What's it all about, Alfie?

Today I've run across something that makes me cringe. I mean really... cringe. And while it's easy to lay blame at the feet of the developers, I'm really beginning to lay it at the feet of the development managers. If you allow it, they will do it. Period.

I've been having problems with a very poorly created API to a DatingService at The Shop. I've touched on this before, and I won't belabor the point further. No, today I was told that there were significant bug fixes in the latest version of the API, and that it was probably a good idea to upgrade to this latest version and the problems I've been having should go away.

I'm not surprised, it makes sense, but at the same time, if the developers, and managers of those developers, allowed such a bad API to be created, I was worried what the "upgrade" would mean. I had hopes that it was just a Java jar replacement, but I had an inkling that it wouldn't be that easy.

When I got the word that one of the jars was split into two, I had a bad feeling.

It got worse, when I put in the three new jars and tried to compile the code. Not even close. Hundreds of problems. Holy Cow.

So I asked the developer that was helping me "What changed?" Normally, I'd think "nothing", or at worst, a package name change, but again, I had a feeling.

The silence that followed was not reassuring.

He sat at my desk - because there were no docs, no examples, just the raw code, and as he looked at the Google Protocol Buffers code, he was guessing what the method names were. I was shaking my head the entire time. I simply could not believe that a developer who used this code was this unfamiliar with it.

It took far longer than it should have, and included a lot of changes - all for an API that really should have been less than five lines, but ended up being far more than that. The types of data were different, the arguments different. It seemed that they threw most of what was out in favor of something similar, but not really equivalent.

While I'm the first to understand that things need to change, APIs just aren't one of them. There's no reason they couldn't have made the same fixes into the old API. THey just were lazy. Or worse.

So everyone that used the old way had to re-tool their code to use the new. Why? Because a few guys (and their manager) were too bloody lazy to actually design a decent interface and then build it?

It appears that's about the size of it.

I shake my head at the sheer lack of common sense displayed in these interactions.

Today was Liza's first appointment at the Diamond Headache Clinic where, she had been told, If anyone can figure out her migraines, these people can. So with great hope, we went to the clinic. I think it's important to support your spouse when they're going into a new medical environment - even if they say they don't need it. Bull Cookies. Everyone needs support now and then, and this is one of those times.

So we went, and while they had some great ideas, they ruled out the stroke, but pointed out that it would not have show up on the MRI or CAT scan if it was a small one. However, the doctor pointed out that even a small stroke would have produced more profound effects than the droopy eye for a few days, and the loss of taste (sweet and sour) for about six weeks.

So with that checked off, he wanted to break the cycle of pain. So she was set up for an infusion of drugs to do just that. Actually, three infusions - two today and one tomorrow morning.

It took most of the day, and then I had to play ferry captain for the kids, so I didn't get a lot of work done. But hey... I went in, I fixed a few things, and then I had to go. It's the best I could do.

Today I was finishing up the additions to Hemlock and it while I expected to get the changes done by the end of the day, I was a little surprised to see that I was done by 2:00 pm. That's a little scary, to me. I mean, if I know this codebase this well, then what does that say about me? Am I close to being a Pod Person?

If I ever find myself saying Spring and AspectJ are good choices, then I'm going to throw myself off a bridge. Just sayin'...