Daynote ,Svenson

MM-cxxxvii     Tuesday

2000-05-16

We are still baking, same temperatures, with still rising humidity. A weather turn is predicted for tomorrow.

I got to define a bunch of files for TOS, the E-commerce 'version' of TeleSales. The original concept was to provide a subset of the TeleSales functionality over a browser interface to a select group of customers. The people from Progress that are designing it don't know TeleSales. Pieter and Theo have to guide the project but neither of them know TeleSales well. The result is that new functions are creeping in that have no counterpart in either TeleSales or OMSI-3. There is no objection to adding new features per se but we (Ronny and me) notice that these features are not essential and are a bit overshooting the original aim. Fine for a general e-commerce application but not fitting in our current database design. The result will be pretty but with performance problems. And a lack of maintenance procedures.
For example the new files I made today have a nice normalized design. That is fine for theory but not optimal for performance. Now, while we were forbidden to add to the database in version V7.8 for TOS everything is allowed so these files are added to V7.8. That doesn't sit well. Of course later, when the performance problems crop up we will not be allowed to change the files cause, hey that is V7.8 and that cannot be changed any more.
Another point is that no maintenance programs for these files is requested. These programs however don't fit in TOS but belong in OCS or OMSI-3. So I expect to get a panic request for them by the 14th of June (on the 15th TOS has to be finished and deployed).

Welcome to Corporate culture.

I did not check out the news today. Again. Is the world still turning?