28 Steps to Yak Farming

In the effort to automate some internal development processes, I wrote to Tom, a friend of mine who I know experiences some of the process pain:

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From: Ben Booth
Sent: Monday, April 25, 2005 12:22 PM
To: Tom Klancer
Subject: Tiny request...

At a high-level, could you guys describe your workflow for ReadMe.txt and Fixes and Enhancements?  When I get little moments of 'spare' time, I work on this little something to automate away some of your pain.  I want to focus my efforts on worst pain points. 

 

-ben

Here is his response:

1) Mutter "Damnit, I hate doing the readme.  Why can't someone else do it?  It's not like anyone READS the damn thing."
2) Repeat for 3 or 4 days
3) Open up template and make half-assed attempt to look for relevant issues in Siebel.
4) Send pleading email to developers/doc/etc. for issues that need to be included.  Forget to include a deadline.
5) Wait for responses
6) Wait for responses
7) Wait for responses
8) Send out a follow-up email (including a deadline this time) begging for responses
9) Get flood of emails 10 minutes before the deadline
10) Try to reword incoherent trax entries into something suitable for a readme.
11) Get another flood of emails for issues people forgot about until just now.
12) Try to incorporate new mails into template
13) Look for more siebel entries until it crashes.
14) Look at the globalization section in despair, noting that it requires far more testing than you've actually done yet.
15) Leave globalization section mostly empty.
16) Finally get a very rough draft together and send it out for review.
17) Get snarky comments back from globalization that they look forward to seeing globalization section when it's finished
18) Add globalization stuff after actually doing the testing
19) Hand it off to doc writer so they can suffer too.
20) Get 50 questions from doc writer about incoherent portions
21) Lather.  Rinse.  Repeat.
22) "Finalize" readme
23) Discover new issue that requires a readme update.
24) Update readme, check in.
25) Discover new issue that requires a readme update.
26) Update readme, check in.
27) Discover new issue that requires a readme update.
28) Give up in frustration, take up Yak farming in the Ukraine

 That´s pretty high level, but it gives an accurate feel...
(I'll send a real one later)

 -Tom