Clarification

Posted by mkhairul - March 26, 2009 at 03:03:22 pm - No Comments

Categories: rants

I got a lot of shit storm after my post. Most believed the story was real or maybe I am such an amazing raconteur.

But anyway, my previous post is FICTIONAL. It is not real. It is just a story. Or in Malaysia we call it CERPEN (CERita PENdek). Read the damn post thoroughly.

Oh well, this is something to keep in my mind, next time I wrote a fictional story, I would make it outrageous like me chopping someone head’s off (I hope no one believe that and call the cops on me).

The Resignation (a short story)

Posted by mkhairul - March 25, 2009 at 05:03:54 pm - 3 Comments

Categories: fiction, work

As I approach my boss’s cubicle, I try to arrange the words in my mind to avoid any stuttering and awkward long pauses in the conversation to come. He was busy doing all the stuffs that a solution architect might do, without suspecting anything unusual.

“Ryzam”, I interrupted his train of thoughts. He spun around and looked at me, trying to figure out what I wanted from him.

I reached into a pocket in my jacket, revealing an envelope. His forehead wrinkled and a mask of disbelief was painted all over his face. He have encountered this situation much too often this year. That’s not an envelope full of cash, a letter of admiration, or some sort of petition. It was a letter of disappointment, resentment of the current situation.

How did this happen, and when did it all started to fall into its place? I flashed back to a few months back.

The situation have been festering since the end of last year. The rumors have been spreading like wildfire, triggering everyone’s panic button. Some endure and some peeked at the the other side and hoped for a greener field. This mass of boiled-up negativity is self-destructing to the company and everyone in it. There are some who chose to ignore it until its too late…

There’s only 3 guys left (one new employee who transferred from another department). I am one of the few who handles a lot of the system in the company. With this resignation and offer letter, I hoped for a counter-offer.

“Why?”, ryzam asked.

“I can’t see myself here for a few more years, there’s nothing so far. It has been a year and nothing is happening. I have been alone in my unit which requires at least 3 people to operate efficiently for quite sometime. I’m not a one-man army and even if I do, my salary does not reflect it”, I vented my frustration.

“Let us discuss this with the CTO”, he told me.

Ryzam stood up and gestured me to follow him to the CTO’s office. The dim office lights illuminating the hallway made it felt like a long hard and heavy walk. I wonder what the CTO would say, there’s only one way to make it a win-win situation. My mind is racing through all the scenarios that I could muster to remember from my previous colleague’s experiences and formulate the responses that I could think of.

As I walked through the hallway, several staffs were curious to follow us to the corner of their eyes. The soft carpeting dampens the sounds from my heavy footsteps. A quick turn leads us to a corridor of offices which bestows a sense of claustrophobic in me. There’s only room for 2 people to walk at once in the corridor.

Ryzam knocked on the door. I waited anxiously for an answer…..

To be continued..

Note: This is a fiction.

A very tiring weekend

Posted by mkhairul - March 24, 2009 at 04:03:53 pm - 3 Comments

Categories: blog, rants

Saturday
12.30 am – 2.30 am : Futsal @ Sunway
8.00 am – 10.30 am : Football @ Shah Alam
9.00 pm – 11.00 pm : Futsal @ Sunway

Sunday
5.00 am : picked someone up, rush to LCCT, drove at 140.
6.10 am : took a wrong exit, waste 10 minutes.
6.40 am : arrived at LCCT, tried to get our tickets but we’re late 15 minutes. Flight is at 7.15 at least 45 minutes earlier.
7.20 am : Bought a new flight to penang at 11.00am.
7.30 am – 10.00 am : Hang around at Food Garden.
12.00 pm : Arrived at Alor Setar
1.00 pm – 7.00pm : Work
9.45 pm : Took off from Alor Setar with MAS.
10.45 pm : Arrived at KLIA but my car is at LCCT.
10.50 pm : Took a cab to LCCT, RM38
11.15 pm : Arrived at LCCT, paid parking for RM37 (16hrs)
11.30 pm : Rush back home
12.15 pm : Arrived home, pick up a friend, and went to watch Liverpool vs Aston Villa.

That’s my weekend.

Redesign the Feedback

Posted by mkhairul - March 20, 2009 at 08:03:37 pm - No Comments

Categories: Development, Tips, work

I’m in the process of redesigning the feedback form that the student service department is using.

Why?

There was another request, on 4th March, for the feedback system. I thought I have designed the system to be quite flexible to support a new form. After a week of customization, I realized the work was grueling and there’s tons of stuffs to make it happen but in the same time was afraid of any further forms that will be requested in the future. The load will be exponential for any future forms to add to the system. In the end, the result will be a big ball of mud. I would pretty much like to avoid that, for the sake of my sanity.

I’m not familiar with all the feedback forms that runs a university. 1st, Orientation, 2nd, Lecturer & Tutor Evaluation, after this, who knows?

Since the system is still in its infancy, I made a decision to redesign it, if it is finished late, I will defend it.

