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Monday, July 21st, 2008 10:22 am
it's totally a monday
I knew it was a Monday when I woke up, sure. But do Mondays have to be so...so Mondayish? I mean, it's a cliche--everything is not really supposed to go wrong on Monday! And why my life thinks it's supposed to is a mystery I am sure I will never solve.
And if this program doesn't stop screwing around I will not snap, per se, but I will finally admit I snapped a long, long time ago and stop trying to control homicidal impulses, because really. Sure, jail time, but on the other hand--okay, I don't have another hand for this one.
What I have learned:
1.) Programmers should not be allowed near programs without adequate supervision. Before you look at me like I'm nuts (even though, yeah, there is that), we have yet another improvement to the system that miraculously makes an already confusing method of inquiry even more confusing by changing a nice single page into a series of a million much shorter pages. I wish I could really get across the full extent of the nightmare that has become my life, but imagine trying to read a fic with six words per page, but pretend the word is a case number and you are supposed to sort all the cases by date, but you can't because the cases are now all on different pages and there is no way to sort them. And there are different types of words, or cases, rather, and you just stare at it and then ask your boss for the developer's name and ten minutes in the break room no questions asked.
Why did they think this was a good idea?
2.) I'm freaking serious about the break room. I only need five and a blue pen.
3.) I'd settle for two minutes and anthrax.
4.) This problem is exacerbated by the fact I don't think any of the programmers have any idea of what they are actually writing. Bear with me. They are each given a small module of a much, much, much larger program, and I get the distinct impression they aren't really aware that there is a larger program. They also really do not understand who they are writing for. I used to hear the arguments they'd make against stuff we wanted the program to do that were kind of insane. I mean, insane.
5.) Only one of five can document.
6.) Of those one in five, none of them speak English as a first language (or second, for that matter), so there's a lot of interpretation between technical speak and layman English with a lot of inquiries into if they speak American English or British English, because wow, can that go tragic places fast. It's not even the language barrier--a huge amount of it is the technical language barrier--I don't think many of them really absorbed How To Talk to the Layman About Hideously Complicated Changes That Make No Sense.
7.) This design is still hideous. Inline frames do not make things better.
8.) One minute and ebola. Just one.
*sighs*
I'm hunting up every h/c dS fic I have read, create a list, and re-read it all when I get home. Maybe SGA too. Something with Rodney and a crushed hand, maybe.
And if this program doesn't stop screwing around I will not snap, per se, but I will finally admit I snapped a long, long time ago and stop trying to control homicidal impulses, because really. Sure, jail time, but on the other hand--okay, I don't have another hand for this one.
What I have learned:
1.) Programmers should not be allowed near programs without adequate supervision. Before you look at me like I'm nuts (even though, yeah, there is that), we have yet another improvement to the system that miraculously makes an already confusing method of inquiry even more confusing by changing a nice single page into a series of a million much shorter pages. I wish I could really get across the full extent of the nightmare that has become my life, but imagine trying to read a fic with six words per page, but pretend the word is a case number and you are supposed to sort all the cases by date, but you can't because the cases are now all on different pages and there is no way to sort them. And there are different types of words, or cases, rather, and you just stare at it and then ask your boss for the developer's name and ten minutes in the break room no questions asked.
Why did they think this was a good idea?
2.) I'm freaking serious about the break room. I only need five and a blue pen.
3.) I'd settle for two minutes and anthrax.
4.) This problem is exacerbated by the fact I don't think any of the programmers have any idea of what they are actually writing. Bear with me. They are each given a small module of a much, much, much larger program, and I get the distinct impression they aren't really aware that there is a larger program. They also really do not understand who they are writing for. I used to hear the arguments they'd make against stuff we wanted the program to do that were kind of insane. I mean, insane.
5.) Only one of five can document.
6.) Of those one in five, none of them speak English as a first language (or second, for that matter), so there's a lot of interpretation between technical speak and layman English with a lot of inquiries into if they speak American English or British English, because wow, can that go tragic places fast. It's not even the language barrier--a huge amount of it is the technical language barrier--I don't think many of them really absorbed How To Talk to the Layman About Hideously Complicated Changes That Make No Sense.
