Answers Day

the sequel to Questions Day

Do you see yourselves in Sterling for an infinite time and if not, do you already have a future location picked out in which to live? - Mike (and Ghost Chompy)

Jumping on Mike's question, if you had no jobs, no family, no commitments, etc...and could live anywhere in the whole world, where would it be? - Ex-Roomie

I have lived in Sterling for over a decade now, and while Rebecca was once eager to consider other places to live, she now often mentions how much of a hassle the actual process of moving is. So, we aren't looking, but that doesn't mean we're here forever.

The place I would move without limitations is the same as the place I would retire (as discussed in a previous Answers Day): somewhere with beach access, high-speed Internet, and many stores or fast delivery services.

What book should I read for fun next? - Ex-Roomie

Complete and Utter Failure by Neil Steinberg. URI! Zone grade: A

Why do developers keep telling me their stuff is ready to test, when it clearly doesn't work? - Groovymarlin

From direct experience, it's because your development team has not formally defined the word "done". Most developers have a half-baked concept of "done" meaning that "the work satisfies my understanding of the intended design", or "it's functionally complete and I'll polish it later". I actually created some definitions for a situation where this was occurring last year. Steal or refine at will.

For major features, "done" means that:

• Work has passed through a formal code review by the dev team, or an informal code review by the technical lead.
• Developer has confirmed that all documented use cases in the design doc are supported.
• Developer has confirmed that all documented test cases in the design doc pass.
• Developer has met the coding and UI standards of the team.

For minor features and bug fixes, "done" means that:

• Developer has confirmed that reported issue is resolved.
• Developer has considered potential cases where this fix might break something else.
• Developer has met the coding and UI standards of the team.

Testers need to have test cases done earlier than normal, developers need to be on board with the definitions, and management needs to understand that the predicted test schedule can only be met if the work is truly "done" when passed over the fence.

Are you keeping your blog so that you can refer to it years from now to write a multi-volume work akin to Marcel Proust's Remembrance of Things Past? - Mom

The blog itself is already a multi-volume work. In this new age of web publishing where you get a book deal just for having a blog, all you have to do is convert your old content into shovelware, printing it all out and wrapping a binding around it.

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