Sarah moved from current project, update no longer coming?

[Ralph Vargr]

This is why we don't talk about work in public forums - its too easy for discussions to get out of hand particularly when only a fraction of the information is public.

I had my own work put on hold at the start of the week - increase the risk on something that is going well to 'fix' something that seems to be going off plan (in my case). 2 different projects, threads aligned on different deadlines, different commercial impact resulting from predictions of progress.

The more competent developers (particularly in larger organisations where there is more flexibility in the planning) are always at risk of diversion due to illness, failing plans or requirements changes - comes with the territory.

Coding/programming skill is always going to be a limited resource. It is innate, for the ability that matters. It *cannot* be taught. It is a creative talent, and therefore is subject to all the human weaknesses of sports, media, etc...

If a winning fund manager quits, sell your shares, because the winning gambler has quit. In baseball, losing the star pitcher is the same. The list goes on.

 

[Samosa]

Some work needed more attention than other, so at the office, they made adjustments.

/thread.

Additional: employee published frustrations on social media, causing a 60 page (and counting) angst thread.

/thread

 

[Vandaahl]

Nice. Thanks for that. Hope all is well with SJA though.

Me too, but same goes for David, Michael, Edwards, Zac...

<counts fingers>

...and anyone else I might have forgot to mention.

- - - Updated - - -

Additional: employee published frustrations on social media, causing a 60 page (and counting) angst thread.

/thread

Very professional indeed.

 

[Monk]

An application/ business / systems analyst?! I thought that role went extinct by the same way as the Dodo! Shot to extinction! By the RAD sales people. They're still about but now peddle other short-cut magic wands called Extreme Programming, agile, RUP, Iconix, TDD, scrum etc. Just like they sold the 'Waterfall' 'methodology' to easily impressed and innovative-less management suits.
Things never change!
I feel for you too!
I'd give you a hug but I'm told not associate with the likes of you, you lot are deemed subversive!

The call us product owner/scrum master/guy who is unafraid of the dev bear cave, now.

Whatever they want to call us, if you need someone who understands developers and can still speak full sentences after a few pitchers with business folk then I'm your guy!

Let business folk talk to devs...people get fired.

The process models, methodologies and whatever else always change (the proocess monkey BAs are always trying to validate their existence) but there will always be a need for a technically minded business person that can understand executive jargon (and see through thier many lies and crappy attitudes) while at the same time understanding how to keep a team of devs working towards a goal.

I don't care what methodology you want to call it, when I come into a new company, I demand a few things. Give me three devs, 4 QAs, 1 QA Engineer and a BA intern. I'll need complete autonomy to accomplish the goals a of a specific enhancement/build. Allow me to make documentation only when needed (I'm not spending Q1 to write requirements for the next 2 years of dev, yuck). And give me beer money for the team to relax on Fridays.

For the companies that have allowed me to do that, my goodness, great things happen. One day, I'll have my own dev firm...one day. Just need to find a software gap somewhere and specialize in it.

 

[Parmo]

ITIL is the biggest joke in the history of management... and IT. When you have lost all connection with what your business is, does and needs to do: ITIL, a framework for those with no clue.

A bigger joke is how many companies rely on Assyst for their itsm needs.

I'm dying to know what FD 'methodologies' employ in developing their software; pure professional curiosity.
Might be ITIL! Ooh, scary thought!

 

[Ralph Vargr]

AI is banned in the ED universe
Official fiction may mention AI in it
AM SURE Galnet mentioned rogue AI
There are multiple 'other sentients' out there not just Thargoids
Therefore our next threat will be from killer AI.
SJA, as an AI programmer has been digitised and put into the game as bossAI.

Yay!

By Elvis, this is plausible! SJA vs the MCP!

 

[Heavenly-Hammer]

I see no reason to assume that she's not been moved either temporarily or permanently to a more important task. I'm sure her work will not simply die; it's probably just been reprioritized and will be revisited at a later date or picked up and completed by another developer. Or maybe she finished it and it's ready to go for 1.4.

If she's not fired, there's no reason for worry. Here's to hoping whatever she's working on now will be awesome.

