Dreaming in Code
Chapter One
DOOMED
[JULY 2003]
Michael Toy places his palms on his cheeks, digs his chin into his wrists, squints into his PowerBook, and begins the litany.
"John is doomed. He has five hundred hours of work scheduled between now and the next release. . . . Katie's doomed. She has way more hours than there are in the universe. Brian is majorly doomed. Plus he's only half time. Andy-Andy is the only one who doesn't look doomed. There are no hundreds on his list."
They don't look doomed, these programmers sitting around a nondescript conference room table in Belmont, California, on a summer day. They listen quietly to their manager. Toy is a tall man with an impressive gut and a ponytail, but he seems to shrink into a space of dejection as he details how far behind schedule the programmers have fallen. It's July 17, 2003, and he's beginning to feel doomed himself about getting everything done in the less than two months before they are supposed to finish another working version of their project.
"Everybody who has a list with more time than there is in the universe needs to sit down with me and go over it."
These lists ... read full excerpt from: Dreaming in Code ebook
