Setting Standards

Well, the powers on high have decided to "take a step back and get our bearings"... whatever they really mean, I'm not sure I want to know. What it means for me is that I'm now on the "Architecture team" (team of 2 by the way) and we are to create a corporate software architecture and standard. Which in layman's terms mean I meet with R almost daily for a theory/bs/problem solving session for an hour to two hours (or more at times). I personally feel like nothing's getting done. He thinks we're making *great* progress. Guess it all depends on your point of view.

Standards have a place, they really do. Put a coding standard in place and anyone can pick up the code and maintain it with little hassle over how it was written. But coding standards more times than not go WAY too far, forcing developers to pay more attention to how they spell variables than what they're supposed to be coding! I just don't feel right about it I guess. In the end, I'm more of a contractor / consulting guy I think. I was good at it too, I actually had customers specifically request me during contract negotiations back then! How cool is that?

Well, maybe this coding standard stuff won't take too long. Maybe it just feels like its gonna take months and really it'll take a few weeks. Not that we have a few weeks to spare really. R's not aware of the code and backend pieces that already exist... it'll take time to get him up to speed on 5 years of software evolution.