 

[Monk]

I think it is safe to assume, at this point and based on Zac's response (which is fine as is, just needed to be many hours sooner), that there will be no further news on this until SJA can return to her minions (guessing after 1.5).

So, lets just chill a bit...

 

[Jaeger]

Do you mean there was only ONE person working on AI? I'd always assumed Sarah headed a team.

This explains a lot.

 

[Darkphoenix]

I think he was talking about business in general. Certainly I, and many in the IT business, have very specific corporate guidelines about how you present yourself and your opinions in a work sense. I appreciate game development in this day and age is expected to be a bit more 'social', because that's the buzzword of the Teenies... but it's a bit of a balancing act...

Yeah, don't know if "expected to be a bit more 'social'" was a slam at my post but I can assure you I am not a teenie :|

 

[Banana's_Are_Good_For_You]

Fail quote, ignore.

 

[Renegade Roach]

Sorry but I disagree. I've also worked in the games industry (and the music industry, and recognised art form and I can tell you a lot of the time it's also down to money not passion).

And I can tell you this forum post has destroyed any chance of SJA being able to come back and do what she does on these forums, or anyone else.

Yeah, I worked in music as well and yes lots of stuff comes down to money. That wasn't my point. In much the same way that music fans want to believe that producers, bands and ultimately labels care about what they are releasing, so gamers feel about this industry. On a pure project management side you can argue it's the same as designing the software for cash machines for X bank, but in reality it's not. Indicative of that is the way so many people are disillusioned with the big AAA companies and their , corporate marketing jargon and 'cash uber alles' attitude. It's part of the reason the kickstarter for this game was so successful. You can't simply write human emotion out of it because it doesn't suit an argument or standpoint. If FD go that route they may well find very quickly that once loyal fans turn their backs.

 

[Jaeger]

Very professional indeed.

Is someone mixing up the terms professional and subservient slave again... .

 

[Banana's_Are_Good_For_You]

I have a friend who's a banana. He's a good guy, if a bit molecularly unstable from time to time. I hope there are scientists working on this horrible illness afflicting your people. We all know what happened to Big Mike. o7

Big Mike was one of the first to discover another form of Banana on a planet called Earth, in the Sol System.
However, his untimely demise was not associated with any disease afflicting our species. We do, however, suspect that the Earths atmosphere may have been responsible.
One thing was for certain, his remains were not a pretty sight.




If your Space Banana Friend is starting to go a bit off colour, our latest research suggests that traveling in Space may slow this degradation.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

What I do not like about those tweets - posting job issues can kill your carrier (edit: loss of carrier? ) easily at FD and in any other company...

Correct. It would take something serious to break discipline. SJA is not stupid. Looking at the timing, it seems Frontier mgmt did something particularly unfeeling (and before she expected it, even though she had some warning), and she vented. All of us make mistakes.

 

[Monk]

Correct. It would take something serious to break discipline. SJA is not stupid. Looking at the timing, it seems Frontier mgmt did something particularly unfeeling (and before she expected it, even though she had some warning), and she vented. All of us make mistakes.

Yep, you might even guess that every reply in this thread causes SJA to kick herself. I can't imagine she feels very good, atm, unless the new thing is super interesting (which it probably isn't as interesting as her minions).

 

[Ralph Vargr]

It seems a lot of you don't know how a company works or think you have a right to know what is going on just because you bought a game, well you don't nor do FD have any obligation to explain themselves to you.

Look up the term "stakeholders". Thank you.

 

[Monk]

Look up the term "stakeholders". Thank you.

I think we lost that role once the game was released. Now we are just a sounding board that is often muted, me thinks.

 

[ZeeWolf]

Look up the term "stakeholders". Thank you.

Rarely the same as a customer

 

[Ralph Vargr]

I start to wonder if PR and communication is by default a non excitant skill in software development companies, or should I say game development companies? I mean CIG (SC) is terrible at communication, and foot in mouth is more common than good communication.

They are geeks, just like us. Those who rise to higher levels of management would never tend to be [redacted].