The Microsoft talk last night was great, courtesy of the folks from SA Developer! I learnt a lot about the new MVC.NET model and while it is still in its infancy it was quite a thrill to pick the brain of Brad Abrams, the guy managing the development of it, on Microsoft's direction and progress to compete with other such MVC frameworks such as Ruby on Rails. MVC by the by, just in case you're interested stands for Model View Controller, which is a "new" way of abstracting presentation from business functionality in development...still confused???...don't worry so am I, I just pretend to understand, smile and nod!
I even had the opportunity of potentially (potentially had they actually needed it) saving the evening by bringing my network hub...Ernst phoned me at the last minute in a panic saying that the talk might not be able to continue without a network hub. Thankfully I had one handy from back in the day when I was PE's Quake 3 Champ...Man I think I'm revealing way to much of my geeky side here...have to stop writing about all this tech stuff cos it's seriously ruining my street cred! I thought perhaps if I saved the day I could maybe have gotten a commendatory phone call from old Bill Gates himself...:"Hello - O yes, hey Bill -Was totally my pleasure...no no, I couldn't accept a million dollar reward - what you insist? - O well I suppose I can't look a gift horse in the mouth". What?... It could have totally happened.
Hmmm someone remind me never to eat garlic laced stuff for lunch again...I made this great garlic chicken bake type thing for lunch today, which was really amazing! But to the detriment to my colleagues though, I was getting some pretty evil stares from the guys sitting near me. Reminds me of this one time how the night before, since I figured I wasn't going to be seeing anyone after, laced my pizza with garlic. The next morning however, the garlic was still in my system and when I was at gym, about to start rowing; I noticed this really attractive girl on one of the machines...but as I approached, about 2 meters away. She stopped dead in her tracks, turned around to look at me and rhetorically asked "Good grief! Do you smell that? Is that garlic coming from you?"
I was so flabbergasted I didn't know what to do...except to just occupy the machine next to hers and start rowing anyway! For quite a while after that incident, Lloyd, my friend the personal trainer teased me and called me "Garlic Boy". The teasing continued for at least 3 months. I'm pretty certain that, although the guys at work haven't said it to my face yet; whenever I leave the room they'll be like "Ahh there goes Garlic Boy" amongst themselves.
Showing posts with label software engineer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label software engineer. Show all posts
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Out of Office
(For those of you who have no interest in software development whatsoever I’d advise you to skip the first couple of paragraphs as they may just cause your head to explode). After a lot of pain, tracing code, monitoring processes on different servers etc and trying to figure out why the deployment of our application is failing on the Live servers, but working correctly on both ours and the clients test environments; I think I’ve finally figured out the problem.
Firstly it seems that whoever wrote the code in the first place; has a policy of just swallowing exceptions and not handling them correctly. If there were 12 commandments to be followed in software development, “Thou shall not swallow exceptions” would surely be one of them; if these exceptions were handled in the first place, we might have picked up the cause of the problem a lot more quickly. Secondly the issue that we have been experiencing seems to be the result of different customized settings on the servers, specifically with regards to date formats…at least now we know what the problem is and can hopefully resolve it relatively quickly.
Speaking of date problem’s I can’t remember the last time I went on a proper date. Do people even go on dates anymore? Think the last one I went on was before I left for Joburg and that was quite some time ago. I’ve been so busy with work and having a torrid love affair with my computer that I haven’t had a chance to even realize how long it’s been. Hmmm perhaps it’s time to put myself back into the game…all work and no play is certainly making Jack (or in this case me) a dull boy!
Anyways the sun was out in full force today! I reckon all the positive thinking and wishing for the worst of winter to pass us has finally come to fruition! If I could have, I would have most definitely snuck down to Camps Bay for an afternoon siesta on the beach, but unfortunately being office bound this was out of the question. I did, however, manage to sneak out the office briefly and wander down Kloof Street to grab some lunch!
Ahhh fresh air! It really was therapeutic to get out of the office, even if it was for only 20 minutes. I believe the fresh air does one a world of good, and it sure beats breathing in that lovely, bacteria laden, possibly virus infected, recycled stuff that goes around the office (as is accustomed to centrally air-conditioned environments). Definitely going to add a mandatory out of office time in the future and would seriously recommend it to everyone else too.
