[TRENCHES] Tuesday, April 29, 2014 - Easy Does It
LegionPerseus VeilRegistered User, Moderator, Penny Arcade Staff, Vanilla Staff vanilla
Easy Does It
http://trenchescomic.com/comic/post/easy-does-it
The Awesome Highly Professional Methodology
AnonymousBack when there was a shortage of programmers, I chose for my next contracting assignment a firm that advertised its rigorous, highly professional methodology that enabled rapid development with high reliability due to its great system. I really wanted to learn a better way of doing things, and was willing to learn from anybody.
First day there: No hint about a methodology. Indeed, my workstation didn’t have the tools to build the software I was ostensibly working on.
Next day: Same. I asked about the methodology and tools, and was assured it would all come through after a small team reorganization.
Months later: Still no methodology. All we had was a list of features to implement, given to us by a couple of analysts who handle all interactions with the clients. The “testing methodology” consisted of a short Word document with a table of 10 things that an analyst wanted tested, in no particular order.
I figured, what the heck, we had to start testing so I suggested to the team lead that we needed a more detailed test plan. He said, OK, write it. I thought WTF? But OK, this was a chance to grow and learn.
First thing, since a table in a word document wasn’t going to be an efficient way to list dozens or hundreds of things to do, I moved the table of things to test to a real spreadsheet and systematically added stuff to test, columns for conditions precedent and all that good stuff.
I guess that offended the kid who’d written the document because she complained to the lead and he told me I was wasting my time.
I figured when we were assigned a few testers I’d let them decide, but as it turned out, it really was wasted time because they never got around to assigning testers - just one guy who really resented having to sit down and go through functions.
They burned through the budget building the thing without anything left over for serious testing (which suggests something about the Methodology) but I guess the unit testing was enough to persuade the client to accept delivery. Hey, maybe THAT’s the Methodology!
At the Delivery Day Dinner, the client (who I’d never met) reacted to meeting me with, “Oh, you’re the guy who’s responsible for this being late!” which I took as a clue. Needless to say, this barely tested product seems to have vanished from sight but not before I disappeared from that contracting firm.
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She's probably doing it for money.
Yeah, but she'd probably make more setting up Mallblade as a good competitor for Rhymeblade, especially considering that in this canon Mallblade has somehow managed to rise to a high enough level to worry the creator of an MMO set in this universe's Lord of the Rings/Game of Thrones world.
Aegeri is wondering why Gwen is still sticking with the Rhymeblade team, because it seems if she wants control, she has it with her Mallblade project; if she wants money, she can likely get it from Mallblade (if she isn't already); if she wants competition in order to keep herself busy and innovating, sticking with Mallblade would likely do that better than just using it to fight Rhymeblade briefly.
As a member of the Rhymeblade team, she has access to all their documentation and possibly code, and more importantly, all the ideas they come up with. If Rhymeblade absolutely bungles the decision process and chooses poorly on selecting new ideas, Mallblade will attract dissatisfied players, and she can go with the better ideas for her own game. The higher up on the team she is, the more access and less scrutiny she has, as well. And more job security as well.
She joined the Rhymeblade team to copy it; she's going to stay to keep copying any changes they make.
Also, I fully expect Marley to be working for her, but not actually realizing he's not at the other office.
This.
Besides, copying Rhymeblade's code directly is pretty much begging to get shut down. And to face legal action. Especially as she's not running her own business; odds are she doesn't have the finances, the contacts, or the experience to successfully fight such action.
It could theoretically be possible for her to take what she has now (assuming it was a direct copy of Rhymeblade's mobile game code) and edit it from there on in, but to rip off Rhymeblade's code directly, multiple times, over a prolonged period? Q's already proven to be willing to give people enough rope to hang themselves (Canary Trapping the QA team back for Lawstar, not that she knows about that).
I thought she'd either be using Mallblade to poke Q and Co. into action (she has succeeded) or would approach Q with it and propose it be added in as a side-game. But it looks like she's having a team of unpaid college students continue to develop it..
Perhaps you haven't been paying attention, but none of the characters in this comic are model citizens.