>>A few months ago, we discussed mileage calculation between two points. The
>>users here were stalling on mileage look-ups via the web, which usually took
>>around 5 minutes or so to get the required information. In my book, that's too
>>long, especially when I knew that their had to be a way to just type in the city
>>names (locally in the app), click a button, and then the mileage and calculated
>>cost would just pop up -- and on to the next entry. That one mod turned 5 minutes
>>into 30 seconds.
>
>A tenfold - that's a nice feeling :).

You bet it was! :^). It all came about because I was in the end-users domain, doing
data entry just like they do, Dragan. Whenever possible, I actually assume the
role/position of the data-entry personnel, doing the same thing they do. The way
I see it, I have to actually perform their job for a few days so I can see how
things work -- the atmosphere and pace of the work environment -- and once I'm
in their heads, that's when I confident that I can fix, rewrite, or crank out
some new, good code.

>My best one was a costing for a huge farm, under fpd2.6. Whatever I did, couldn't get
>the recursive calculation to do any better than below three minutes (on the then Pentium II,
>or was it a I). I delivered as is, and told the customer that I've done my best, it simply
>can't be pushed any faster. Then, just to feel a bit better, I asked him how long did it
>take by hand.
>
>"It took about three weeks for three of us to do. Then there'd be two more weeks to fix the
>errors we made. Then once we got the information out of it and got the cost price of wheat,
>corn, pork etc, it was useless, because it was already so obsolete."

Man. That's definitely happy-dance city, bro! :^)

>Another good one from him: he once did a salary and HR app as a side job. He delivered and said
>it won't work. They were puzzled, so he went to explain that it'll do exactly what they asked for,
>but therein lies the rub. There were dozens of fields which'll never work, because they'll never
>be able to have complete data there. Say, "number of children". When someone's child is born, what's
>the proud father doing first? Asking for a form to correct his data? Hell he is - he's bringing in
>the booze to get his pals under the table :).

Yep...and they're all smoking cheap cigars :^).


>My partner and I had different views on end users having games on their machines. Note that these
>were the simple games of the nineties - versions of tetris, solitaires etc. He figured that most of
>the games may be coming from floppies which are likely to be infected by viruses and that playing
>was generally detrimental to the work (stiff neck, wasn't he?).

Stiff neck and then some! We'd install the Windows game pack, and then we'd tell them it was ok
to play solitaire, pinball, or whatever, as long as it was a game that came with the Windows OS.
As long as they didn't have something else to do, playing a game here and there was ok, because we
knew that they were still at their desks, and since they were still at their desks, they'd answer
the phone when it would ring. This meant that our customers were getting good, quick service.
People love having fun, and if they can have a bit of fun at work, so much the better. That makes
for happy employees who love their jobs. I mean, we all spend 8 hours a day there (on average),
so you'd hope that work would be a fun, comfortable environment.

>I said we'd better tell them about the virus danger and supply them with a dozen of freebie games
>from our clean media. And I was happy to see them playing: it meant that my software enabled them
>to do their job with time to spare.

Yes, and it keeps them at their desks instead of being down down the hall talking in
Sara's office! It also helps cut down on smoke breaks, because they're so engrossed
and into beating Frank's high score that they forget to even take the break! :^) :^)

Regards,

Randall