Another Day, Another Broken Build
Dec. 16th, 2003 04:23 pmWe're supposed to release some code fixes today. We've even checked functionality on all of them, and should be good to go... except that our build process is messed up yet again. Someone's gotten code that's supposed to go in the next maintenance release checked into the build tree in the wrong place, so it's turning up in the bits we're trying to ship. No one has been able to figure out why it's getting in, because after the first time this happened (and broke the site in a new way), we hand synched the files to known good versions and rebuilt, only to have it fail spectacularly in a new place. Aside from that one failure- which happens to be the landing page past the user login- everything works.
So we've rebuilt. And rebuilt again. And twiddled with bits and rebuilt. And twiddled with build scripts.
Each iteration takes about thirty to forty-five minutes, at which point we hurry up and wait for the next one to complete.
So i'm beyond bored at this point. Having no familiarity with the build process here, i sit and wait until someone says it's deployed, then break it, then return to waiting for the next build.
I'm really glad i installed a game on the laptop. I've played more than i'd like to. There are other things i could do- i could be writing automation, but since the automation needs a viable test bed upon which to run, that's akin to a masturbatory practice which never reaches a climax. I could write code and compile it, but there are things which i need to test which i have to be able to identify, and without a real working site, that's not going to happen.
So, i'm playing Total Annihilation again. I think i've played almost as much of it in the past month as i did when i was working on Boneyards at Cavedog on The Galactic War. Ran all the way back through the Core missions and started in on Core Contingency, but have been playing skirmish battles against two or three allied UI opponents mainly today— not enough time to get through missions reliably between the spurts and starts of work— and kicking some major Arm butt.
Speaking of TA and the late, lamented Boneyards, there are a pair of new friends just recently added to my friends list- Core Tactical Commander (ret'd)
uniquecrash5 and his wife
hippybngstockng. Crash and i worked together testing and sysop'ing on both Boneyards metagames many moons ago; and his wife Sah is a Murkworks (and MS, although the two are completely unrelated) alumna.
So we've rebuilt. And rebuilt again. And twiddled with bits and rebuilt. And twiddled with build scripts.
Each iteration takes about thirty to forty-five minutes, at which point we hurry up and wait for the next one to complete.
So i'm beyond bored at this point. Having no familiarity with the build process here, i sit and wait until someone says it's deployed, then break it, then return to waiting for the next build.
I'm really glad i installed a game on the laptop. I've played more than i'd like to. There are other things i could do- i could be writing automation, but since the automation needs a viable test bed upon which to run, that's akin to a masturbatory practice which never reaches a climax. I could write code and compile it, but there are things which i need to test which i have to be able to identify, and without a real working site, that's not going to happen.
So, i'm playing Total Annihilation again. I think i've played almost as much of it in the past month as i did when i was working on Boneyards at Cavedog on The Galactic War. Ran all the way back through the Core missions and started in on Core Contingency, but have been playing skirmish battles against two or three allied UI opponents mainly today— not enough time to get through missions reliably between the spurts and starts of work— and kicking some major Arm butt.
Speaking of TA and the late, lamented Boneyards, there are a pair of new friends just recently added to my friends list- Core Tactical Commander (ret'd)