Some days I hate programming

[thecharmed01]

Fair call!
Thankfully I don't think it's disrupting my creative flow, I was only thinking about it again when this thread came up.

I'm also not doing anywhere near as much coding nowadays and a lot more Photography and people like that are what puts me off the industry.

I have a Wedding to shoot on Saturday, and am currently on call for a NB shoot whatever day they release Mum & Bub from the hospital as he was a wee premmie. Hopefully this afternoon or tomorrow morning.
I can't wait! I just love new babies and he is the tiniest wee thing!
Friday I'm doing a creative shoot involving an old school gold chrome low rider bike, a hot tattooed burlesque performer with very few clothes on and the beach. So hoping for some nice cloudy weather so we get some sky with as much attitude as she does.

My photography clients make coding worthwhile. Cause coding bought pretty much all my camera gear.

[wharekura]

my wife is an ex-pro photographer and she gave that up (to be in accounts of all things!) because she didnt like being restricted to be doing things like wedding shots.

[avgas]

Kinda took me by surprise too... especially when the CEO sits you down and asks you what you do under the guise of, "well you're only putting a box on a web page.".

heh, I took the easy route and asked someone. The answer: X for a web page, X for an interactive web page and X for a "content managed" web page... pretty much bang on too when evened out over a project.

Praps the original quote was spot on and the customer indulged in a little scope creep, I know that happens from time to time too.

Yes and No.
Consider yourself lucky that you call your own shots. I just did a job recently for a SCADA client. Sales guy quoted 40 hours. I would have estimated at 60 hours for the stuff that was possibly (about 1/3 of the scope) and 2/3rds impossible unless I built a parallel program from scratch to run independent from the SCADA (1000's of hours).
Did everything I could as close to what scope said - with some variations that I explained to the customer on site. Took 120 hours.
It was all completely automated so they saw NOTHING on the screen - but would receive a print out whenever 1 of the 50 alarms occurred a (50 x 30 lines of pure code for each.....each needed to be tested.......not to mention the first 30 hours it took for the first one to even work completely in the background before the rest would be possible.) Some hardware was installed on site and took about a day to configure operation. But now its in a box it seems to have disappeared from sight and once again ignored.
Then there was some automation code to make everything run fluently in the background and generate some weekly reports. (Approx another 2-3000 lines).
So long story short - 120 hours clocked up.

They don't want to pay. They say the scope is not complete. I explain that the scope was completed as close to what was possible on their system.
We don't charge the 120 hours, we charge 40 + hardware.

They compromise and say 1/3 work was done, so they pay 1/3 of bill and quote figure 1/3 of total bill. Provided I pull magic dust out of my arse and fix the other 2/3rds.
Their figure is still wrong as 1/4 of original quote was hardware........which they have in their hot little hands. So realistically they should be paying almost half the bill if 1/3 of the engineering worked and 100% of the hardware works.

Fucking joke. Bill for the 40hours + hardware is now being pushed to Baycorp. Let the legals battle it out.

I tell my boss 1 simple message.
"If I am to do any work for them in future. I will do it on site - with them watching over me so they know EXACTLY how many hours I am spending on their work, and they pay me for EVERY HOUR".
I am not going back to that site on any other terms.

[wharekura]

What - you dont have magic dust ready to deploy from one's rectum at a moments notice? I go one better and have a crystal ball so I can tell the customers exactly how much something is going to cost before I look at the job. BUT WAIT THERES MORE - I somehow am able to reduce the quote by fractions and provide more features. Mate - I'm marvelous.

[mashman]

Yes and No.
Consider yourself lucky that you call your own shots. I just did a job recently for a SCADA client. Sales guy quoted 40 hours.

...SNIP...

I tell my boss 1 simple message.
"If I am to do any work for them in future. I will do it on site - with them watching over me so they know EXACTLY how many hours I am spending on their work, and they pay me for EVERY HOUR".
I am not going back to that site on any other terms.

I don't call my own shots, I very much do as I'm told... but I've been around long enough to expect shit documentation, or at least incomplete documentation.

Thought the SNIP spot was apt... PM's, BA's, Sales guys, Analysts etc... imho none of them should be allowed to do those jobs, on a development project, until they have 10 years coding behind them.

... I've mentioned that to a few before. If they think it's so bloody easy, let them sit by me for a week. The black art of the black box where people say it's only a text box and a button always makes has me laughing. Funny really, just shows how little these people understand how their own business works.

[avgas]

What - you dont have magic dust ready to deploy from one's rectum at a moments notice? I go one better and have a crystal ball so I can tell the customers exactly how much something is going to cost before I look at the job. BUT WAIT THERES MORE - I somehow am able to reduce the quote by fractions and provide more features. Mate - I'm marvelous.

Mate you are an array of wonder

[wharekura]

if u have not been following, i do c#, hence we do lists now and not those clumsy arrays.

[mashman]

if u have not been following, i do c#, hence we do lists now and not those clumsy arrays.

it's all arrays of 1's and 0's isn't it? even a string is a convenient 20 bytes of an array

[jrandom]

it's all arrays of 1's and 0's isn't it?

No, a list doesn't have to be contiguous in memory.

[mashman]

No, a list doesn't have to be contiguous in memory.

I didn't say it was. I fully understand that not all blocks of memory are full due to memory compaction. Not much of a worry these days though eh.

[wharekura]

im glad im not team leading u fellas, it will make me drink my unfinished lemoncello.
1. u underestimate your jobs
2. ur customer service is obviously crap
3. this leads to ur communication skills are as subtle as Mana Partly's manifesto
4. and expect customers to pay outrageous amounts of dollars on your poorly made products

i am thinking a bit of reprogramming of your personalities are in order and then maybe some ordered logic might slip in, if we are lucky.


(im being sarcastic if anyone took the above the wrong way)

[DangerMice]

^^ heh heh nice

[mashman]

im glad im not team leading u fellas, it will make me drink my unfinished lemoncello.
1. u underestimate your jobs
2. ur customer service is obviously crap
3. this leads to ur communication skills are as subtle as Mana Partly's manifesto
4. and expect customers to pay outrageous amounts of dollars on your poorly made products

i am thinking a bit of reprogramming of your personalities are in order and then maybe some ordered logic might slip in, if we are lucky.


(im being sarcastic if anyone took the above the wrong way)

The customers/clients have made us this way.

[thecharmed01]

What - you dont have magic dust ready to deploy from one's rectum at a moments notice? I go one better and have a crystal ball so I can tell the customers exactly how much something is going to cost before I look at the job. BUT WAIT THERES MORE - I somehow am able to reduce the quote by fractions and provide more features. Mate - I'm marvelous.

Can you come work with my clients? LOL

[DangerMice]

I had one of those days today where you're completely in the zone and cranking code out at a huge rate. Before I knew it was 4:30 and time to go home (I start early). Felt like I'd been there for half an hour so I took the long way home as a reward.