Another OT night

Have been working OT for many days already. When can this stop? Actually i don't mind working late if i could spend time learning something which can help improve myself. However i often found too many things for me to learn. I don't want to be specific in any single field. I want to be as "all-rounder" as possible. Hehe. It's ok. What i got to do now is to finish my task as soon as possible. I really hope my next task won't get me into time-constraint problem which results me to spend my own time just to figure out the best solutions for my company's customers. Argh, if you want to talk about professionalism, completing your task properly and fulfiling customer's needs always come first! They don't really give a damn on how much efforts you have spent. They only want to control control control the budget! What they want to see is result! Good result some more. I will tolerate for a few more months and i believe it won't take me long to get myself to the right track again. I want to improve in every sense. That's my goal. I must get myself improved all the time so that i will ensure that all these while i am not wasting my time. I am getting 25 years old next May i could not afford wasting time this way! I have to achieve some kind of level of knowledge or wisdom!

Tired Monday

I woke up at 5 something this morning. Argh, damn tired. My eyes could hardly open. I slept on 12 something the night before! I had a regret of did not make myself to get into deep sleep as i got onto the bed, instead i read the historic book i bought a few weeks ago. So now i got to bear the consequence. Cause & Effect!! Hahaha.

I got to send my dad to JB's custom because he needed to go for routine body checkup in Singapore. The appointment was supposed to be at 9am. At around 5.45am i set out from my house. Throughout the journey my eyes were in pain so i was abit nervous that if i did not pay much attention, i could overturn my car. Lukily nothing happened. I reached JB custom safely. However, my eyes had been damn painful for the wholeday. Anyway i managed to pay attention to my work. Argh, really wish could go back and rest early today. Having a good sleep is always important to us!

Furious night

I planned to go earlier tonight. The boss came up to office again after coming back from Singapore. So many years already i have been trying to withstand the inteference. I got stuck in my coding. I really wanted to go crazy. What the hell!!! Why everything started to be not so smooth all of a sudden! ARGH!!! Now is going to be 12 already!

Agile Software Development VS Waterfall Model

Always there is an argument on what should be the best way of developing software within the time given and with less conflicts & issues on customer's requirement. My company has been adopting a 4-step enhanced SDLC methodology which belongs to waterfall model all the while. I have no comment on the result of this methodology but i can tell you what happen to one of our recent project. It was originally scheduled to be running live on around 3rd quarter of year 2006. However, it hab been delayed and the UAT might take > 6 months to finish. This project was officially started on May 2005 and part of its function/module had already been completed before that as a matter of assuring customer that we are able to work well on it. So what can you see with the current methodology applied?

Below is the excerpt from Wikipedia for the definition of Agile Software Development:

Some of the principles behind the Agile Manifesto are:

• Customer satisfaction by rapid, continuous delivery of useful software
• Working software is delivered frequently (weeks rather than months)
• Working software is the principal measure of progress.
• Even late changes in requirements are welcomed.
• Close, daily, cooperation between business people and developers
• Face-to-face conversation is the best form of communication.
• Projects are built around motivated individuals, who should be trusted
• Continuous attention to technical excellence and good design.
• Simplicity
• Self-organizing teams
• Regular adaptation to changing circumstances

Suitability of Agile methods:

• The culture of the organization must be supportive of negotiation
• People must be trusted
• Fewer but more competent people
• Organizations must live with the decisions developers make
• Organizations need to have an environment that facilitates rapid communication between team members

Criticism

• lack of structure and necessary documentation
• only works with senior-level developers
• incorporates insufficient software design
• requires too much cultural change to adopt
• can lead to more difficult contractual negotiations

Agile Methods:

• Extreme Programming (XP)
• Industrial Extreme Programming(IXP)
• Scrum
• Agile Modeling
• Adaptive Software Development (ASD)
• Crystal Clear and Other Crystal Methodologies
• Dynamic Systems Development Method (DSDM)
• Feature Driven Development (FDD)
• Lean software development
• Agile Unified Process (AUP)
• Dialogue-Driven Development aka d3

Relax moment

Today is the most relax day so far ever since i got stuck into a 'endless' trap of trying to finish the module's development & bugs fixing. For the past 5 months(Since May) i have been working like a dog and even sacrificed some precious holiday for the sake of trying to catch up the timeline. Yeah i can't deny that this is my responsibility and i do hope boss acknowledged this and award me in the coming year. What i expect is at least 2.5 months bonus. Hahaha is that alot? I don't think so because i always think that i deserve this. The efforts i have put into this project is enormous. I am not trying to be boastful but this is what really happened. The next thing i am going to do after the end of this project is to gain back my normal life. I wish i don't need to burn midnight oil anymore, i wish i can have some time on weekdays for some entertainment or exercise such as Yoga. I always want to learn Yoga, Music and lot's more. I strongly believe that human development shall not be restricted to one or two fields only. We shall expose ourselves to more fields. We shall read more books so that we can know this world better. Anyway, i hope i can now put more efforts on trying to improve my skills regardless of technically or non-technically so that i can help my company to grow faster and of course, i hope management will not take advantage on this and think that our personal time shall be given to computer as well. Let's hope for a better tomorrow.

中文部落格

这是我第一次用中文写部落格，感觉真不错。此乃吾初衷也。

对中六华文蠢蠢欲“试”，教科书多年前已经买了。只是没什么时间去读罢了。读是有读，但断断续续，很不好受。但是我有的是时间，所以还可以慢慢来，因不是赖以为生的。

去算了命。说我有文昌星照着，使我信心十足。因那算命的还蛮准的。又说我有艺术细胞，书读不成还能靠创作吃饭，衣食丰足，直到晚年。呵呵，很开心。

这个长假乃好不容易才等到的。我决定要好好的用他。首先算命的目的达到了。之后怎样呢？明天再看看吧！

A Leap in my life!

They assigned me to take charge of a new module which is considered the largest module for this project. This time the module is larger than the first one i handled. Have been going more than 10 rounds of define meeting which lasts for 2 months already. This module is supposed to come out with one scope only but due to the size of the module, we decided to break into 2 specs. One of them user has required us to start coding by next week already. Another one still needs 2 more rounds of review meeting. By then it will be in the early november already.

The whole module should be completed right before April next year. Me & my team members have been wondering whether 3 of us are able to come out with all the screens on time, some more i need to focus on design specs and a lot of documentation stuff and of course, research too to help up the speed of development. My role is very much different from that last time already. My last role was team lead too but at that time i just started to pick up team leading skills, so everything i managed can be considered quite messy.This time i hope i can do much much better than last time.

Alrite, going back soon. The time now is 11.35pm, i am in singapore waiting for my boss to go back. The reason is i am following his car to singapore and so i need to wait for him to go back kulai. Hehe, the funny thing is i have nothing else to do already out there but they still need to wait for other team to finish thier tasks first. I very very much disagree with the way they do this because I will be willing to stay only if I need to complete my things within the certain time limit, but the fact is i am doing nothing out there and they still require me to stay! Some more it is not possible I can help the other team already because what i can do is not much as i need to follow the progression stictly from the beginning of the enhancement!