Gordon Down Under

2012 approaches …

gjmilne — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 09:32:29 +0000

2012 is only a few days away. Perhaps this year I can do something useful with this blog. Perhaps a bunch of coding ideas in different languages. Or just something decent written once a month,

So, promise to self. One decent, Steve Yegge type post every month.

I am a dullard with nothing to say

gjmilne — Wed, 26 Oct 2011 08:35:37 +0000

As you can see I am not having a great day. I wonder what I am doing with my life. Everything seems to have so little importance.

Lean attitude?

gjmilne — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 03:12:52 +0000

In answer to my question:

What would you do if you find a bug in another developer’s code, something you could fix right away? Raise a bug report, or dive in and fix it then and there?

The answer that came right back at me was:

Always raise a bug report.

And we are looking to move to lean development with an attitude like that. I just don’t think that is the can do attitude I expect of people that work in a lean environment. I expected to hear ”fix it now” but what I can expect of a company that has taken ages to evolve its processes?

No much I guess.

I wonder what we could do if we started again, from scratch, with people that had never worked here. What kind of culture would we get? I guess it would all come down to the kind of leadership the company gets. A cautious leader gives you cautious decisions; a less cautious leader might give you some risky decisions but without risk how can you win bigger than you are today?

We are cautious because of experience, and we don’t like egg on our face. Regression testing isn’t automated so it is hard to prove that a quick fix is correct.; you don’t find out until much, much later that the fix didn’t work. So the price you pay for trying to fix it now has always been way too high.

We need to fix that.

I am a geek because…

gjmilne — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 08:21:50 +0000

I am a geek because I think the whole point of computers and electronics is to enable me to switch LEDs on or off by writing programs. When the LED turns on and off the way I expect a warm satisfaction runs through me.

Part of 30-days-of-geek

Insanity

gjmilne — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 04:08:39 +0000

Well Lotto has now reached $25M (that’s NZ dollars) so now is the time to invest in my future. Given past experiences, this will not be a wise investment!

Excepted?

gjmilne — Sat, 26 Mar 2011 04:00:10 +0000

In New Zealand, the sound of an ‘a’ and and ‘e’ are very similar, so I guess this would sound correct. Still, I am amazed that a national chain supermarket would ever manage to pin such a laminated note to every one of its tills. It doesn’t say much for the manager of this store, does it?

An Interesting Discipline

gjmilne — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 08:27:47 +0000

Well, I am pretty sure that this will be a fun exercise if I can keep up the impetus.

Tiles

gjmilne — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 00:12:06 +0000

Remember that building I talked about? Well, I have to work in it now due to the earthquake of the 22nd Feb.

Thankfully, my team is going into an area with a ceiling. It’s painted white and the place is bright. It’s a shame about the noisy 19-inch rack at one end of the work area but at least it is bright and workable (for me). This building has had a bit of an upgrade with fancy toilets and showers. That is coming to my building soon after they fix up the latest issue with ceiling tiles falling down in a quake.

BTW, what do you think of this as a work environment?

Timecop

gjmilne — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 13:32:17 +0000

I really like this film. I saw a clip on You-Tube just now and it reminded me that I hire it at least twice a year. Clearly I need to buy myself a copy to cut down on those hiring fees.

Type analysis

gjmilne — Mon, 08 Nov 2010 09:07:32 +0000

So, this time I am a INTJ.

No change since I last took that test.