A snippet from last night
Jul. 24th, 2014 12:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaberett[I am telling my housemate about the meeting with my supervisor, which included supervisor asking me how I'd put together the plot in the mantle sulphides doc. "Erm," I said, "matplotlib? I wrote a Python script?"]
"... and then she gave me a look. It was kind of the look of why the fuck do you think this is easier than just using a pre-built package with a GUI-- oh, never mind, it's clearly working, whatever makes you happy."
"... fucking programmers," said my housemate.
"Only as a hobby," I sleepily replied.
And paused.
"... I think that contained more double entendres than I intended," I said.
"... you're going to have to explain to me," said my housemate. "I am also asleep."
Dear Dreamwidth: I thought you might enjoy laughing at me.
"... and then she gave me a look. It was kind of the look of why the fuck do you think this is easier than just using a pre-built package with a GUI-- oh, never mind, it's clearly working, whatever makes you happy."
"... fucking programmers," said my housemate.
"Only as a hobby," I sleepily replied.
And paused.
"... I think that contained more double entendres than I intended," I said.
"... you're going to have to explain to me," said my housemate. "I am also asleep."
Dear Dreamwidth: I thought you might enjoy laughing at me.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-07-25 07:39 am (UTC)But what's a 'programmer'?
Me, I'm someone who pointed out that over half* the desk time of the entire office is spent moving data into spreadsheets. Mostly by copy-and-paste, sometimes by Excel's built-in functions; and the error rate is horrifying.
So I wrote a drag-and-droppable sheet that does this in three find-the-file clicks, or a simple one-click 'repeat'. It does it reliably, it checks that the full extent of the data is covered by the existing calculations, and it journals who, what, and when.
Any file, including any Excel file; any database; any tabulated data on a web page...
It's also nice to look at: clarity and good formatting, logically-laid-out controls with labels and popup 'deep description', and the departmental logo.**
The users who got it love it.
Departmental IT took the idea -and I gave them the 'prototype' - and came back with a clunky and ugly and inflexible special spreadsheet.
Nobody's using it until they are compelled to. And 'Programmer' means that outcome, and the people who do it, to everyone in the department who hasn't got the prototype***.
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* That's not an estimate. I do observation and measurement.
** Yes, I'm a UI designer. Who knew? HCI's a big thing at DeMontfort. But the tech teams here do not regard girly decorating stuff as something a 'programmer' would or should be interested in.
*** Yes, I do testing. Unit testing, regression, and observed UAT. And I document it. That makes me a software engineer, rather than a programmer****.
*****One of these two terms means 'I write reliable programmmes.