Rant: Unreasonable Projects
I don't mind working on projects, but there is a limit to my patience concerning unnecessary work and annoyances.
So what's this about? Well without disclosing anything, let's just say that I'm made to partake in projects that get on my nerves. Firstly, as probably most of you guessed by my bio, I'm more of a config guy, not a software guy. I don't mind writing code here and there, but it's all we do. It's flowing out of my ears at this point. This entire site was a little passion project and that's why I enjoyed writing and maintaining it, however recently, I've been writing nothing else than HTML, CSS and PHP. And god, PHP.
It's no understatement that PHP can be a real pain in the rear, especially as your scope increases. Someone familiar with it might get by just fine, but as a beginner, there are deficits that need to be filled on the fly. This isn't helped by the measly time window we get to do said work. Could you research, learn and understand a specific new system and write code for it in 30 hours...not to mention in a loud working environment? If yes, then I envy you, however that sadly doesn't apply to most people. With how things are, most project groups we compete with can hardly cobble together a foundation to build on and we're only a little bit better off.
“Compete” itself is a funny word to use here, because only about two groups really take this petty competition seriously. Most people don't really want to compete. They want to be mostly put under 1st place. Why? Well, after breaking your skull open over an annoying project for weeks, would you like to be told “Great, now you can maintain this! wink wink”, heck no. Even if people insist that it won't happen, I'm not as naive as to think that one day I won't get the dreaded call of “Hey, it's broken, you made it, come fix pls”. So, no thank you. You've got your funny little documentation, so you can kindly fuck off.
Documentation, right. That's also a fun topic. At first we had to write daily protocols on our activities, how we feel and what we plan to do. This was followed by being made to make a G-Site page for every project, a verbal transcript of our 'important conversations' and an MS planner board. Before I'm misunderstood, yes, this is fine (except for the G-Site), but only if you are working on a moderately scoped project. But for small projects, for example baking a potato, do you want to go through this documentation nightmare? What the fuck do you even need a planner board for with elaborate tabs like “sprint backlog, product backlog, sprint, doing, testing, done” when all you can write is two sticky notes on how to preheat an oven? Not to mention being told to move these notes between tabs because of “agile project management”. Why? MS already has a neat little feature, called marking a task as done. It just confuses me to use software the way it is not intended even more!
“B-But mah a g i l e project management!“, yeah no. This entire notion of changing scopes and 'modern' project management is something I find rarely implemented well or in a sane manner. People want deadlines. They want a detailed scope with constraints and a well specified end result. There are only a handful of cases I saw 'agile' implemented and it was always a fucking mess (Yes, there are exceptions, I know). Well, the implemented part was almost always just the changing scope, so congratulations to the poor devs on getting grey hairs in their 20s.
Also, Google Site dilemma. Oh boy, I just love being told how my lovely software projects will be important in my future non-software career. What do I mean by this? Basically, we need to create a G-Site for past and present projects, giving a rundown on them like some kind of science fare. So in the end I do the same documentation twice. For who ever wants to do this to boost their future resume, go ahead, I don't care. When it becomes mandatory however, that's when I care. I will never need these, so for all intents and purposes I'm just writing a technical diary into the ether like some quirky schizophrenic (The irony isn't lost on me, don't worry). I get the idea, but for Omnissiah's sake, make it optional.
So to close off, I'm simply exhausted and am fed up with coding, and being made to document it in the most unnecessary way possible. I wish we would stop doing these projects, but what can you do? Venting is therapeutic and so is this blog of mine. - Yes, I revised this post. I found some of my earlier points too unreasonable and narrow-minded. This is a rant, so I understand past-nocx's frustration, but I felt he was a bit too unhinged. Anyyyyyyyway, the main point still stands. Until next time.