Firstly it seems that whoever wrote the code in the first place; has a policy of just swallowing exceptions and not handling them correctly. If there were 12 commandments to be followed in software development, “Thou shall not swallow exceptions” would surely be one of them; if these exceptions were handled in the first place, we might have picked up the cause of the problem a lot more quickly. Secondly the issue that we have been experiencing seems to be the result of different customized settings on the servers, specifically with regards to date formats…at least now we know what the problem is and can hopefully resolve it relatively quickly.
Speaking of date problem’s I can’t remember the last time I went on a proper date. Do people even go on dates anymore? Think the last one I went on was before I left for Joburg and that was quite some time ago. I’ve been so busy with work and having a torrid love affair with my computer that I haven’t had a chance to even realize how long it’s been. Hmmm perhaps it’s time to put myself back into the game…all work and no play is certainly making Jack (or in this case me) a dull boy!
Anyways the sun was out in full force today! I reckon all the positive thinking and wishing for the worst of winter to pass us has finally come to fruition! If I could have, I would have most definitely snuck down to Camps Bay for an afternoon siesta on the beach, but unfortunately being office bound this was out of the question. I did, however, manage to sneak out the office briefly and wander down Kloof Street to grab some lunch!
Ahhh fresh air! It really was therapeutic to get out of the office, even if it was for only 20 minutes. I believe the fresh air does one a world of good, and it sure beats breathing in that lovely, bacteria laden, possibly virus infected, recycled stuff that goes around the office (as is accustomed to centrally air-conditioned environments). Definitely going to add a mandatory out of office time in the future and would seriously recommend it to everyone else too.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Just Shoot Me!
When most people take the day off, even if it is sick leave they’re pretty glad that at least they had a day of rest…but if you’re in the IT industry you know, in the back of your mind, you just know that there is some work, lurking, waiting, to come back and bite you in the poo-poo factory!
Well I’m finally home, close to 10 pm and I have yet to have a bite to eat …yip, welcome to the IT industry my friends. After getting back to work, thinking that perhaps I’d be well rested to tackle the day, the sudden barrage of urgencies to release software, came flying at me, and with it, you guessed it increased levels of stress…and yet another dip in the ol’ immune system department!
When you become a software developer, you think “Cool, I’ll get to do some coding…write a cool, killer, application!” But what they don’t tell you is that you also , “auto-magically”, a word I made up by the way, also become a an expert in the fields of business, computer architecture, database administration, automata theory, server side coding, client side coding, hardware architecture…you get the picture. You suddenly become the all encompassing gambit of “Computer Guru” the guy who is supposed to know it all…which is kinda cool, but never, never true…and are expected to come up with solutions to an infinite possibility of problems, which is also fine should you be doing so leisurely.
“BUT” and I say “but” very emphatically, if you add in a limited time frame, a budget, and limited resources. You start panicking; desperately clawing for answers, ego too bloated to admit not knowing the answers, and even if you did admit nobody would care…the following becomes your mantra “ GOOGLE is my friend, GOOGLE is my friend …“
Anyways enough of my ranting, “Get back to work slave!” I think I’m beginning to hear voices in my head…perhaps it’s the caffeine finally poisoning my brain? But who cares I need more coffee…there is much work to do, much before the night is done!
Well I’m finally home, close to 10 pm and I have yet to have a bite to eat …yip, welcome to the IT industry my friends. After getting back to work, thinking that perhaps I’d be well rested to tackle the day, the sudden barrage of urgencies to release software, came flying at me, and with it, you guessed it increased levels of stress…and yet another dip in the ol’ immune system department!
When you become a software developer, you think “Cool, I’ll get to do some coding…write a cool, killer, application!” But what they don’t tell you is that you also , “auto-magically”, a word I made up by the way, also become a an expert in the fields of business, computer architecture, database administration, automata theory, server side coding, client side coding, hardware architecture…you get the picture. You suddenly become the all encompassing gambit of “Computer Guru” the guy who is supposed to know it all…which is kinda cool, but never, never true…and are expected to come up with solutions to an infinite possibility of problems, which is also fine should you be doing so leisurely.
“BUT” and I say “but” very emphatically, if you add in a limited time frame, a budget, and limited resources. You start panicking; desperately clawing for answers, ego too bloated to admit not knowing the answers, and even if you did admit nobody would care…the following becomes your mantra “ GOOGLE is my friend, GOOGLE is my friend …“
Anyways enough of my ranting, “Get back to work slave!” I think I’m beginning to hear voices in my head…perhaps it’s the caffeine finally poisoning my brain? But who cares I need more coffee…there is much work to do, much before the night is done!
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