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Dec 08Noticing Something Strange
by in Feature Articles on 2009-01-27Jon works for a small company that sells electronic biofeedback monitors and provides a website that allows customers (mainly health professionals) to upload and interpret the collected data. Not too long ago, they hired an "experienced web developer" named Nigel to help on the web-end of things. After a few weeks of minor site maintenance tasks, Nigel was given his first real feature to implement: a notification system.
The Spec
The idea behind the notifications system was to allow management to communicate with customers about new products, system outages, industry news, and so on. The new feature had to accomplish the following:
- Provide a means for management to display notices to customers.
- A given notice may be intended for just one user, or for multiple users.
- On the notices page, the customer should see all notices that they haven’t yet acknowledged.
- The customer should be able to acknowledge notices so that they’re no longer displayed.
"All right, Jory, we're gonna start you off simple here, kid!" Jory B.'s boss was a large man with forearms like hairy hams, and he spoke in a gruff, deep, and loud voice. "Yer gonna learn about The Aggregator by adding a simple feature. I want it to be sendin' emails whenever someone signs up at one of our locations!" He continued on his throaty, saliva-y explanation of what should appear in the emails, which mail server to use, and so on. "Welcome aboard, kid," he said warmly, extending a hand with fingers that looked like sausages.
Before Curtis even got to sit down at his desk, he was accosted by a frenzied, sweating junior developer. "OhmygodCurtis," he began. Curtis extended his hand in a "calm the hell down" gesture and allowed him to continue. "A whole bunch of our stores had no data posted last night and I'm not sure why orwhat to doabout it or whoIshouldtalktoand-" Curtis gestured again, to which the developer handed him a thin stack of papers. After a deep breath, the developer continued. "It's a list of the stores that didn't post last night."
Jim B. stared wistfully in the mirror at the wrinkles near his eyes and the few stray gray hairs that he’d accumulated over the last six months. On the way back to his desk, he stopped by his friend Mike's desk. “Point three six,” he said as he banged his head against Mike's cubicle wall. “Point three six.”