Developers and Good Communication
Today was an interesting experience in poor communication. I had put in a new section of code into Hemlock at the request of another developer, and implemented the logic as I understood it. I then said that he and Q/A needed to verify the accuracy of the implementation, and thought nothing more of it. If there was a problem, I'd hear about it, right? If not, then it was all good.
Yeah... right.
So I started the day by hearing that the values in the application were way out, and I spent quite a while trying to find the problem. I sent emails asking if there were any data changes made overnight - turns out there was. The data for this new feature was put in for one portfolio. Fancy that.
Now it was clear - they didn't test anything. They assumed it was OK, but didn't actually test the values to see if they were right. Lovely.
When ensued was a period of several hours where I was sitting next to the other developer trying to figure out what was wrong with the implementation I had. Now I've had this in source control for weeks, so he could have looked at it. But he didn't... that's OK, he was sitting right next to me, looking over my shoulder, and still he didn't see the problem.
I had to ask such incredibly detailed questions it was virtually explaining the code line-by-line. Yet, not really - for when I did that, he didn't catch the problem, and was unable to clearly communicate what he wanted me to do.
"Frustrating" doesn't even come close to describing it.
It's this "good enough" attitude that kills me. Hey, I have an idea - give me a sample code section in some language - I'll translate it, you don't have to do it for everything, but come on... throw me a bone here. Am I supposed to drag this out of you every time there's a change?
Don't get me wrong... this is a nice, decent, guy. He's personable, seems to make the traders happy, but I can't believe that his communication skills are so incredibly horrible. Really.