Stop the world! I'm about to fall off...
March has always been the busiest month of the year for me - I used to blame Guides, since there's a bunch of annual events that are always on in March, but then I got to uni and joined the SCA and the pre-Festival panic put that to shame. This year has left all those preceeding months of March in the dust.
Part of the problem is work. The product I've been working on for the last year or so is in its final development stages, which involve a series of four formal 'alpha' tests carried out by the testers in another development center. For each test, we have to get a specific set of functionality completed, integrated, tested in-house and any known high-priority bugs verified as fixed and code-reviewed. The package then gets set to the testers who check that everything works accoring to the original specification, as well as performing less formal load and break testing. Any bugs they find have to be corrected in the next stage.
The section I am working on was first scheduled for testing in alpha 3, which occurred at the end of February. We sort of made it, but things were rather shaky, and not all the functionality made it in for various reasons, which meant that in the time between alpha 3 and the final alpha 4 deadline - which is tomorrow - we had to finish everything off as well as fix all the various outstanding issues discovered in our own testing, plus any raised by the alpha 3 testers. It has not been easy, fun, or quick, and beta release is scheduled for early May, so it's not likely to let up any time soon.
On top of the main product, I am also supporting several previous projects, including one which is in the middle of getting a new version and upgrade published, which involves a bit of non-trivial effort on my part. I wouldn't mind it so much if I could concentrate on it properly, but the main product takes priority (as long as the customers waiting for support can be put off, anyway) so my time I have been able to work on it is odd hours snatched from my other work.
All of this adds up to some very long hours and complete brain fatigue, as we've been running at full pace for a couple of months now, and have at least one more to go before the product is complete enough to let the first beta customers at it.
In the non-work hours, Guides has rather eaten my life.
I've been a Guide leader for a year now, so have all the workload and lack-of-weekends that go along with running an active unit and trying to complete all the qualification training. This has been complicated by the fact that every region in Australia is running a themed camp this term to commemorate the centenery of the first ever scout camp on Brownsea Island in 1907. Ours was the weekend before last, and there was oodles of preparation to go along with that. As I've never been a leader on camp before, despite twenty-three years of Guiding, it was all a bit intimidating.
I'm also quite involved with the Guide boatshed on the Parramatta river, at which I've been a sailing instructor for years - this is also the busiest time of year for water activities, as we have the warm weather without school exams, christmas and the summer holidays to get in the way of the event calendar. There was a big open day in early March, a sailing course in late March, and assorted paperwork and other issues involved with the new building we're putting up there, which I get to deal with due to not saying no to committee positions hard enough.
The main thing I am accustomed to being affected by at this time of year but have not managed to squeeze in is the SCA, and especially Rowany Festival. There just hasn't been time or brain-space to spare since I've been out or away for the last five weekends running, and had zero free evenings, and something really had to go.
I do miss everyone though, and hope to make it down to Festival for at least one day, since I can't make the whole thing, to make a start at catching up. At the moment it looks like I'll be down there on Saturday, but getting there at all will depend on whether or not I crash in a gibbering heap when I get to the end of this week or not, so don't panic if I don't show up.
Anyway, that was a fairly longwinded attempt to explain why you've only seen a couple of very lame updates from me in the last little while. The computer ate my brain, then Guides tangled it in knots, alternately fried it in the sun and rained on it at camp and finished up by dumping it in the river. I've made it through the nasty part, though, and I actually have a free weekend day or two on the calendar this month, so hopefully the rest of the year will be more sane.
There's always hope :)
Part of the problem is work. The product I've been working on for the last year or so is in its final development stages, which involve a series of four formal 'alpha' tests carried out by the testers in another development center. For each test, we have to get a specific set of functionality completed, integrated, tested in-house and any known high-priority bugs verified as fixed and code-reviewed. The package then gets set to the testers who check that everything works accoring to the original specification, as well as performing less formal load and break testing. Any bugs they find have to be corrected in the next stage.
The section I am working on was first scheduled for testing in alpha 3, which occurred at the end of February. We sort of made it, but things were rather shaky, and not all the functionality made it in for various reasons, which meant that in the time between alpha 3 and the final alpha 4 deadline - which is tomorrow - we had to finish everything off as well as fix all the various outstanding issues discovered in our own testing, plus any raised by the alpha 3 testers. It has not been easy, fun, or quick, and beta release is scheduled for early May, so it's not likely to let up any time soon.
On top of the main product, I am also supporting several previous projects, including one which is in the middle of getting a new version and upgrade published, which involves a bit of non-trivial effort on my part. I wouldn't mind it so much if I could concentrate on it properly, but the main product takes priority (as long as the customers waiting for support can be put off, anyway) so my time I have been able to work on it is odd hours snatched from my other work.
All of this adds up to some very long hours and complete brain fatigue, as we've been running at full pace for a couple of months now, and have at least one more to go before the product is complete enough to let the first beta customers at it.
In the non-work hours, Guides has rather eaten my life.
I've been a Guide leader for a year now, so have all the workload and lack-of-weekends that go along with running an active unit and trying to complete all the qualification training. This has been complicated by the fact that every region in Australia is running a themed camp this term to commemorate the centenery of the first ever scout camp on Brownsea Island in 1907. Ours was the weekend before last, and there was oodles of preparation to go along with that. As I've never been a leader on camp before, despite twenty-three years of Guiding, it was all a bit intimidating.
I'm also quite involved with the Guide boatshed on the Parramatta river, at which I've been a sailing instructor for years - this is also the busiest time of year for water activities, as we have the warm weather without school exams, christmas and the summer holidays to get in the way of the event calendar. There was a big open day in early March, a sailing course in late March, and assorted paperwork and other issues involved with the new building we're putting up there, which I get to deal with due to not saying no to committee positions hard enough.
The main thing I am accustomed to being affected by at this time of year but have not managed to squeeze in is the SCA, and especially Rowany Festival. There just hasn't been time or brain-space to spare since I've been out or away for the last five weekends running, and had zero free evenings, and something really had to go.
I do miss everyone though, and hope to make it down to Festival for at least one day, since I can't make the whole thing, to make a start at catching up. At the moment it looks like I'll be down there on Saturday, but getting there at all will depend on whether or not I crash in a gibbering heap when I get to the end of this week or not, so don't panic if I don't show up.
Anyway, that was a fairly longwinded attempt to explain why you've only seen a couple of very lame updates from me in the last little while. The computer ate my brain, then Guides tangled it in knots, alternately fried it in the sun and rained on it at camp and finished up by dumping it in the river. I've made it through the nasty part, though, and I actually have a free weekend day or two on the calendar this month, so hopefully the rest of the year will be more sane.
There's always hope :)