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It Takes 6 Days to Change 1 Line of Code

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Re: It Takes 6 Days to Change 1 Line of Code

#71

Post by cpeterso »

rmc wrote: post #48
fierarul wrote: post #23

Heh, not the same corporate snafu, but my most expensive work was done to change 1 char. Spent about 3 weeks with a new codebase to find that one number had to be increased. Funny thing is, there was a comment there and somebody had increased it before when they had a similar problem.

Time to change the character: 10 seconds Time to find out what charater to change: 3 weeks

I've found that bugs that are very hard to debug often have the smallest fixes. Once you've discovered what tidbit of information you were missing, the fix is trivial. I guess this is a needle/haystack problem.

Re: It Takes 6 Days to Change 1 Line of Code

#72

Post by ajross »

badclient wrote: post #52

This shit happens at my job and leaves me feeling depressed and at times questioning my own skills because I know and my bosses know that on my part, I just had to make a tiny, tiny change. But when you have a dozen such experiences, I feel like something is wrong with me because when the dust settles, this was a one line code change that took me a week to push to production. It also makes my bosses question my estim…

This doesn't sound like a process problem at all, actually. Really it's the reverse: your work environment is a mess, no one has the ability to do their own job except to bug you to do things they need.

And that's a disaster too, but it would be helped by adding process, not hurt.

Also, dude: learn to say no. Learn to prioritize for yourself instead of expecting your slag pile of a management structure to do it for you. i.e. ask: "What things must I get done to make sure I'm successful long term?" (which is entirely different from "What is the highest priority thing I have been asked to do?") and make sure you prioritize your work to get those things done (which is an entirely different thing from "work on those things"). And if your workplace environment really doesn't permit that, move on.

Re: It Takes 6 Days to Change 1 Line of Code

#73

Post by rhizome »

badclient wrote: post #52

This shit happens at my job and leaves me feeling depressed and at times questioning my own skills because I know and my bosses know that on my part, I just had to make a tiny, tiny change. But when you have a dozen such experiences, I feel like something is wrong with me because when the dust settles, this was a one line code change that took me a week to push to production. It also makes my bosses question my estim…

Yak Shaving as an institutional affliction: http://projects.csail.mit.edu/gsb/old-archive/gsb-archive/gs...

Re: It Takes 6 Days to Change 1 Line of Code

#74

Post by VikingCoder »

tripzilch wrote: post #69
VikingCoder wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The code behaves differently after some event happens. Midnight. Y2K. Daylight Savings Time change. Leap Day. Congress changes when Daylight Savings Time happens and one component in the system didn't know about it. Year 2038 problem.

2038 is going to be a fun one, isn't it? :)

Dr. Peter Venkman: This city is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions.

Mayor: What do you mean, "biblical"?

Dr Ray Stantz: What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor, real wrath of God type stuff.

Dr. Peter Venkman: Exactly.

Dr Ray Stantz: Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling!

Dr. Egon Spengler: Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes...

Winston Zeddemore: The dead rising from the grave!

Dr. Peter Venkman: Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!

Mayor: All right, all right! I get the point!

Re: It Takes 6 Days to Change 1 Line of Code

#75

Post by cpeterso »

benjaminwootton wrote: post #42
HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- Code reviews I have to take issue with this one. Code (and Requirements, and Design) reviews, when done properly probably have the greatest impact in improving product quality. No, I don't have time to look up the SEI research on the subject, but it has been consistently shown to be true. Part of the problem I had with the article was that Shirley was rejecting code for non-specific reasons. You can't say "it's not…

I like code reviews for higher level concerns - new class hierarchies, big pieces of refactoring, new areas of functionality etc. However, I don't see as much value in reviewing low level changes such as one liners or odd bug fixes. Making code reviews mandatory is too much overhead and too inflexible for me.

Mozilla and Google require code reviews of all code changes.

Here are some notes about Firefox's code review process:

https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Code_Review

https://wiki.mozilla.org/User:GavinSharp/Code_Review

Re: It Takes 6 Days to Change 1 Line of Code

#76

Post by hcarvalhoalves »

The real WTF is that at the end, all it takes is the president giving a direct order to put the code in production immediately. That is, all the policies and processes just add noise to the interface between strategic decisions and operational tasks. That's how big companies fail.

Re: It Takes 6 Days to Change 1 Line of Code

#77

Post by vorg »

eridius wrote: post #36
VikingCoder wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you miss this part: > It [sic] we don't do this right away, we'll have to have a layoff. As a company, it's great to have a process for incremental changes, but you also need to have a process for critical hot-fixes. You're a phone company, and adding a new feature should take months. I get that. You're a phone company, and because of an unforeseen Cinderella problem, 10% of your customers can't make phone calls.…

What's a Cinderella problem? I'm assuming it's a reference to the midnight deadline.

ICL George let operators flick a switch to make the current day have 60 hours until the switch was flicked back.

Re: It Takes 6 Days to Change 1 Line of Code

#78

Post by sax »

badclient wrote: post #52

This shit happens at my job and leaves me feeling depressed and at times questioning my own skills because I know and my bosses know that on my part, I just had to make a tiny, tiny change. But when you have a dozen such experiences, I feel like something is wrong with me because when the dust settles, this was a one line code change that took me a week to push to production. It also makes my bosses question my estim…

Just curious how many other folks see similar patterns of interruption? (i do)

Re: It Takes 6 Days to Change 1 Line of Code

#79

Post by gte910h »

boyter wrote: post #51

I just went through the same thing. Except I was smart (or so I thought) and had what I needed changed in a config file. PHB decided that it still counted as a "code" change because someone needed to log onto the box and change the config. Literally it was removing 3 characters from it. The only reason I even had it in the config was to avoid it being a code change to begin with. I argued back that in the time I woul…

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