Amiga.org
Coffee House => Coffee House Boards => CH / General => Topic started by: Oliver on September 21, 2007, 07:48:29 AM
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Recently I've found some uncomfortable Amiga Inc. like moments in my life...
I've been working for a communications technology company for about the past 10 months, in my first job after graduating from a bachelor of electronic engineering.
My job had just a few mundane tasks to start with, to learn the company's software, and procedures, etc, as well as fixing some problems which my predecessor left with unfinished designs. After a few weeks, I was given a solo project; a new product which the company was to release in the near future.
The concepts of the project seemed easy enough, though a fair bit larger in scale than what I had done before. Essentially, the product is to interface my company's communication equipment, with that of other companies', using different protocols.
The technical brief came from a senior supervisor, who has a lot of experience with various types of communications equipment. It all seemed fine at first, but the more I got into the details, the more I realised that the original concept wouldn't be able to work as first conceived.
The guts of the interface is assembly written decoding in a microprocessor. I was originally instructed to 'just write it in spaghetti code, and get it working as quickly as possible'.
Ok, I got the first concept in code, then found that the concept was wrong. I changed the code to make one part work, then found other sections of the design concept were wrong. Changed that too. Got the pieces working section by section, but my code was getting more and more spaghetti like, and I was getting more and more pressure to just finish it and get it out the door.
Next, in testing, it is decided that more features are needed, and existing features to be altered. This is very messy, and slow, when the code is not modular. Pretty much my code, my fault situation, and I have to wear it. When I started the project, I didn't really have the programming skills to write it in a highly modular, adaptable form.
All this I don't mind too much, but I got a bit bloody minded and decided to learn some more appropriate programming methods, and re-structure the whole project. It's taken me some time, but I'm nearly done with the core functions of the code. I had already guessed that there would be more and more requests for changes/additions as time went by, and I was damned if I would stick to the spaghetti method.
Unfortunately, the original time estimates for the project were out by a big margin, and the product has already been advertised, and orders taken for my unfinished product. I feel so dirty, and almost ready to offer some complimentary t-shirts.
Then, yesterday I was shopping for a new ADSL 802.11n VoIP router. I was reading about products conforming to 'pre-n', then found out the term doesn't really have any meaning, and does not indicate a capacity to comply with the standard. Other companies report to be standards compliant, but from my brief reading, it seems the standard hasn't even been finalised yet. Then I found Thomson's website promoting a 802.11n 'ready' TG797g router, which turns out to not be available at all, and probably not finished.
While I read about these products, and marketing acts of moral acrobatics, I was thinking, 'that's dirty, like something Amiga Inc. might do'... Then I thought of myself. Bugger. Oh well. Back to work...
Oli
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So....you didn't get paid, did you? =)
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odin wrote:
So....you didn't get paid, did you? =)
He took a pre-order on the promise of a money-off voucher when it was finished... ;-)
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moto
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odin wrote:
So....you didn't get paid, did you? =)
Well, I get something, though my wife sure doesn't consider it to be due payment. Still, it was a job when I really needed a job. Actually, the job is not too bad, and I'm learning a lot.