Why Oh Why

A key skill in my career, I think, has been to ask the question ‘Why?’ (and ‘What?’ and ‘How…?’) repeatedly — often when no-one is specifically asking me.

Sometimes this occurs without really wanting it to; I need to see the latest version of some code-base or other and so I start with an ‘Update’ to my checkout of their subbversion project.  And then I see it… hundreds of files added to a project that ‘ought’ to be fairly stable… but wait; don’t I know something about that path?

Yes I do!

That path is populated with xcopy in their project post-build from a different project. Why then are they checking-in files that are effectively generated? Have they mitigated for this by deleting what are now duplicate files elsewhere? No… they don’t appear to have done that.  Oh wait… I see from the log that they are referencing a ticket that they passed to us for testing last week.

What?

Why are they still working on a ticket they have passed to us for testing?

And so on.

Why – after taking 6 weeks on a ticket that should have been the work of an afternoon are they now modifying things after they have supposedly finished their work?

And most importantly… why is my client still working with this supplier?