The Time Sink

From: Jan Swijsen [mailto:qjsw@oce.nl]
Sent: Monday, December 06, 1999 7:21 AM
To: DanBowman@worldnet.att.net; Tom Syroid
Subject: One-day note


Dan.

For a first page it is as good as any.
But you do realize you have to update about once a day, don't you?
And I am missing the link to the 'most recent'.

Now "making preparations to join" just won't cut it. Daynoting is about
jumping in at the deep end. No one is testing the water. You know there
are sharks patrolling, ever ready to shred your flesh. You know there
are cliffs lurking. You know there will be mermaids luring you to a wet
grave. You know there are maelstroms. And Giant Squid. And sharp,
poisonous corals. And ...
In short, we are waiting for you .

Svenson

Jan,

One-day note; one trick pony; One Note Samba....

...and I was about to go on with that, when two of those pack rat
memory synapses got together: Swijsen<--->Policia of the DayNotes Gang! OMG,
this is more that a friendly prod in the anatomy; there might be electricity in 
that stick!

Instant abasement (well, no basement; heck, I don't even have as fine an attic
as you obviously have as I have no computers in mine). And I now realize 
falling asleep on the couch after the tree thing yesterday (NOT as fine an 
experience as DocJim's) is simply not acceptable: post FIRST; then pass out.
If in shock, use the laptop in the back of the ambulance enroute to the 
hospital; POST; then emergency surgery. Okay, got it.

Ah well, the peace was fun while it lasted (what, four days?);
tonight, fine sirs, tonight (as defined by MY time zone, Tom).

Dan

Let's see, RDE#11: Most Recent. Done

The problem with not blading is the expense: it takes approximately two litres of Pepsi to equal the endorphin levels from twenty minutes of reasonable exercise. (Yes, I know; it should be "liters" on this side of the pond. But Pepsi has sugar in it; "sugar" equals "food"; and food reminds me of Dr. Keyboard; and then my spelling goes all to heck. He affects the behaviour of my spell chequer in some manor.)

Man, I haven't done any more Required Daynotes Elements. Oh, Okay: RDE#5: link to Daynotes.com. Done

RDE#15: Y2K statement. Done

...and that's all for this post. Full day today at the job site; we're changing inventory procedures and I need to be able to translate the goals established at our meeting yesterday into action plans. The good news there is that I get to harass the heck out of our programmer with unreasonable requests (he just loves a challenge)!

What the 'user' thinks of as an unreasonable request is not the same as
what the program thinks of as unreasonable. To really harass a
programmer you just ask for small, easy changes, things like
understandable help texts or 'do what I mean' things.

Svenson

Well, exactly! Now, I'm not the BOFH (thanks, Jay), but I do study my lessons. So yesterday, as I ran across a procedure that could be made simpler, I blast into his office and wait patiently (looking over his shoulder) while he attempts to refocus on what he was coding before his door blew off the hinges. Once he realizes that he is doomed, he turns to me and says, "What????" Hmmm, bleary eyed and un-shaven; easy pickins' today.

"Look" I say as I reach around him and bring up the program (hope he has room for more than one development program in his RAM; nope, that looks like paging going on) and walk him through the sequence of screens that could make my job just a little more efficient than it is. "See" I say, "If you could just clone all the information from this screen to another one just like it, I wouldn't have to re-enter the base data every time I add a new product! I'd only have to change the part number and the price. And my consistency in labeling would be very high."

I leave him staring at the screen, contemplating what appears to be a very simple customer request... That has only been verbalized... And is likely going to take forever to handle... And will trash existing code... But would be waaaay cool to program.

Did I mention the screen shots I'd sent earlier with the inconsistencies?

Two more events and he packs it in at noon saying he just needs to get some sleep. Sadly, I realize that I cannot take full credit for driving him away; the stubble and the eyes give him away: too much EverQuest last night. (Um, an aside for Steve and Bob: this is EverQuest the game, not EverClear. ...which does produce the same effects).

And lest I forget, I do have to work closely with this gentleman, who is an excellent Delphi programmer (he may be reading this when he recovers); and, 'tis I who does the help files as things progress to that stage. ...and payback from him has proven to be a bear.