So, as you might have noticed, I've been out of fandom for a while, then a "omg sorry I'll be back soon!" post, then nothing again for months. Rinse and repeat.
Well, there's a reason for that, and the reason is that I work for a software company that has no idea how to develop software. In places where they know how to make software, there are four stages:
1. Go find out what the requirements are. Talk to the people who need it and figure out what things they absolutely have to have or you may as well not bother.
2. Develop the specs. Decide how the software is going to work. Make wireframes to get some feedback from the people who are going to be using it, so they can tell you that they really don't need Field X but they have to have Field Y.
3. Work out a timeline. Estimate how long each task is going to take, figure out how many programmers and how much time you have. Remove the least important features to make sure your ship date works.
4. Actually write the code.
Project managers handle stage one for a lot of projects at once, getting a list of features that need to go out and coming up with an approximate ship date. Then they get the programming team to handle stage 2, work with them for stage 3, and then when everything's settled and all the higher-ups approve, they give the programmers the green light for stage 4.
There is almost always some issue that comes up right before the ship date, which means the programmers work overtime for a week or so to get it out on time. It's just one of those things.
My company? Does not do this. They are PERPETUALLY in "OMG SHIP IT NOW THE WORLD IS ON FIRE!!!!" mode, because nobody plans anything in advance -- somebody realizes something needs to be done, some manager who's never written a line of code in his life decides how long it's going to take, and they inform tech lead, who says nobody's available (because everything *else* is on fire). At no point in this process does anybody ever gather requirements, much less design anything, because the people calling the shots don't know anything about programming and don't want to -- even though they run a software company. They just have a vague fuzzy idea that "our customers need X" and don't bother to figure out what it's going to take to get X until the customer's screaming that they need it RIGHT NOW OMG.
We do not have ship dates, because we should always have shipped yesterday. And because the world is always on fire, the programming team is expected to work insane hours to get finished with an ill-defined project as soon as possible after an arbitrary deadline somebody set without knowing what would need to be done by then.
And that is why I haven't been around, even though I always think I will soon. I hadn't yet figured out that I don't work for a normal software company but for Heads On Fire R Us.
ARRGGH.
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daily_snitch has posted its Special Edition featuring Helga Hufflepuff!![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
bunney has some questions regarding Infinitus 2010 and Draco/Hermione programming. 
sore
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