2007-12-10 Life Is What Happens While You're Busy Making Other Plans

This is going to be technical, but I need to write it or else I'm going to explode.
At work we have a script that creates and fills a database. For every change of the script there must be a patch to update an existing database. The idea is that you cannot distinguish a database that has been created with the very first version of the script and then patched continuously from another database that has been created with the latest script.
Unfortunately, you need to do virtually the same work twice (change the script and create a patch), because there is no way the patch can be created automatically. So every now and then shit happens and the patch is broken. In that case you add an additional patch to fix the previous one. If the damage is too big you declare the previous version invalid. Under no circumstances should you modify an existing patch.
Here's the reason: Imagine somebody patched an existing database with a bad patch. You don't know that and fix the patch. Now the same person patches another database with the (now modified) patch. The two database are different, although they were treated with the "same" patch. That's pretty bad and difficult to debug. Every idiot knows that: DO NOT MODIFY EXISTING PATCHES. If you do you're a fucking idiot.
I understand it's only human to try and hide every trace of a mistake. But in this context, it's not only unprofessional, it's wrong.

You can imagine my surprise/fury when two of my co-workers told me that they actually do that quite a lot. "Yes, we know why it shouldn't be done. But in this case it doesn't matter. It's only a few lines, the customer won't know. By and by you will learn that sometimes it's okay to do that anyway."

I was able to maintain my self-control, but it gave me an awful headache.

Two more days and I will be out of there...

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Oh, and I've been to the emission check today. Done.

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After work, Ines and I made Christmas cookies at her place. In the breaks we watched Phoenix 2772. I must say she has quite an interesting taste in movies. And she's a geek, too! Here's a good example: The lamp in her oven is broken, so we couldn't really see when the cookies were due. At least we couldn't have seen if Ines hadn't had a torch light in her kitchen for exactly these purposes. Straightforward, yet clever. If it wasn't for my plans to go to New Zealand, I think she and I might have become really good friends.

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PS: To be completely honest, it's already Tuesday. I just checked my emails and guess what happened. They really checked in a whole bunch of modified patches. So much for pair review. Fools!