(This is a snapshot of my old weblog. New posts and selected republished essays can be found at raganwald.com.)
Tuesday, November 09, 2004
Thank you
Hey everyone:
We've done a lot of hard work digging into problems. We've fixed a lot of stuff. Unlike a few months ago, we now have a very good idea of where we are and what we need to do to ship Cooper.
Tomorrow I'll be talking about the plan. Today, I want to thank everyone.
What we do as programmers is create change: we manufacture software out of ideas. And unless we're making games, we programmers literally create change: we change the way people do their jobs. We change the way companies operate. We're in the change business.
Yet, change is always hard for us. We've had changes in the company, changes in roles, and changes in the plan. Even though it's all for the better, I want to thank everyone for being patient.
I especially want to thank the people who rolled up their sleeves and dug into the guts of Cooper and emerged with ideas. The hard part of coming up with an idea is that for every 100 ideas, we might try two or three. It hurts when we design new things or propose new architectures and we don’t follow through right away.
I know it isn't easy when you walk into my office and say "we should X and Y and Z" and hear me say "good idea, not yet." I want to thank you all for being patient with me and with where we are in the process.
Speaking of process, I want to thank everyone for being patient with my blamestorming about builds and QA. I know that discussing a broken build with me is playing "Braithwaite Roulette." You never know when bang! I start yelling and breaking furniture. The truth is, we've gotten SO MUCH BETTER than July when I came on board. Thank you all for really, really trying to make daily builds a fact of life.
Tomorrow is really the first day of the rest of Cooper's development life. I'm looking forward to shipping a fantastic product we can all be proud of.
Thanks again for what we had to do to get here, and thanks in advance for what we have to do to ship on time.
Hey everyone:
We've done a lot of hard work digging into problems. We've fixed a lot of stuff. Unlike a few months ago, we now have a very good idea of where we are and what we need to do to ship Cooper.
Tomorrow I'll be talking about the plan. Today, I want to thank everyone.
What we do as programmers is create change: we manufacture software out of ideas. And unless we're making games, we programmers literally create change: we change the way people do their jobs. We change the way companies operate. We're in the change business.
Yet, change is always hard for us. We've had changes in the company, changes in roles, and changes in the plan. Even though it's all for the better, I want to thank everyone for being patient.
I especially want to thank the people who rolled up their sleeves and dug into the guts of Cooper and emerged with ideas. The hard part of coming up with an idea is that for every 100 ideas, we might try two or three. It hurts when we design new things or propose new architectures and we don’t follow through right away.
I know it isn't easy when you walk into my office and say "we should X and Y and Z" and hear me say "good idea, not yet." I want to thank you all for being patient with me and with where we are in the process.
Speaking of process, I want to thank everyone for being patient with my blamestorming about builds and QA. I know that discussing a broken build with me is playing "Braithwaite Roulette." You never know when bang! I start yelling and breaking furniture. The truth is, we've gotten SO MUCH BETTER than July when I came on board. Thank you all for really, really trying to make daily builds a fact of life.
Tomorrow is really the first day of the rest of Cooper's development life. I'm looking forward to shipping a fantastic product we can all be proud of.
Thanks again for what we had to do to get here, and thanks in advance for what we have to do to ship on time.
