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Month: March 2025

All too accurate about scrum

All too accurate about scrum

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Developer: “Yesterday was mostly meetings. I wrote some code, but there was backlog grooming sync, then a retro, then another meeting about improving our meeting efficiency.”
Lead: “My friend, one glorious day we will simply do the work instead of talking about it for hours”

How is this an improvement from waterfall development? Meetings should serve a purpose and have a clear outcome or decision. Meeting should have the minimal people needed to avoid disruption. Steve Jobs threw people out of meetings if they weren’t necessary to the decision being made. There should be no meeting if there is no decision.

Scrum is too often poor at timely decision making. Instead of meeting after meeting in which everyone has to be present and people with stronger wills get their way too often; I have found a subset of scrum meetings can, and should, be done by just the people needed with a report out generated for others to remain in sync and give feedback if they were wrong. Example: PO’s exploring feasibility for direction don’t need the whole team there to make estimates. One or two senior folks can give good enough estimates. The whole team doesn’t need to be involved in a component design discussion – leave it to the story owners who then double-check if it doesn’t impact others. Map day shouldn’t be an 8 hour long snooze fest about scoping each story from scratch. If the scoping/design work is done by people interested in those stories before you get there, they can present a single slide on the estimate/work and get any critical feedback. Team leads and the PO can do backlog grooming alone.

Yes, this is a bit of a twist on the scrumm idea that the entire team commits to a delivery – but some decisions can be made by senior/trusted individuals owning the story/architecture.

Loading Collada files for Maya and 3DSMax

Loading Collada files for Maya and 3DSMax

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Collada was an interchange file format for 3D application that started around 2004 and largely died around 2016. I actually worked in a group with Remi Arnaud when it was being used for a project at Intel.

It was a sound idea. With lots of 3d packages and engines out there, getting files from one tool or engine to another was never easy. Since every authoring tool and game uses different structures for storing mesh, material, animation data, etc – the Collada format tried to define a open-standard format to store these relationships in an XML style text file. This allowed maximum flexibility to define relationships; but had the unfortunate side effect of generating sometimes gigantic files that were extremely slow to load.

While it was an extremely flexible format for exchanging data between packages or game engines, once you got there, it was dramatically faster to use a native binary format. Trying to load or save a XML based file format to load a block of content often took 10-100x longer than a binary version. The speed alone meant that it wasn’t practical for any realtime purposes.

Additionally, supporting the entire Collada spec would mean supporting every kind of data relationship – even if the tool or game didn’t need it. It meant that loaders often only implemented the desired features – which meant that you were almost back to where you started from. Custom loaders and savers with limited features. Except Collada files were gigantic and slow to load/save. A real problem when your primary costs are the speed of your content development.

Collada’s practical use was therefore primarily in one or two time transfers between tools. As time went on, and tools and engines consolidated on a few efficient binary formats, formats such as Collada became less and less useful. By the early 2010’s, development and work on it largely died. The last loaders were apparently updated in 2018 and the github site that hosts the binary versions is kind of broken.

At any rate, if you do need to load an old Collada file (.dae, etc) then you’ll need a copy of 3D Studio Max or Maya, and a plugin loader. You can download one of the last collada loaders here.

Install the plugin (make sure Maya is closed) and then start your tool (Maya in my case).

Ensure the Collada plugin is loaded. Go to the Windows-> Settings/Preferences -> Plug-in Manager in Maya and ensure the fbxmaya, FBX, or ColladaMaya pluings are loaded and/or set to auto load:

When you want to import a Collada file, go to File->Import and select the fbx/collada file you want to load and it should load it up.

Links:

Heaven is a place of radical, unminimize truth

Heaven is a place of radical, unminimize truth

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It’s hard for us to conceptualize heaven, but we do know from saints and scripture that it is a place of complete fulfilment. That there are no secrets and all live in light and truth that is god.

But think about that: there are no secrets. You live in truth.

We also know that what we have done here on earth affects our experience of heaven. Those that have proven faithful will shine like the stars. Some that are last will be first, and some first shall be last. There will be distinctions – based on how we lived.

But think deeper – this means that every single person in this world we have encountered may be there. That at the last judgement, the nations will be laid out before the lord and we will all confront everyone in our lives we dealt with. Those we loved, those we hurt, those we cheated, the hard words we said, the lies we told about others, or even those we might have killed. If we expect to enter into heaven – where they may be – everything must be resolved and put right.

