November 2007 Archives
I recently made a dynamic login block. It was the client's idea and it was nifty. Roll over the log in link and it unrolled in a cool motion, easing in as it neared full height. It rolled back up the same way if you killed it. It was beautiful and made the user's life easier. Now there was no need to go all the way to a separate log in page. You could log in from anywhere with no wasted time or effort.
It was a lot of work building it and integrating it into our jsp pages. I had to make a lot of changes to the page's structure to accommodate its positioning and z-index requirements. But instead of feeling good and acting proud when it was finished I just sort of nodded and kept my moth shut when my co-workers came by to gush about how cool it was. Here's why: The cooler something is, the more time and effort you spend implementing it, and the happier you are with the results the more likely it is to die a horrible and embarrassing death dragging down your reputation along with it. It seems to be an inversely proportionate relationship.
In this particular case it lasted until about the end of the week. After working on it for two days, the programmers determined that it conflicted with certain other aspects of the log in functionality (which were never specified) and it was removed "until later". I'm not going to fight to bring it back. If I do it will start the cycle of hope and defeat all over again and I'll be the owner of it.
I try to be excited about Web 2.0, DOM scripting, DHTML and Ajax. On paper they are all really cool. In reality there are so many things that can go wrong, so many user interactions to consider, so many cross-browser and server-side limitations to factor in that the benefits often don't outweigh the negatives. I haven't done a single one that wasn't ultimately replaced by Flash or outright killed for one reason or another. Too bad, they're cool while they last...
It was a lot of work building it and integrating it into our jsp pages. I had to make a lot of changes to the page's structure to accommodate its positioning and z-index requirements. But instead of feeling good and acting proud when it was finished I just sort of nodded and kept my moth shut when my co-workers came by to gush about how cool it was. Here's why: The cooler something is, the more time and effort you spend implementing it, and the happier you are with the results the more likely it is to die a horrible and embarrassing death dragging down your reputation along with it. It seems to be an inversely proportionate relationship.
In this particular case it lasted until about the end of the week. After working on it for two days, the programmers determined that it conflicted with certain other aspects of the log in functionality (which were never specified) and it was removed "until later". I'm not going to fight to bring it back. If I do it will start the cycle of hope and defeat all over again and I'll be the owner of it.
I try to be excited about Web 2.0, DOM scripting, DHTML and Ajax. On paper they are all really cool. In reality there are so many things that can go wrong, so many user interactions to consider, so many cross-browser and server-side limitations to factor in that the benefits often don't outweigh the negatives. I haven't done a single one that wasn't ultimately replaced by Flash or outright killed for one reason or another. Too bad, they're cool while they last...
This month's struggles include fighting hard for accessibility features to be added to our global e-commerce websites. I'm working on a strategy of referring to them as "SEO enhancements". They will enhance SEO and that's a much easier sell than social consciousness and Section 508 compliance. Besides, in a company the size of ours the difference anything we do in the area of SEO makes will be a small increment, whereas enhanced accessibility (and the concomitant positive publicity) could increase our revenue a lot. I don't even like to think about the downside--an expensive lawsuit and damage to the company's reputation. But more to the point, this shouldn't have to be pushed from below. It would be great to have it be a corporate mandate.
Another battle is trying to get my managers to understand why our European affiliate sites should find some money in their budget to hire someone to make their web pages (for special promotions, etc.) who actually understands HTML. Sure, the pages they made in Word work on the browser but, dang, they are ugly!
But some good news also--we were to have our real and final code freeze on the project we've been working on for over a year. (The code has been frozen, unfrozen, pushed forward, and pushed back on for the last three months.) The final, final, really final date was to be today, but our manager was in a good mood, so he said he would move the drop-dead date to Monday morning so we could all have the weekend to work on it. But although it might seem harsh for him to expect us to work over the weekend or, in his own words, "as long and hard as it takes to get this job done on time," he was also careful to stress that we should do that without working more than a 40-hour week.
I didn't really get any time to work on the project today. We started the day with our bi-weekly status meeting. That's a scrum meeting taken from Agile programming principles. It's a standing meeting (but, as my manager explained, "We sit because, with the table and all the chairs, there's no room to stand.") and it's quick—half an hour or so. We don't have to worry about going too long because our conference rooms are booked solid in half hour increments all day. But today we changed rooms a couple of times and managed to make it last an hour and a half. That was followed up by a 2-hour departmental lunch and town hall meeting to congratulate all of us for our hard work on meeting the deadline (the one we just blew…again). Ah, the conflicts that arise in the big corporations!
Another battle is trying to get my managers to understand why our European affiliate sites should find some money in their budget to hire someone to make their web pages (for special promotions, etc.) who actually understands HTML. Sure, the pages they made in Word work on the browser but, dang, they are ugly!
But some good news also--we were to have our real and final code freeze on the project we've been working on for over a year. (The code has been frozen, unfrozen, pushed forward, and pushed back on for the last three months.) The final, final, really final date was to be today, but our manager was in a good mood, so he said he would move the drop-dead date to Monday morning so we could all have the weekend to work on it. But although it might seem harsh for him to expect us to work over the weekend or, in his own words, "as long and hard as it takes to get this job done on time," he was also careful to stress that we should do that without working more than a 40-hour week.
I didn't really get any time to work on the project today. We started the day with our bi-weekly status meeting. That's a scrum meeting taken from Agile programming principles. It's a standing meeting (but, as my manager explained, "We sit because, with the table and all the chairs, there's no room to stand.") and it's quick—half an hour or so. We don't have to worry about going too long because our conference rooms are booked solid in half hour increments all day. But today we changed rooms a couple of times and managed to make it last an hour and a half. That was followed up by a 2-hour departmental lunch and town hall meeting to congratulate all of us for our hard work on meeting the deadline (the one we just blew…again). Ah, the conflicts that arise in the big corporations!
