Interesting Times

We are continuing to work with a second company in order to try to get our product finished more quickly. Each week we seem to be adding another pair of programmers to the team, we are up to 4 pairs now, 2 of which have nobody from our company on them.

I am feeling really bad for the one developer from our company since he is being asked to continue work on our prototype (which is only being used to show to companies to get interest in the new product).

This week I started pairing with a guy new to our project. I thought he was doing ok and then at the end of the day he said he had to go to class. I asked him what class he was taking...I found out that he was going to learn Java. We are writing our application in Java! Even more amazing, we were given another new guy to partner with someone else, and he doesn't know Java either!

I was absolutely amazed that we were given partners that don't know the language that we are working in. Now, to the guys credit, he does know other languages, and to a certain extent it is pretty true that if you know how to program, the language is just syntax and you can pick it up. But, I have also learned that there are a lot of efficiencies that you gain from a deeper understanding of a language than just the syntax.

I have obviously been doing a lot of the driving (that is what it is called when you are the one typing) and it is getting kind of tiring. I gave him the keyboard for a while this afternoon to do some fixing of some compilation issues and he did that well enough, but not sure how well he'd do to write something new from scratch.

I will keep everyone posted on how it goes with this guy and the other one. I am curious to see what other people in my company think about working with them. At least it might reduce some arguments about the architecture of our system!

Not as young as I used to be...

So, this weekend one of the girls that I used to work with had a girls night. I was very excited about it since we hadn't hung out very much since I left my old job. We used to talk just about every day at work.

I went over to her place around 8 and didn't leave there until a little after 4 in the morning. Boy, is it catching up to me now. I ended up getting home around 4:30. Thankfully my husband let me sleep in until about 10:30. The day after I wasn't too tired, but yesterday and today I've been dragging.

I used to be able to do nights like this much easier, but I think I am just getting too old for this...of course, I have a bachelorette party in a couple of weeks so I will probably end up with another few days of being super tired.

Working away from the office

So, I've been working in a different office (only a few blocks away from my real office) for a week now. It is amazing how much different things can be when you are not working in the same building as you colleagues.

There is quite a feeling of disconnection. We go over daily for stand-up and talk about what we've been working on and what we will be working on that day, but it feels like we are visitors and don't necessarily belong there.

It seems like we don't know what is going on in the office, and I am not sure how much they know about how things are going for us either.

Thankfully, our manager has decided to set up weekly lunch dates between the groups so we get to get together and talk about what has been going on and just hang out for a while. Today I attended my first one (I was out of the office for the official first lunch together). It was a lot of fun. We didn't really talk work, but we just kind of hung out and ate pizza and talked. It was a great way to get to know the other people in the office.

I hope that when we are done working in the other office that we will continue this tradition (perhaps a little less frequently). It will just be a nice way to get to know everyone and just unwind.

Small World

So, I took the day off on Friday because my son's preK was doing a special Mother's Day presentation for us in the afternoon. I figured it was a good excuse to take the day off and do some other things that I had been wanting to do.

So, in the morning, I checked my email and since I was on the computer my instant messenger was up. One of the guys I used to work with a few jobs ago saw me online and said hi. He had heard that I had a new job (I don't know how everyone finds out that I moved jobs...but there have been a few people that have known I moved jobs even though I never talked to them about it).

Anyway, while we were talking he asked where I was working now, and he knew one of the guys that I work with. I should have realized that he might have, because my coworker used to work at the same company as the other guys wife.

Anyway, it was just strange how in this town after you have worked here for a while, you just run into the same people over and over again.

First Day (sort of)

So, for those of you following my blog, you all know that today was my first day working with another company. It was a blast! It was great getting the team back together again. I think that the guy that has been working over there was really happy to have us there.

It took a while to get going because we spent a long time going over the work that we were planning to do this week. But, I think it was a really good start. We went over the things that we were going to work on and it was nice to go over how to do some of it and any questions that we had on the work.

Since I have only been working at my company for a little over a month, I have been the newbie and have been the least knowledgable about things. But, today I was the expert. It was really nice to be back in the power seat again.

I started off working with another developer from the other company that worked on our product last week, so he knew what had happened then, and the card that we were working on was very similar to the one he worked on the previous week.

We started off strong, with him doing most of the typing since he knew how everything was working. Then, after lunch, he didn't feel well, so he went home and I ended up pairing with another developer that was not familiar with the system at all. I was really happy that I ended up pairing up with him since it gave me a chance to slow down and really get a good handle on what we are trying to do.

Also, since I know what we are trying to do and I know what we have built, I was the person who knew the stuff again. I felt so much more myself. It was really great, and I think that this will help me feel stronger in the long run (which is really important for me because I am more confident in what I am doing so I am not as worried about whether my ideas are any good or not).

So Excited!

If you've been reading my blog, then you know that the company I work for is going to be working with another company that does Extreme Programming. Tomorrow I get to start working over there. I am really excited. It will be fun to work with some new people and get to work on the product instead of our prototype.

It'll be great getting the team back together again. One of the guys on our team has been over there for a week already. I think he's been kind of lonely over there (of course, he's been pairing up with one of the guys from the other company). He stopped by earlier this week and had lunch with us.