A Most Amazingly Stressful Day – With a Wonderful Bonus
Today has been a really stressful day. I was getting hit with production problems at the same time I was learning that the code changes I'd made in this project I inherited weren't sufficient to stand-alone, and in order to really work I had to make significant changes to the code.
Very stressful. Didn't eat until late. Gulped it down.
Had to fix the code first, it had the greater risk of me not getting it done. The problem was that I believed that the changes I had made completely removed the necessity for the config files (Spring - ick) to have this list of instruments. Instead, I wanted to read them from the database where they were held. Makes tons of sense to not have to maintain the same data in two forms. Problem was, when I removed the files I found that they had actually been referenced in other places, and I needed to get those lists out of these other places.
That didn't turn out to be as easy as I'd have hoped. With the components responsible for their own loading, it was difficult to see where I might be able to use Spring to reference the containers with their database-loaded information. But there was. Then I hit another problem - a circular reference in the Spring.
This was getting to the point I was ready to re-write the whole thing.
But I got an idea - get a 'core' set of containers and have them queried for their instruments as opposed to doing everyone. Now we're talking. With that, I was able to fix things up in a few hours. Still... the unit tests were the vast majority of the time, and a significant hassle as the containers are not easy to make in isolation.
Once I got all that done I was able to check it in and send off an email to the other developer on the project and tell him to run through all the tests to make sure that I haven't broken anything. Just making sure.
Then I could focus on the production problem... that was another toughie, but I was glad to be able to find the difference. It wasn't so much a problem as it was a difference. The production box was using specific 'Ask' prices and the users were thinking it should be using 'Bid' prices - and as you can imagine that would change things considerably.
When I matched those conditions the numbers started lining up very nicely. So I asked them if it was going to be 'Ask' or 'Bid', and they said 'Bid', so I changed production to use 'Bid' and we should be good tomorrow.
Finally, I had another production problem with the data from London. It turned out that one of the London machines had crashed on me - it happens about twice a day in London. All the other sites are fine, so I'm convinced it's the VMs in London. I passed on the information to the London guys and they said they'd be looking into the VMs tomorrow. Good enough.
Super heavy, stressful day, but dog gone it, I got it all done. All of it. That's pretty nice. Now I can go home and feel I earned my dollar today.