Living in Holland
I've been living in The Netherlands since '98 - let me try to 'splain some things to you...
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Ellipses…
Last year was the year to cut back on commas. This year, ellipses…
See what I mean?
I blame my poor grammar on living abroad for 11+ years - use it or lose it. I’ve also noticed my speech as become more lazy, less articulated, almost texan. Then again, don’t all Americans sound like either George Bush or Woody Allen?
Is it too late to make a resolution?
Saturday, January 16, 2010
When to walk away…
I develop web sites, usually large ones for companies who need a way to manage content themselves. Highly customizable, fast online, flexible and more secure than many other systems out there. Not turnkey, but bespoke. Still - when you realize that no matter how fast or flexible you are, that the results may very likely be crap—do you walk away?
It’s 1999. One of the big first projects in my new country was with a very heavy-duty jsp-servlet cms. Very powerful for drilling down through data—need to know the product number for a screw on the side of a widget that bolts to the back of the framistat? This system was perfect. It was powerful, valuable and very popular in big business - and for us, it was free. We were given it in exchange for publicity - it was the “chosen” system.
It was also the wrong system for our needs. We needed a ton of personalized content on the first page load, pulling data across all the columns at once - something this system was rubbish doing. Pinpoint it did well, big scoops - it sucked. Also while under development, the project manager kept coming up with great new “blue-sky” ideas, and the cms’s lead tech salesperson kept saying “Easy, we’ll add another column to the database…” As the Irish might put it - the site was shite. We cached and did what we could but in the 2 weeks we had to spec and 3 weeks we had to code, with all the new features and added content streams, it was miserable. I kept the UI down to 35K, but a page load could take up to a MINUTE when there were significant numbers visiting. Not their worry - the project manager and the cms’s salesguy took their bows; we on the backend of the project were left with the blame.
You learn from these events. There’s a great story referring to events like this at Wikipedia, under SCRUM development - and the story is called “The Pig and the Chicken”:
A pig and a chicken are walking down a road. The chicken looks at the pig and says, “Hey, why don’t we open a restaurant?” The pig looks back at the chicken and says, “Good idea, what do you want to call it?” The chicken thinks about it and says, “Why don’t we call it ‘Ham and Eggs’?” “I don’t think so,” says the pig, “I’d be committed, but you’d only be involved.”
Basically - it’s always about ownership and process. If you’re involved in developing something, there’ll be people who will be more or less involved, and the trick is getting the balance right so that those who can effect change for the good have the power to do so. Read the article - it’ll be clearer and sound less like bitter vetch.
But I digress…
This week I was haunted by these same ghosts in a new project, this time for my own, new company. The original specs were possible, but suddenly there was an expansion of options (as there always will be) and some of them considerably more than just tweaks. Granted, they gave me another 2 weeks past the original deadline, but that timeframe was again for building a corporate site, not remaking Amazon.com.
Initially I thought we could scale it up and start small, but there was a technical person in their organization - one who kept upping the stakes and wouldn’t get the blame - who repeatedly said “…it’s just another column in the database”. Brrr - I can feel that ghosts’ icy hand on my shoulder now… So it’s perhaps smartest to walk away.
Yes, it’s work - and I could always use the work - but I swore that I’d never again build something I would be ashamed of or didn’t believe in. And that’s pride - on of the 7 Deadlies. The turn around time is insane; there’s no way anyone would be able to build a working, reliable system in that short a period of time…is this Sloth on my part? Most of all, the issue is of scope and stakeholders - this is geometrically growing site couldn’t be documented in this short amount of time, much less built - but the dictum is to “just do it” (No - it’s not them).
Am I being arrogant? Cowardly? Blatantly stupid? I mean, it’s money! (...say the little voices…) But is it really a stack of sins to do only what you believe in? If the process isn’t clear and you’re chasing a wish list, and you know the client would never be happy, would you do it? Should I lie because someone wants me to?
I feel it’s about reputation and promise, and I never want to be in the position of telling a client “Yes” knowing damn well that the answer is anything but. As the pig, I can’t accept the lie - it’s my bacon.
Looks like life’s sending me another lesson.
Why can’t life just once send a blonde instead?
Sunday, November 09, 2008
So Obama won…
...so what the hell do I write about now?
Hmm..
Thursday, November 06, 2008
Because Freedom Means Cookies…
I promised I’d bake if Obama won, so it’s biscotti with white and dark chocolate drops, “pecan pie” muffin bites and chocolate chip cookies, all from scratch.
Of course Freedom means Cookies - You don’t get chocolate chip cookies in Communist countries. You get borscht! 
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Change is Ours
Well done, America. Well done.
The fight for Change has just begun, but for tonight…enjoy.
