My Porting Rant

[TheAnimus]

Porting software, is just such a thankless task.

I've been working on and off on porting this major app for the last 6 months now, and its just so f**king anoying.

Its a complete re-design, away from VBA + Excel into the land of .Net 3.5, with WPF a plenty.

As such i've introduced a whole host of new bugs, but very little in the way of new features, the only resource i've got to allocate to this project (besides myself) really dosen't want to, he wants to be his own lead dev, and i'm getting ready to strangle him.

The thing is every time you miss one (completely un-documented) feature that you think is due to a coding bug rather than by design, you get absolutely slated. :'(

Damned if i don't port it, because adding new features to a excel + VBA gui is a real pain, there is just no help managing concurancy. Damned if i do port because it the time between major new features is also too long......

[Zadock]

Well I can't say I understand a lot of that I'm not in IT myself its more like a hobby and I just learn new things when I need to or the interest arises but doesn't sound like much fun, doesn't sound as if you are getting any opportunities to be creative... (like writing a entirely new piece of software might give you).

Is it all porting work or do you get to do other things to?

[TheAnimus]

oh i get to do lots and lots of other things, that is the problem. If i'd just been given two mabye three weeks with NOTHING else to do i'd be fine.

Lifes not quite like that in the wounderful world of developing software for a small hedge fund.

[Zadock]

What about game development, something you've tried your hand at? probably similar headaches.


Been thinking of trying my hand at C or python, plenty of "teach yourself" books out there.

[TheAnimus]

What about game development, something you've tried your hand at? probably similar headaches.

Mate of mine from uni works for a UK based PC games house which will remain anonymous.

Has virtually none of the head aches/stress of small company tactical developement, but also gets less than a quarter of the average salary of a FOD (Front Office Dev) in finance.

[yamangman]

VBA + Excel has always been arduous work for me - frequently undocumented. I'm doing a port at the moment for a excel/vba-based 'fund management' system to asp.net as it happens. I know what you mean.

[Zadock]

Mate of mine from uni works for a UK based PC games house which will remain anonymous.

Has virtually none of the head aches/stress of small company tactical developement, but also gets less than a quarter of the average salary of a FOD (Front Office Dev) in finance.

Really? must do it for the "love" or comfort/ lack of stress I guess...

I noticed that you can actually do a degree in computer games development now, probably very attractive to some people, seems terribly limiting to me.

[aidanjt]

I noticed that you can actually do a degree in computer games development now, probably very attractive to some people, seems terribly limiting to me.

Not really, modern game engines make any GUI application look like algebra.

[Agent]

I noticed that you can actually do a degree in computer games development now, probably very attractive to some people, seems terribly limiting to me.

Limiting in what way?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7709298.stm

An industry that's outselling music and video with sales of around £4.64bn/year has a lot of opportunities.

[TheAnimus]

It depends, a lot of them are 'Portsmouth' degrees (known as such after we interviewed 5 people from there, also the 5 worst people i've ever interviewed face to face).

Too many of them focus on working a graphics package, and give little thought to actually making someone remotely useful afterwards.

Also they are very specalised, the line between vocational training and education become blurred. Plus those i know who work in the games industry are an intresting mix, a fair few of them make up for their lack of knowledge with a religious like dedication to forfilling their childhood dreams.

But the point is most unis will let you choose modules for lots of 3D algebra etc, but to be the really good games programmers, you really need to know your physics too. These bullsh!t degrees don't normally begin to offer that.

[Agent]

Too many of them focus on working a graphics package, and give little thought to actually making someone remotely useful afterwards.

Also they are very specalised, the line between vocational training and education become blurred. Plus those i know who work in the games industry are an intresting mix, a fair few of them make up for their lack of knowledge with a religious like dedication to forfilling their childhood dreams.

You're spot on mate - You obviously know some people in the industry to come out with something so accurate

[TheAnimus]

You're spot on mate - You obviously know some people in the industry to come out with something so accurate

Poached from it in the past mate