Come on now... how can a cartoon so cute be, at the same time, so sick? I just finished watching all the episodes of Happy Tree Friends,
and I'm still laughing so hard at them I think I still have tears in my
eyes. This is definitely something you should show to your kids when
they ask "why shouldn't I be running with scissors?" or questions alike.
But what the heck does this have to do with Java projects?
Well, the basic sketch of 10 out of the 10 Java projects I've been so
far is: the cute little programmers are having fun at a pacific
software development company, singing or humming along, in all
happyness and joy, churning out code, tests and documentation, until
something really tragic happens - or a combinationof really tragic
things, most of the time. Managers yelling "this has to be done by
October 1st, and I don't wanna hear another question!", after the nth
warning that the schedule won't be met by the developers, who can't be
productive enough given the tools, architecture and, most importantly,
bad specifications they're working with, or something so common like
this, is the definition of "tragic" in this case.
When watching any HTF cartoon, you get a constant sensation that
something really bad will happen, and you start trying to guess when
and what will happen to the little cuties, and IMHO, that's where the
fun is. The good thing with the cartoon is that this usually only takes
a few seconds, and that it cracks you up when bad things happen. On the
other hand, being on a project that gets months to finally burst in
flames is definitely something to screw up a team, waste a lot of money
and resources, and a good way to put away any developer's sense of
humor.
Next time, I'll be watching the management, and be extra careful when I see them running with scissors ;)
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