DREWspective

In contrast to my unfinished rant about Propel, I just love Subversion.

It is, however, a bit of a bitch to get working how I wanted it. Actually, that’s not quite fair; the problem lay with TortoiseSVN, which I shall explain later.

For the uninitiated, Subversion is what’s called a version control program: it keeps track of the different versions of files you manage. Think of it as a kind of incremental backup system, or the Reviewing feature in Word. It’s mostly used for developing programs, and because of the nature of the app, it’s widely used for developing web sites and web applications.

I’m using it for building my project Foley, and so far I haven’t done much with it except try to set it up. It’s primarily a Unix resource, but there are (not very many) ways of setting it up on Windows, provided you have an NT-based operating system (Windows 2000 upwards).

Recently I set up a testing server on my laptop, and wanted to use my main computer as an SVN server. Having installed Subversion and TortoiseSVN on both computers, I thought it would be a straightforward process.

Not fucking so.

I won’t bore you with all the details, but basically the only way of connecting to the repository on the main computer that worked was using SVN from the command line; TortoiseSVN refused to do the work. I’m still not sure why.

The only thing to do now is move the repository to somewhere other than the testing server’s document root. Is this possible?

• Not done
• Not working
• No changes made
• Not fixed

I’m racking my brain as I write, but I can’t think of a single other "bug report" that gets on my thickwick more than the above. And now you’re going to find out why.

First of all, whether you’re a web developer, programmer or someone who works on some kind of long-term project, you’ve probably come across some guidelines for submitting "bugs", or as I prefer to call them, tickets.

("Bugs" always imply that something is wrong, and in recent times I’ve heard the term being used for feature requests and tweaks.)

Unfortunately, you may have been in a company, or "team", where the policy is to make these "bugs" as vague and nondescript as possible. I’ve been in three such places to date.

On several occasions I’ve been presented with a "bug" that looked something like this:

012345: product price not showing

not working - pls fix

and every time I’ve wanted to retort with

please be more vague

but I can’t do that, because I’ve been brought up on "cynical" comments already. That’s how serious this is.

So what is the problem?

The first thing is, you may have already addressed the issue at hand, whether you’re working on it or you’ve done the work. You might have spent valuable time and energy implementing a solution. But because the other person can’t see the result, they automatically decide that it hasn’t been done, rather than double-checking on their end for anything that could hinder progress.

I remember one good example from when I was relatively new to permanent work. The company had decided to use some (what was then) esoteric method of updating a site, where I would edit a file and then have to copy it using Dreamweaver to somewhere else, where another developer would do some more work on it.

Well, I had made the necessary updates to the pages, and to the best of my knowledge had followed the instructions. The next morning I received an e-mail basically telling me that none of the updates had been done, followed by a written tongue-lashing. And if that wasn’t enough, the Technical Director joined in soon after and had a dig at me as well.

That was an extreme case, which ultimately hammered the final nail in the coffin and resulted in my resignation. That’s an example of what can happen when people get lazy and make assumptions.

The second thing is, a "bug report" like "not done", "not working" etc. gives you next to no information. You don’t know what exactly is not working, what kind of problem it is, or whether it is actually working instead.  You end up wasting valuable time asking questions and gleaning information, or—worse yet—try to figure out what the problem is yourself. I’ve been in at least one company where they insisted I asked questions, but threw things right back at me (on occasion) when I did.

These kinds of statements are controlling; as long as you don’t know what the real issue is, they are controlling you. It must be handled appropriately, and if they refuse to help you, leave.

Today I’ve added a new category for my posts here on DREWspective: language. I think it’s important enough to warrant having its own category.

Language—here in the UK at least—is something that people either piss on or use as a manipulative tool. Some people either deliberately misspell words they don’t even know the meaning of, or they use words to control people. Maybe even both.

Nowhere is it more abused than in schools and educational establishments, which is unforgivable in my book as you’re dealing with kids. But you’ve also got to watch out for it at work. I’ve been in my current job for just under two months, and already I’ve heard a series of disturbing, common language themes. (You may have heard me mention it before.)

We’ll start today with one that recently cropped up, and one of my all-time most hated pet hates:

Need.

When someone tells you they need something.

When someone tells you they need you to do something.

When someone tells you that you need to do something.

When someone tells you that something needs to be done.

Some of you reading this will probably say, "do you really need to talk about this?" I rather stupidly asked about it on Yahoo! Answers once, and got a very similar answer. To those people: fuck you, I’m talking.

Wayne Dyer said in one of his audiobooks that a need is something that, if you don’t have it, will immobilise you.

I’ve certainly had times where I felt I really "needed" something: the foam shapes from the US, for example, is something I "need" to continue making the chibiModels, so until them I "can’t" continue work on them. But there you go; I put can’t in quotes, because there are other things (such as painting the heads) that I could do.

You’ve probably heard people talk about how some people feel they "need" a particular thing to be happy, to be rich, or to progress to the next level. Without this thing, they feel like they can’t change. It’s like when you have a craving for a particular food, and you can eat as much of any other kind of food as you want, but unless you have that food, you won’t be satisfied.

There are of course times when the need is genuine. The only basic needs for people are oxygen and water (in my opinion), but some people could have a few more. I’d argue that having faith in something is also a need, even if it’s having faith in not having faith.

My beef, is with people who use the word need as a controlling force. These are people who throw it around, like a sadistic master goes around whipping their slaves, or someone who feels the need to put a curse—or "lol"—in every single sentence. These people are only interested in manipulating others, and the word "need" is usually synonymous with "getting people to do" something.

There are much more relevant alternatives: is required; this must be; I would like; I want; is supposed to; and many more. There’s no excuse.

Just remember that you have a right to define for yourself what you "need"; don’t let anyone define your "needs" for you. As Brian Tracy once said, just wave one finger at them and move on.