Thursday, April 19, 2007

A Matter Of Time - Guesswork, Points And Yesterday's Weather

Ed carefully tiptoes towards Karl's desk. "Hey Karl", he cheerily announces: "I still need this time estimation for the Globster project!".

"Yea, right... That was the Irish Coffee feature for their coffee machines at the management offices, wasn't it? I just have to read some specs to figure out what I have to do - give me two days."

Ed hesitates for a second: "So, you tell me you need two days to give me an estimation?"

"Yeah, so?" Karl shoots Ed an inquiring look. He really hates time estimations. They always seem to come back at you. Mostly when you want to leave work in the evening. Looking straight into Ed's face Karl knows what's expected of him: "Ok, let's just say it takes 5 days".

Leaving Karl's desk Ed heads straight for the coffee machine. What on earth is the developer's problem with time estimations? Getting the coffee machine to deliver Irish Coffee can't be that hard, after all... and it would be a nice addition for their own machine. Somebody has to do the testing.

"Hey Ed, good that I meet you. I've got Mr. Globster on hold, how long will the changes for the project take?" - "Oh, hey Dave, Karl said it's about 5 days..." - "Thanks, Ed!"

"Mr. Globster? Yes, the new software will be ready at Friday, no problem. A manager password and taxi service will be included."

Sunday, April 8, 2007

Information Overflow & Colinux WLAN Networking

In case you didn't notice: I've been away from my keyboard for two weeks. My wife and me had a beautiful vacation in Jamaica where I learned that reading and writing English doesn't help a lot to understand people actually talking. Ya Man!