Hi, Here is the log of the chatroom at http://community.hackit.cx/chat/ for the 06/12/2010.
07:58:02 <> Pramendra joins Farsides 08:55:07 <> Kalhaan joins Farsides 09:04:23 <Kalhaan> Pramendra quit (timeout) 09:15:03 <Pramendra> Pramendra quit 09:15:06 <> Pramendra joins Farsides 09:24:07 <Kalhaan> Hi Pramendra! 09:24:29 <Pramendra> Hi 09:25:09 <Pramendra> How are you? 09:26:35 <Kalhaan> Very good : ) 09:26:38 <Kalhaan> And yourself? 09:26:44 <Kalhaan> How is it going? 09:28:29 <Pramendra> In the normal way. Here weather is quite changing. So, with some health issues work is in progress. 09:30:48 <Pramendra> I had mailed you for some query. Had you checked mail? 11:19:23 <Kalhaan> Yes, I've seen your emails - I'll have a look at the code and send an update today 11:19:46 <Kalhaan> I think you're right about the email from friends, it's not something Facebook let you access 11:20:48 <Kalhaan> Unless of course they have added the application - in which case we can retreive their email from our database, since it was retreived by us when they accessed Card Stories 11:24:07 <Pramendra> actually, when anybody will join the game, then we can store the email of that user in database. After joining game for picking card we have the email address of palyer in database. 11:24:28 <Kalhaan> yep 11:24:36 <Pramendra> and then we can send the updates for that game to that user 11:24:53 <Kalhaan> the only people we can't remind are those who have been invited, but have never accessed the game 11:25:03 <Kalhaan> exactly 11:25:26 <Pramendra> yes 11:25:41 <> da joins Farsides 11:25:52 <da> hi there 11:26:01 <Kalhaan> hi! 11:26:07 <Pramendra> so, I am trying for feasibilty to send reminder by facebook. 11:26:16 <Pramendra> hi, david 11:26:36 <Kalhaan> ah, you mean through Facebook messages? 11:26:51 <Pramendra> yes 11:26:57 <Pramendra> are you ok with it? 11:27:01 <Kalhaan> good idea yep 11:27:37 <Pramendra> thanks, so I continue with it. 11:27:38 <Kalhaan> (you mean the messages we get on the inbox, not invites right? -- just to be sure) 11:28:32 <Pramendra> I am not too much sure, but I am trying for it. If anyway it is possible , then we can do it. 11:29:06 <Kalhaan> ok! 11:29:09 <Kalhaan> thanks Pramendra 12:43:47 <Pramendra> da quit (timeout) 14:57:57 <Pramendra> Pramendra quit 17:02:15 <> vlad joins Farsides 17:02:37 <> Teodor joins Farsides 17:02:43 <vlad> Hello 17:02:57 <Kalhaan> hello vlad : ) 17:03:12 <Kalhaan> Hi Teodor 17:03:20 <Teodor> Hello 17:03:45 <da> Hi Vlad, hi Teodor 17:04:07 <Kalhaan> Glad that we could meet 17:04:16 <Kalhaan> thanks a lot for setting up this chat Vlad 17:04:37 <vlad> my pleasure 17:04:40 <Teodor> i'm glad too 17:05:00 <Teodor> to talk with you 17:05:07 <Kalhaan> Definitely 17:06:02 <Kalhaan> Do you mind if I ask you to tell us a bit more about you and your company? So far we have mostly discussed directly with Vlad, and a bit with Marius, but I realize I don't know much about you 17:06:36 <Teodor> vlad quit (timeout) 17:06:57 <Teodor> sure - no problem 17:07:13 <Kalhaan> (btw just for you to know - the content of this chat is archived publicly on our mailinglist) 17:07:34 <Teodor> basically we are a web development company 17:08:02 <Teodor> we develop web projects all around the world 17:08:41 <vlad> hello 17:08:42 <Teodor> we have more than 250 web projects 17:08:46 <Kalhaan> (re : ) ) 17:09:01 <vlad> hm, seems i got disconected 17:10:20 <Teodor> vlad quit (timeout) 17:10:28 <Teodor> we are on the market from 2004 17:10:51 <> vlad joins Farsides 17:11:11 <vlad> ok, i changed the browser, hope it fixes it 17:11:19 <Teodor> we start with graphic projects (visual identity, design) 17:11:23 <Kalhaan> ( : ) ) 17:11:45 <Teodor> and after one year we extend to web development 17:12:43 <Teodor> there are many things to discuss - tell me what do you want to know 17:12:47 <Teodor> :) 17:12:50 <Kalhaan> :) 17:13:13 <Kalhaan> So you are the owner of the company? 