Do you live a life of hidden habits and behaviors? Hidden words? Hidden actions? Hidden infidelity? Do you live today with perfect honesty with those you love? Are your business deals honest and fair? Is there anything you do or say during the day you wouldn’t want EVERYONE to know? What if everyone knew your finances? How you conduct your business deals? How you pay or treat your workers? All of this will be on display to everyone – especially those it affects most.

If any of that makes you uncomfortable, then it’s time to evaluate your life and those actions. Because they must all be set aright before you can enter heaven.

Brit Floyd

Brit Floyd

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If you get a chance to see Brit Floyd, I can 100% recommend it to any Pink Floyd fan. It’s not a cover band – Pink Floyd officially licensed and let them play their songs under the condition they are exactly as they played them. And boy do they deliver.

Honest account of developer burnout

Honest account of developer burnout

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And here’s the thing about burnout—it’s not just exhaustion. It’s losing a piece of yourself.

I used to be a machine. An unstoppable, relentless force of will. A whirlwind of productivity. Thinking clearly, making decisions, holding massive amounts of information in my head—it was second nature. But after this? My brain fogged over. I’d sit down to solve a problem I’d spent years mastering… and I just couldn’t.

TomManages wrote one of the best accounts of the serious developer burnout I have ever read. It took him years to recover (fully?) from after working on Halo Wars 2. The comments about it on the gamedev forum were just as insightful.

I have been on a project like this in my early 20’s. Crunch and burnout like this are real. They take both professional and personal tolls. Some folks have to disengage from their career for months, years, or even permanently to recover. Sometimes folks never fully recover. Even if you do recover, you often find you have a new ceiling that is lower than before, or you start getting scared when you start getting those old feelings of being pulled too far. On a personal front, your mental health and relationships suffer. Many developers find themselves having to choose between game dev and having a family or a serious personal relationship/marriage. Relationship issues and divorces are common.

As I have gotten older, this kind of burnout seems to come with even less hours/mental strain. We don’t have the infinite energy of our 20’s forever. One of the things I’m most proud of is that when running a team of my own was reducing the crunch that was going on until we could deliver reliably, on-time, and without crunch.

Crunch that leads to burnout is a leadership failure. Period. Technical leaders cause this by mis-estimating time required for tasks, taking on too much technical complexity/risk that later turn into fire drills, or simply not doing their homework to ensure all the use cases and design pieces will work. Managers cause this by agreeing to ridiculous timelines, accepting marketing demands that should be out of scope, and poor change management that just keeps adding things instead of trading one task for another of equal complexity after the schedule is set.

Stuff you wish you knew beforehand: Home buying in Portland

Stuff you wish you knew beforehand: Home buying in Portland

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Interesting reddit thread from a potential buyer ‘What do you wish you knew about owning a house in Portland‘

