in reply to Loyalty, Personal gain or Professional Integrity
Mid 2001 I was faced with a challenge of refactoring our product for our next release and there were several issues that made it even more challenging.
The original product consisted of over 350 Perl scripts, some embedded in Apache::ASP pages and others stand alone modules along with 47 database tables.
However, that project would not have been a success or as fast to alpha had it not been for the Perl version which taught us many things about how the product needed to be structured and a base from which to re-engineer the Java solution from.
In the end I was pleased with the Java work that was done. While at first I was apprehensive about the move because my lack of knowledge in Java, I found that it allowed me to look at the project from a different aspect since I was no longer as concerned with coding technique, but rather the final process of using the application and finding out if it worked correctly. I didn't realize until that move to another language how anal I was about the way something was coded, which can be good, but not when it keeps an item from getting to production on something that in the grand scheme of things simply needs to work not necessarily be pristine code (sad but true when the main goal is make money).
I did learn one other valuable less, nothing is easy in Java, Perl spoils a programmer with its data structure creation and manipulation.
- Limited time with Perl as a programming language for the majority of the developers
- No local source of thorough Perl training (developers based in India)
- An educational system created bias toward Java
- Specifications for the design requirements that didn't allow for the flexibility of Perl without language strong managers
- Install and run on any platform
The original product consisted of over 350 Perl scripts, some embedded in Apache::ASP pages and others stand alone modules along with 47 database tables.
However, that project would not have been a success or as fast to alpha had it not been for the Perl version which taught us many things about how the product needed to be structured and a base from which to re-engineer the Java solution from.
In the end I was pleased with the Java work that was done. While at first I was apprehensive about the move because my lack of knowledge in Java, I found that it allowed me to look at the project from a different aspect since I was no longer as concerned with coding technique, but rather the final process of using the application and finding out if it worked correctly. I didn't realize until that move to another language how anal I was about the way something was coded, which can be good, but not when it keeps an item from getting to production on something that in the grand scheme of things simply needs to work not necessarily be pristine code (sad but true when the main goal is make money).
I did learn one other valuable less, nothing is easy in Java, Perl spoils a programmer with its data structure creation and manipulation.
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Meditations