Don’t fix the issue in the software. Improve the process. 

Yesterday one of the features on our platform did not work. I was in a meeting, demonstrating it over a shared screen and talking with a potential client. I went to the page showing the IS Editor in our buildin3d.com platform and the editor for editing the assembly instructions did not start. A little rush of embarrassment and a few milliseconds later I knew what I had to do. Thanks to my seniority and extended experience in the world of web development I moved my fingers lighting fast on the keyboard and I refreshed the page. The editor started. The demonstration continue.

I could remember that I stumbled upon this issue a few days earlier and I saw that the IS Editor was not loading when you first visit the page. The meeting continue, I said something like “Sometimes when we are sharing the screen my bandwidth is small so we have to wait”. I suppose the client did not exactly understood what has just happen, but what I know is that the next time they try it on their side it will not work and they will be disappointed.

Right after the meeting there was a problem I was facing. Should I now open the repo and start debugging or should I wait a day or two for our team to look at this.

One of the most difficult things running a Software company as a good software developer is the patience to wait for the team of developers to resolve an issue.

I was close to mad. How difficult could it be? After you commit something just go to the platform and see that it works. We have a lot of automation, a lot of testing and spec that have helped us a lot. We have a clean and I would say quite fast process for releasing a new version of any module to the platform. It takes anywhere from 2 minutes to about 20 minutes depending on what you are releasing. So after you release something just go and see and test and try it and make sure it works. How difficult could it be?

I was mad. Like naturally and really mad. Not that this demonstration was almost ruined by this issue. I was mad that we’ve spend about 3-4 months working on this editor and it currently does not start. It is not true that the editor itself is not working. It is just not starting. Once it starts it works flawlessly, but a mis-configuration in the way it is started prevents it from even starting.

It’s like getting to your Ferrary and it does not start because of law battery on your key or something. There is nothing wrong with the Ferrary itself, but your key is not working.

In this state of anger I opened up the repo. I tracked down the moment it was introduced. And here is the dilemma:

  1. Should I now start debugging it, and resolving it?
  2. Should I just revert the last 11 days of commits and return the platform to a previous state completely removing the great improvements we’ve introduced in this last 11 days?
  3. Should I leave it for the next few days for the team to look at?

The worst part is that I can fix the issue myself. But that is not my job. My team counts on me to spend more of my time with potential & existing clients, talking and discussing with them. Looking for ways they could integrate us. But in the same time I had an issue where a major feature is not working and will not work for the next few days and in one sleepless night I could resolve it.

I don’t have this problem with the other departments. When there is an issue with some of the 3D product animations and models or there is an issue with some of the engineering designs I do not feel the urge to go and resolve this issue. I have the patience to rely on the team for this. Basically because I lack the knowledge and the tools to resolve such issues.

Years ago when we were starting with 3D animations and models I had great interest, but I openly refused to install any software about 3D animations and models on my machine. I knew myself and I knew my team. In school an in university and was trying some 3D models and animations and it felt great. I learned a lot and I had some great time working on such projects. So I knew that if I install some of the software on my machine there will be issue that will come to me, but that was not my role in my organization.

Same for engineering. I have the complete patience to wait for days for an engineering design task to complete. I never start the SOLIDWORKS myself and go on and “fix the things”. I could. I just don’t want as it will distract me from other important things and I know I can count on the engineers to do it.

But with software it is always a little difficult. Not that I can not delegate. I can. There are large parts of the code we are running that I have never touched, or changed or anything. So I though – why was this particular issue different? What was my problem? Why was it bothering me? Why was this different from any other issue in software development that is reported, debugged and resolved. Where did the anger come from?

I was angry because the process I’ve setup has allowed for this issue to occur.

The IS Editor was working a few days ago. Now it was not working. This was not an issue of my software development skills, this was a challenge for my “organizing a software development process that produces a working software and deploys it to production a few times a day in a team with a large code base and a new R&D challenge that we were working on”.

This I have found in my experience to be the most difficult problem for good software developers that mediocre and bad software developers do not face. When you know how to fix it, how to implement it and you take on the task then your time and energy is spend on resolving the issue. It might be better for the team as a whole if you spend your energy and resources on a different tasks – like how to avoid a regression in a multi-teams multi-frameworks environment.

Know what is important and where your efforts would be most valuable. I’ve stepped up and did a lot of software development int he team. I’ve single-handedly implemented a number of frameworks. Not just the architecture, but actual implementation. I once deleted two human years of development and re-implemented the whole module almost from scratch. There is even a saying in the team “Kiril will roll up his sleeves and will implement this”.

But no.

There will always be issues in software development and we should think if our task is to resolve this issues, or to make sure this issues never occur in the first place. The later is objectively the more important and difficult task.