Not being able to do anything without permission
Working as a Software Engineer for a University, we use to be able to release non-tested buggy software to our clients without so much as a question raised.

Now, we have to fill in a 7 page document that proves it has been tested and who is to blame when it goes wrong. Then attend a meeting to discuss and approve or deny the document, which is ridiculous in its own regard because no-one at this meeting has a clue what these systems are. To then release the same non-tested buggy software because the fucking client tests it by just looking at the pages and clicking some buttons.

We can't even make the release ourselves, we have to get someone to basically open a explorer window the live server and get the contents of the release folder copied over. If we make any DB changes then we have to get two people that sit in the same room to coordinate the release as one person can't do the same job (apparently).

All because of things like "Security" and "Responsibility" as well as documenting every change so we know what happens where. In my day it was you release, then fix, then re-release, then fix...

Kinda bleeds into the previous question a bit but it still gets my goat that I have to jump through so many hoops to make a release but someone higher up than me can take down the entire network and write a "retrospective" document which basically says "whoops"
(cosmothecoder Spinning round and round on his desk chair, Thu 1 Mar 2012, 16:25, 3 replies)

Why...
...would you want to release non-tested, buggy software?
(SiFwappy, Thu 1 Mar 2012, 20:16, closed)

We don't really...
Well we don't want to release non-tested buggy software... but we used to have to as we had deadlines. Plus the only tests that were carried out was mainly us testing it to the best of our ability and then some half-wit coming looking at it briefly and signing it off, not realising that if it went wrong it would be on their shoulders.

Now that we can do Test Driven Development (It's taken two years to get the platform built to do this) things should be better.

But it still is annoying that we have to follow a system that makes no sense, especially when we could automate it.
(cosmothecoder Spinning round and round on his desk chair, Thu 1 Mar 2012, 20:35, closed)

if you're coding for cheap oriental novelty goods when the net result of a bug is you have to take the batteries out
then I agree. I have to deal with buggy software releases that regulate a system which has the potential to cost millions in warranty, cause safety-related issues and have the capability to destroy the hardware it is supposed to be controlling- not just temporarily lose someone's e-mail folder or make LEDs blink green-red instead of red-yellow. So... your complaint may be valid but in some cases all that extra apparatus and accountability is neccessary.
( Rotating Wobbly Hat That's not a banana. THIS is a banana., Sat 3 Mar 2012, 12:55, closed)