On work and music and summertime
So I’ve not blogged for ages. Nothing new there, I hear the masses cry – at least, I would, if the total audience of this blog was large enough to be described by the term ‘the masses’.
Why the silence? Well, it’s largely because things of great interest have been happening. I know that’s not the traditional reason not to blog, but when searching for a job one doesn’t really wish to shout about it too much on the Internet in a form which will be easy for one’s prospective employers to find – not that I have a moment’s doubt that there’s already a whole pile of incriminating information out there about me. Evidently none of it was really serious, because I got a job and have been working full time for three weeks now. It’s not my dream job, I shall be honest, but it’s a job and it’s a pretty good one really. The pay’s entirely reasonable, the office environment is fantastic, and the people are also nice. The commute could only be better if it was a short walk down the road (rather than a short walk, a reasonable tram ride and another short walk after that).
The major problem is that, as with all software development which takes place against a background of established code, there’s established code. A lot of it. Ten years and more of it. Much of it is poorly documented (by which I mean not documented in any way whatsoever). Quite a bit of it is poorly written, having suffered from the many demons associated with haste, neglect and modification by other people (hint: documentation helps with that). It seems intentions are changing. My team have generally agreed that code should be documented and so forth. Unfortunately we’re now arguing about how it should be documented, but at least it’s a start.
Music things have been on a bit of a hiatus. As it’s the summer, many groups and lessons have been disrupted. I’ve not had any viol or recorder lessons for ages, and my only outlet is playing Telemann sonatas all afternoon at the weekend (I’m sure my neighbours are simply delighted…) and going to SRP once a month, which is an absolute lifesaver. I can’t wait for the start of the school year to return groups and lessons to normality, although I will miss playing with the University early music group.
Still, you can’t have everything.