stiffling.
It is very disturbing when terrorists strike. We shall have to see who claims responsibility for this (which always seems to me to be an inappropriate phrase). They exploit the open society in which most of us like to live. A disturbing thought which passed my mind was to ask whether there is any connection between the announcement of the Olympics and the attacks today? I can see that creating the association would lend the attack greater impact in the minds of the attackers. It also creates the disturbing possiblity that there may be an equivalent gang waiting in Paris.
Still, back to "the interfaces". They're paying the bills and life must go on.
Tuesday, July 05, 2005
Timing is everything
The interfaces project plods on. I had a meeting with the people responsible for one of the system components we're taking over/integrating on Friday. Naturally, they're a separate organisation but they are as cooperative as I could reasonably hope for. Ironically, the key components of their system are (software) modules which they inherited from the system into which we want to re-integrate them. Or, to put that another way, some function is being moved back to where it came from. This should make things simple, but of course life isn't like that. The modules which have to move have been modified, and may have dependencies in their new "host", and the original source system has been substantially redeveloped (changed database!) while they've been away. Re-integration is not going to be absolutely straightforward. This is "re-factoring" writ large. Moving function, not between objects, but between independent systems.
We are now looking at several alternative ways of bringing these "prodigal functions" back in-house. The options involve various degrees of integration, and range from bringing the whole server back, to migrating the functions to run with the "new" database.
As for timing, the main system (currently under development in India) which we have to interface with seems to have trouble understanding the idea of "non-functional requirements" in the context of batch operations. We keep on asking them when (during the batch period) they plan to send us an interface (and when they need to receive the reply). We're not talking about small files here. The stock reply is that they won't know until their system is into test. I'm sure they don't know, I'm sure I wouldn't either, but I would be aiming for something. Maybe they are just being coy.
Anyway, back to the grindstone. Not long till I escape on vacation.
We are now looking at several alternative ways of bringing these "prodigal functions" back in-house. The options involve various degrees of integration, and range from bringing the whole server back, to migrating the functions to run with the "new" database.
As for timing, the main system (currently under development in India) which we have to interface with seems to have trouble understanding the idea of "non-functional requirements" in the context of batch operations. We keep on asking them when (during the batch period) they plan to send us an interface (and when they need to receive the reply). We're not talking about small files here. The stock reply is that they won't know until their system is into test. I'm sure they don't know, I'm sure I wouldn't either, but I would be aiming for something. Maybe they are just being coy.
Anyway, back to the grindstone. Not long till I escape on vacation.