Hitting a wall

There was a problem customizing the application to support another form. I tried to create another view for the new form, but the user data have already coupled tightly with the orientation form. Modifying it will require me to modify the new form around the existing user data. I created a content database which will support multiple language (which might possibly be valuable to other university) and easily modifiable content. After that I started creating the form.

The wall that I hit that made me realized is how long that it took for me to add another form. This is insane. I will be stuck with this stuffs if I stay here.

How?

I would redesign the feedback form into a Feedback Creation System (FCS). A system that creates a feedback form. It will support multiple language. Multiple forms. All of it easily and the end user can do this stuffs on their own. If they want to create a form, they will create it themselves.

Development

While developing the newly redesigned system, I read a few stuffs in Designing Interfaces: Patterns for Effective Interaction Design and unconsciously implemented one pattern, one-window drilldown, with another pattern, two-panel selector, which for me looks natural enough at that time. Later on I was like, “Eh?, I think I have seen this somewhere”.

Conclusion

I couldn’t estimate more realistically because of my lack of experience. When there’s a request for 1 form, more will follow. This is my rule on a company or university that is starting up. But never build this kind of system early, because it will take a lot of time and people will give up on it when it takes too long. Build an interim system, in my case the orientation feedback form, to make these requesters happy but in the meanwhile plan for a more proper system that can build all the forms that the users want.

It is easy to lose track of the proper system design and planning, when request and bug reports come in. When an interim system is ready, it is important to have someone to take over the bugs and training for the system. Plan to give only 10-20% of the time for this system and the rest in making a proper system.

If I already have the experience to build a system that creates another application, I would be able to build the interim system more properly so that the data can be reused (or easier to migrate) on the final system. But I do not have an experience required for that so the current one is a dead end. I need to convert the data someway into the new system. Thats it for now for FCS.

DO AS I COMMAND! (Megatron’s Booming Voice)

Posted by mkhairul - March 19, 2009 at 10:03:04 am - No Comments

Categories: blog

New message tone for my cellphone (130KB). Here’s a snippet with Megatron’s voice only (34KB).

My previous message tone was Baldur’s Gate spell chant, Vita, Mortis, Careo.

Language List for Applications

Posted by mkhairul - March 19, 2009 at 10:03:26 am - No Comments

Categories: Development, Tips

Previously I have posted a list of countries to be kept in the database for applications. Now, language list for applications. The language list uses ISO 639-1 codes.

Now I know why the arabic language code is called ar. Heh.
Here’s an SQL dump of the language list.

A vision of an almost perfect development environment

Posted by mkhairul - March 18, 2009 at 03:03:46 pm - No Comments

Categories: Development, Tips, rants

I used to have a vision, where the development team all log reports, requests and issues in the Issue Tracking System. Wrote adequately enough information for the issues, and discuss it with their peers.

For each issues, if its common issue, the process for it will be written down in the wiki. Emails will be sent around to review the process, and people would contribute to it. Enhance it, make it better by sharing their knowledge or insights. Everyone communicates.

Every week, we would all gather to review and discuss the issues that have been logged into the system. We would think of a way to improve ourselves instead of doing the ways we think that are best on our own. The issue tracking system is being used as a tool to leverage our knowledge to each of our team members.

In time, we have a repertoire of knowledge accumulated from this practices, that newcomers have no problem getting started into the team.

Tis only a dream, too far fetched and too hard to achieve, alone. It is like trying to swim upstream through a river, eventually, everything is worn out. I can only hang on to a branch or a rock to gather my strength before continuing my battle.

Getting Started #1

Posted by mkhairul - March 18, 2009 at 02:03:57 pm - No Comments

Categories: Development, Tips

My initial getting started to finish up a task (mostly for development).

1. Log task in TaskCoach
2. Write down the problem
3. Think very hard
4. Write down the solution
5. Commit into subversion

Book Excerpt: Reviews are worth the pain.

Posted by mkhairul - March 17, 2009 at 01:03:56 am - 1 Comment

Categories: blog, rants

I’m currently reading Leading a Software Development Team. Here’s a nice excerpt from the book.

Reviews are worth the pain. They spread knowledge among the team, they improve quality, and they give you control. It’s for you to decide what gets reviewed, how itis reviewed and by whom. Make informal reviews a regular, everyday part of life on your team, but don’t make a big deal about reviews, whether formal or informal.

Well, for my unit (ISS), since I’m the only one in it, and there’s not many of us developers left in the department, there’s not many people that I can show it too that understands PHP.

Fluid Layout

Posted by mkhairul - March 16, 2009 at 08:03:17 pm - 1 Comment

Categories: rants

Why Not To Create Fluid Layouts? I have done a few fluid layouts a couple of years ago and it is not worth it. It just takes too much time and effort, plus it doesn’t look good. If a job requires me to do fluid layout, I’d have to readily decline it. I’d rather read some books, entertain my cats and play some DotA.

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