  • Make sure you know when the roof needs to be replaced and adjust accordingly
    • Everywhere I know of is 2-layers for roofing layers. Chances are very, very high that if you want a house in Portland that’s not newer and near the outskirts, you’re going to need a full tear-off
    • If you’re buying a home with a new roof, MAKE SURE YOU ASK WHICH BRAND OF SHINGLES AND WHO INSTALLED IT. If they can’t get you that information, assume it was installed by a homeowner or their friends with the cheapest material possible.
    • Asphalt shingles are NOT sold with year statement warranties anymore. All asphalt shingles are sold with “limited lifetime” warranties now, but what that means is entirely dependent on manufacturer.
    • Shingle manufacturers that operate or sell in the PNW are required to have algae resistance in their shingles. It’s not some special premium thing that adds costs
    • Do not use/buy a house with IKO, GAF Timberline Natural Shadow, or Pabco anything shingles. These are all very low quality “new construction” shingles that, while technically having the same kind of warranty as higher end brands, are going to require 6 month maintenance and cleaning intervals and probably fail anyway. And good luck getting them covered
    • Certainteed sucks right now. 10 years ago they were good.
    • Malarkey is the best choice, Owen’s Corning is decent
    • Most shingle manufacturers have different levels or grades of quality. Owen’s Corning is Duration, GAF is Timberline HD, Malarkey is Vista, Pabco is Premier, Certainteed has Landmark Pro
  • A lot of old and mostly un-remodeled houses don’t have insulation. (I can 100% attest to this. There is literally no insulation in my walls)
  • Almost every house has some sort of major-ish issue that each owner will successively play hot potato with until finally it can’t be ignored any longer. Prepare yourself financially and have a plan B and C. 
  • When you get your inspections done before you close, I recommend hiring different types of inspectors (eg – electrician, plumber, etc) rather than an all-in-one that checks everything. They often miss things. 
    • Don’t skip radon + sewer scope.
    • Have the utilities marked like you were going to dig. In some neighborhoods, two houses sometimes share the outgoing waste line
    • Inspect for buried old heating oil and septic tanks. It was very common for these to be present and were often left with fuel in them when the building converted to electric. Hazardous waste cleanup is very expensive.
  • Make sure to understand the species, health status, and maintenance needs of the trees everywhere on your prospective property including the parking strip.
    • You’ll have to spend thousands dealing with problem trees with the city which requires you file permits and evaluations for ANY tree maintenance you do. They’re draconian and often just say you can’t do anything. Then it falls on your, or a neighbors, house. Too bad. This has happened a LOT.
    • You’ll be responsible for any sidewalk damage roots do – at your own cost.
    • Depending on the age of the house, expect to find asbestos, lead paint, or old wiring.
    • Do NOT be one of those fools who waive the home inspection to win a bidding war. Just walk away.
  • Do not fall in love with a house, there’s a million of them out there. Make the decision with business acumen, not emotions. Don’t let a realtor talk you into it.
  • Check the gutters and downspouts, and like someone else said, do it in the winter so you can see where the water runs. It was an easy fix, but our basement flooded once just because the downspouts were installed in a crappy way and broke during a storm
  • You can be sued if your sidewalks are uneven and someone trips
  • If you can, visit the house at different times of the day. Observe the neighbors – do they have a bunch of cars that never move? Do they leave their dog outside all day to bark? Talk to the neighbor to see if they’re reasonable or madmen.
  • Are there any extremely invasive plants pushing up against the fence line (bamboo, blackberry, wisteria)?
  • Specifically with Portland I wouldn’t buy a house with any sort of empty lot big or small next to it. Just invites tents and homeless camps.
  • If you buy one of the older homes that makes Portland so lovely, it will be your new hobby. If you like spending a lot of your money and most days off on home/yard maintenance/improvement then you’re golden.
  • Heat pumps are pretty good for our area but depending on how old it is, it can struggle in the winter cold snaps.
  • Make sure none of the properties surrounding you have quietly been sold to a builder with plans to build an apartment building overlooking your backyard. You can do this by checking the zoning of the area. If it’s zoned “multi-family” there’s no stopping this from happening.
  • A lot of the past permits and compliance issues can be looked up online at PortlandMaps for free without making any appointments.
  • Some areas only get garbage picked up every two weeks. This was a surprise as we still had a baby in diapers when we moved.
  • If you intend to send your kids to public school, look carefully at the middle and high school assignments not only the elementary. PPS is in a funding crisis that is going to continue for years if not decades (I vote decades). Honestly if I were buying today with young children I’d consider private school costs vs cost to buy into a “good” public school, and would not buy into PPS. 
  • I wish I knew basic maintenance would be triple the cost of everywhere else I lived.
  • Parking.
    • Buy a house with parking on site. In fact you should prioritize parking over an adu. I would pave a parking spot into my yard for guests and myself LONG before an adu. Street parking is a war. If you think you’re ok cause you have a lot of street parking? You’re wrong and you’ll loose it in 1-5 years no matter what. Infill and multi family housing remodels takes your street parking very fast. And if you don’t have a car and don’t think you need one. You’re gonna be wrong. It takes one broken ankle. One new baby. One trip to IKEA or a remodel project to realize you need a car.
  • Observe traffic flow of street your drive way is on. It’s been was worse than we thought.
  • Shade trees on the west side of the house for a cooler home during the summer. No trees on the east side of your house if in east county so they don’t fall on you.
  • Every single person, I am not exaggerating, that I have known that was attempting the building of an ADU, has had to sue the city because they have made it almost impossible to build without paying thousands of dollars in fines and useless hoops to jump through. Permitting an ADU in Portland is insane.