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The Butterfly Diaries 12 - Maintenance Maladies

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Any program, like a school child, needs to be corrected multiple times before it finally does what it is supposed to do. And there always remains some room for improvement, even in the simple ‘ hello world ’ program. Say, the font. So, it did not surprise me when our project did not deliver software to the client’s full satisfaction even in February. But the boss lady was honest and persuasive, and she convinced the client that this was the best they could get, and the rest would evolve through the five years of a maintenance and enhancement contract. And surprisingly they signed up for it. And before we knew it, we had moved from development into maintenance. And I was part of a bug fix team led by Mr. Dependable. The other members were Mr. Ambitious and two new freshers – Mr. Noisy and Mr. Quiet. Suddenly I found myself the seniormost developer on the team, lording it over the youngsters. But my good friend Mr. Noisy begged to differ. “ Having been on the project longer does not make...
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The Butterfly Diaries 11 - Production Problems

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It was time for the batting side to bowl. And bouncer after bouncer, the client-side programmers bowled at me, with the number of bugs reminding me of the cockroach-infested kitchen in my poorly lit childhood home. I hung on to the crease, taking on one delivery at a time and finally managed to take the code through the final over. But the match was not yet over. The real test came when everyone’s code was integrated and loaded into the client environment. The moment that happened all kinds of new bugs began to crawl out of the woodwork. It was another round of slogging to get it all to work together outside the simulation environment. Then finally the D-Day came, when the final working application was to be demonstrated to the client by our onsite team. Within ten minutes, we began to get frantic calls. The application had crashed, bringing up what we called the tube light message – a message box stretching from one end of the screen to the other like a tube light, filled with one l...
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The Butterfly Diaries 10 - Coding Conundrums

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Things move slow at times, fast at others. I had expected things to slow down after the release. Instead, things began to move at breakneck speed. A lot of new folks arrived out of nowhere. And before I knew it, I found myself with them in a conference room attending a training. Apparently next week the second phase was to start which required many more people and I was to be one of them. I found myself drowning in a sea of domain and technology knowledge that week. The only driftwood that kept me afloat was the hope of an interesting role. And with the coming of new folks, I had a chance to make friends of my own. What aided me instead of Mr. Zest’s charm rub-off was the one remaining relic of my Chennai days – my smoking habit – by inducting me into the fellowship of the tobacco fumes. The following Monday, one of the old timers greeted me as I entered the office. “ I have some good news for you, ” he said. I hoped it was the one I was waiting for. “ Welcome to the Contracts team. Yo...
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The Butterly Diaries 09 - Testing Troubles

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I was nervous as I entered boss lady’s cubicle. “ So, ” she said. “ You were actually earmarked for a project that is due to be signed soon. ” “ Oh, no, ” I thought. Not one of those again. “ However, our testing lead is keen to retain you. I have spoken to the manager of the new project and made alternate arrangements. You can continue here. ” Now that I was assured of my place in the project, my mind began to drift towards the possibilities the missed project represented – the allure of the road not taken. Initially testing seemed a mundane activity. Just read the business scenario and the test cases and execute them. But over the days, it began to look like a game of cricket. The coders were the batsmen and the testers the bowlers. My job as a tester was to find maximum bugs and send the coder back to the pavilion. To do that I could not just stick to the letter of the test cases. Edge cases provided the swing and spin. Like the bowler reading the mind of the batsman, I needed to re...
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The Butterfly Diaries 08 - Migration Mistakes

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The series of events that had started at a 5-star hotel was coming to an end at a railway station. Six of us stood in front of the train. It had a bit of déjà vu for me and my Malayali friend – once again a bachelor home being split right across the middle. Ready to board the train with me was our fourth roommate. Unlike me, he was excited about the move. Meanwhile another scene was being enacted right next to us. A girl from our batch had come to send off Mr. Zest. She had successfully warded off the attempt to separate her from him during the Pune transfers. But not this time. Her eyes brimming with tears, she flung her arms around him as he got ready to board the train. The three of us stood in a silent huddle. The sixth person on the platform stood apart and watched. I wondered how it would have been to have received such a farewell from that ‘ her ’. My Malayali friend seemed to have read what was going on in my head. “ Dude! ” he said. The other’s eyes sparkled mischievously. It ...
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The Butterfly Diaries 07 - The Ersatz Elevator

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There were elevators and then there were ersatz elevators. One never knew which was which till the door opened. So it was with our attempts to get into projects. One might think I wasted the entire time since the completion of my training in the grip of the vices of the vile village. But in between these bouts of hedonism, I did make earnest attempts to find that elusive elevator to take me on the ride of corporate success. Every third day, I would be at the desk of our business unit human resources lead and every tenth day at the door of the business unit head’s cabin. So much so they fled at the very sight of me. My schoolmate was the first one in our home to get into a project. It was a mainframe one, like that of most of our other Open Systems colleagues in the America business units. It looked as if the training stream mattered little more than one’s initial or birth month in staffing. So much for me being sad about missing the Internet stream. As it happened, the first project op...
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The Butterfly Diaries 06 - The Vile Village

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They say it takes a village to raise a child. And if the village happens to be a vile one, what would be the fate of such children? Or of us – the naïve children entering the corporate world. But first things first: if we did not clear the training, such questions would be immaterial. And if the project failed, I would not be the only one facing the consequences. My schoolmate who had stood by me through it all, the Saint I looked up to, the nice Miss Graceful, a couple of other innocent bystanders and last but not least ‘ she ’ herself – they all would fall with me. No! I couldn’t let that happen. That thought served as a combo dose of Wikoryl and steroids. For the last three days of the project, I worked like I was possessed, not caring for food or sleep, stitching together the modules into a working application. The others toiled valiantly too. Yet we could not finish on time. We finished a day late with a few bugs still unresolved. But we had met the minimum standards required to ...
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