7.) This design is still hideous. Inline frames do not make things better.
8.) One minute and ebola. Just one.
*sighs*
I'm hunting up every h/c dS fic I have read, create a list, and re-read it all when I get home. Maybe SGA too. Something with Rodney and a crushed hand, maybe.
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Geek-to-English Translation
From:Every programmer in the English-speaking world, EVERY single one, should have to take at least one class on Geek-to-English Translation. I am both a programmer and a trained technical writer (actually took university classes for exactly that), and the skill that got me my very first post-university job - and made the developers love me - was my ability to translate Geekspeak into layman's English (so they didn't have to do it).
Also? Programmers, myself included, have a tendency - a very strong tendency - to implement things because they can. This feature would be so cool! What? No, I don't know if the users need it, but it would be so cool! I'ma implement it and they'll all just love it. Look! It knocks out seven hundred lines of code in this module and I only have to add three hundred lines of code to this module! Documentation? Ummm... we don't have the budget or the schedule for documentation. This is easy to use, right? I mean, it makes sense to me...
We used to call it "Oooh, Shiny! Syndrome". =)
On the other hand, one of my university professors (in the Computer Science department) had a degree in English (or perhaps Journalism?), and would bounce projects if there were typos or grammatical errors in one's comments. For that matter, he would bounce projects if the comments did not meet his very specific, very detailed commenting guidelines. As students, we hated that; as professionals in the workplace, we sure as hell appreciate it, now.
People who haven't been taught the pitfalls of documentation don't even think about things like avoiding jargon and slang, spelling out TLAs (three-letter acronyms) or proof-reading for typos and missing/misused words. Every programmer who works with English-speaking users needs a Geek-to-English translator.
And every "enhancement" needs a kill switch. ;)
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Re: Geek-to-English Translation
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Re: Geek-to-English Translation
From:This needs to be an icon. Or a LOLcat.
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Re: Geek-to-English Translation
From:Yes! Oh my God, yes. It makes sense to them, and they don't have the words to explain it to someone who doesn't already understand it.
Or, sometimes, they just can't comprehend that what they're saying doesn't answer your question.
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Re: Geek-to-English Translation
From:Though more often than not there's usually a step missing, something in the fundamental understanding that MAKES THE PARAGRAPH MAKE NO SENSE.
Sadly I often have to quiz them on how their stuff works so I can figure out basic grammar fixes. It's amazing how an If/Then addition can change things.
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Re: Geek-to-English Translation
From:And one would think that, being programmers, they would understand the value of if-then statements!
My ex-husband is a developer, one of the ones for whom "all this stuff" makes sense in his head, so he forgets that others might not just intrinsically "get it". He's told me on many an occasion that really, that's what happens. Developers don't realize something needs to be explained to the users, or documented for others, because to them, it just makes sense, it's obvious, and - wait, you mean everyone doesn't know this / understand this / grok this at a cellular level?
That's why we (as it seems you're a tech writer, too) do what we do. =)
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Re: Geek-to-English Translation
From:We received an email from IS about a small configuration change to one of the mainframe programs. It would require everyone to take five minutes to...
I still have no idea.
- It had an explanatory paragraph upfront, written in straightforward and grammatically correct English.
- It included an exact, step by step, bullet pointed list of instructions.
- I HAD NO IDEA WHAT IT SAID.
I kept reading it over and over again. I was being silly, I thought; my brain must have shut down that day or something.
I took it to my supervisor. He read it. He failed to understand it.
I took it to three of my direct peers. They read it. They had no idea what it said either. All of them looked as puzzled as I as to why they didn't understand it.
I eventually gave up, and logged an issue with IS about it. Then I attempted to the best of my ability to follow the step by step instructions, with no idea 1) what I was trying to accomplish, and 2) how I would know whether or not it worked. Then I went on with my life.
(Sure enough, it eventually turned out that I had screwed it up. But so did everyone else, so I don't feel that bad about it.)
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