Rampidbyter Rampid byter: A byte of my .Net developing life.

Yes indeed I got me one of them PIC boards. I bought a book recently to get myself up to par with a friend whom is deeply engaged in embedded programming. I’m going to work with my friend off and on for the next undetermined period of time on a robotics project. So in order to get my knowledge level up to his I’ve been trying to train myself programming in C, and programming embedded systems. I’ve actually found myself giggling while reading the C programming books because they were written (most of them) well before I was born. The one I was reading last night was published in 83’ and referred to the ANSI standard as the assumed standard that may or may not be adopted in 87’. It’s like a mini trip back in time with these books, but it seems anymore I’ve started very high level then started moving backwards.

Anyway, got off topic there, but I bought a PIC programming board, two microprocessors, and the devices required to flash the software to the MCU. Using my UC email address I secured myself a nice little 25% off instant discount, and am expecting the device to arrive sometime in the next three weeks.

On a personal note it’s getting closer to Valentines day the corporate day of the year that men (and maybe lesbians) are forced to bestow gifts upon their loved ones. Should we fail in this bestowment of goodies to the womenfolk there is often a swift and unjust punishment. Both that and they cry, and if they cry you don’t want that model because her seals are cracked (not to mention her brain.)

So again, this year like all the rest, I’m stuck trying to figure out what to get her. I think last year she got me things, and I got her a strange look on my face. I’m never a good person to ask about when important dates happen. I forget my own birthday most years.

Ugh, I’m very stressed out at work. I have one application I’ve been re-writing for the last month. It’s take a long time to get it to work well. Yesterday was the point to which I’ve completely gutted and re-wrote the entire application. I deleted the last comment/code piece written by the previous developer. I’ve had to do that with a lot of his programs. I was originally brought on in order to finish these projects with a final debug. Ha, final debug in that the thing was finally put to rest and a new one born from my code. New programmers have a lot to learn, and unfortunately companies not properly training them just lets them learn on their own through trial and error. Usually the error is what happens when they run these programs, and when the people leave the company is left to suffer through. I’ve had to re-write five applications thus far with more coming. I’m still working on the project I was brought on to finish before January, but due to in-development on the full blown system I’m stuck in the holding line. We’re working hard to get this pushed out. The other four apps build on top of the output generated from the main application, which the business actually runs on. So for the moment I generate output from the main app, hand off the data files, another guy takes them into Excel, and formats the output. From there it goes off for use in production assembly. So we’re trying to get the main app published, and I’m building the four other applications that present the data to users instead of Excel sheets. These other programs facilitate change in the business flow, and allow the user to make on the fly changes to the information instead of submitting a mocked up Excel document. Anyway, still working so I’d better get back because my test case is just about finished.