This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Java Buzz by Thomas Gideon. Original Post: Two Weeks and Still Struggling Feed Title: Command Line Interface Feed URL: http://www.gideonfamily.org/roller/rss/cmdln?catname=Java Feed Description: The blog of a programmer-hacktivist-curmudgeon who occasional rants about society, work, and technology, among other things. Now how do I get to a command prompt on this thing? Latest Java Buzz Posts Latest Java Buzz Posts by Thomas Gideon Latest Posts From Command Line Interface

I've been at the new job two weeks and I am still struggling for a handle on the situation. Steve has been helpful as he tends to be more extroverted and through chatting with a lot of folks, has gathered some important facts about the project we are working on.

Basically, we are only porting a small piece of the existing application, the simplest piece. But the risks are huge, mostly because of the third part vendor for a tool to convert the legacy Cobol code to Java. Well, the current theory is that this vendor wrote their tool for Microsoft's .NET, first, then ported it to J2EE. So the support libraries are overly complex and seem to have a lot of features we just don't need but have to deal with. And the forward engineered code is some of the worst Java code I have ever seen.

I spent four solid days this past week re-factoring one of the simpler, smaller screens. Four days doing about an 80% job just so I could get through all the code. I really needed to spend another four days on fit-and-finish, as well as another four days on unit testing. But I had a deadline to write a document on my findings. So Friday, while suffering through a cold and the mild depression I've had since taking the job, I completed a twelve page assessment and recommendation.

I'm not optimistic that the document is going to be understand, either internally or by the vendor. I am not optmistic that even if the vendor understands that they have the time, resources, or ability to improve their tool to reduce all of the risk they are putting on us. And if we don't finish this GUI port and meet at least the minimum expectations of management, that's it.

So I am just going to try to see how the next few weeks go and in the meantime, I have re-activated my confidential profile on Monster and updated my resume based on recent interview experiences. Either my concerns with my current job will be addressed to a minimum satisfaction or I have no qualms about going elsewhere.