Finally Figured Out Nasty TBB/Uninitialized/Locking Bug
Today my co-worker and I finally figured out the last, nasty bug in the Greek Engine that I've been working on for quite a while, and it's brought to a close a stage in my life that brings with it a lot more questions than answers. I've been working on this project for about six months, and while that's not very long for a project of this type, it's a long time to be getting a lot of grief from upper management about the time this project is taking, and the fact that it's not already in production.
I'm no idiot, I know that the finance industry is focused on What have you done for me today?, but when I'm asked to build something like this Greek Engine, and it's clear that it's not a four week project, then it's tough to sit here and take the accusations of incompetence and neglect when what I'm building is for the benefit of the name callers. I'm thrown back to the Little Red Hen: Who will help me back the bread?
In the end, it doesn't really matter because I did this for me, and not for them. I choose to not deliver crap, and they are the hapless beneficiaries of my morality. It's not something I'm necessarily proud of, but it's what I've come to see as the way things often are. I make a choice, and for the most part, there are detractors, and many of those detractors are in fact beneficiaries of my work. I do the work under their critical and harassing eye, word, and act, and in the end, they are the ultimate winners in this game.
Which, of course, isn't true at all, is it? They don't really win, because they don't have the ability to do what I've done, and they probably don't even have the ability to maintain the work I've started. But they benefit because they get to use the software I've written, and as long as I'm willing to allow them to play their sad, little role, they believe themselves to be my master.
But they aren't.
And it's not even close.
But today I've finished the last major problem on this project. It's now going to be a bunch of little features that are pretty easy to put in the code. Nothing major, and there's no real performance issues to deal with. It's pretty much done. I can sit back and look at the work I've done and smile. It's amazing work, really. I never thought it'd come together in six months, but it has. That's an impressive delivery schedule in my book.
And that's the only one that matters.