17:13:34 <Teodor> yes - we are 2 owners 17:13:50 <Kalhaan> alright : ) - just to get a picture 17:13:57 <Teodor> i'm one of them :) 17:14:18 <Kalhaan> Well congratulations for the success of your company : ) 17:14:30 <Teodor> thanks you 17:14:48 <Teodor> you've done a great job too 17:14:57 <Kalhaan> I have to say, even if we haven't got the opportunity to discuss before, that I have been very happy with your services until now - Vlad is doing a good work! 17:15:13 <Teodor> Vlad is very excited to work on your project 17:15:14 <da> indeed 17:15:25 <Teodor> that's great 17:15:56 <Kalhaan> But, to get to the point of this conversation, this changed recently when we got the news that Vlad was moved to another project for a month and a half... :/ 17:16:01 <Teodor> i mean that you are satisfied with our services 17:16:32 <Kalhaan> I have to say that I was quite surprised by that news, considering our long term relationship 17:17:17 <Kalhaan> Especially considering the short notice, given the fact that we had agreed on a month notice for cases like this one 17:17:35 <Kalhaan> Can you tell me a bit more about what happened? 17:17:43 <Teodor> we try to avoid this as much as possible 17:20:14 <Teodor> but after we'done the schedule within our company for this new roject we realised that we will need vlad's input also 17:20:53 <Kalhaan> Why did this project got priority over us? 17:22:11 <Teodor> It's a project with a big romanian company and we consider this is a big opportunity to extend for our company 17:23:21 <Kalhaan> I understand - but it creates issues on our side, especially because it happens at a moment where we are trying to accelerate the development of our game 17:23:45 <Teodor> we try to avoid to use vlad in this project but the very short deadline force us 17:24:15 <da> and we're trying to build a long term relationship with Vlad, so how do you see things in the future to avoid this happening again ? 17:24:56 <Teodor> Vlad explained this to us and right now we are in the process of hiring more programmers 17:25:47 <Teodor> and we will be able to offer from development power starting middle-end of January 17:26:00 <Kalhaan> Yes - but before talking about the future... I understand the interest you have in making this big contract work 17:26:03 <Teodor> more development power, sorry :) 17:26:42 <Kalhaan> It can develop your company, and it's true that we probably can't compete with the kind of money this is bringing to you 17:27:36 <Kalhaan> However, on our side, we have only a disadavantage: Vlad will be on something else for 1 month and a half, we have to deal with the consequences for our project 17:28:46 <Kalhaan> So I understand what are your reasons - if you had respected the 1 month delay that was agreed on before putting Vlad on this other project, you would endanger your big contract 17:29:22 <Teodor> I completely understand - the programmers that we will hire will eliminate this problem in the future 17:29:58 <Kalhaan> Hmm, maybe, but I see two issues: 17:30:23 <Kalhaan> 1) What garantees that a bigger contract won't arrive in a few months and create the same situation again? 17:31:07 <Kalhaan> 2) How can we be compensated for the current issue? Finding a solution for the future doesn't solve our problem for the next month and a half 17:33:11 <Teodor> 1) a solution to this will be to sign an agreement between our comapnies that will have some financial penalties for breaking the terms 17:35:17 <Teodor> but probably this agreement will have to change the current financial arrangement which proved to be innefective 17:36:47 <Teodor> but we should discuss about this separatelly 17:38:42 <Teodor> 2) at this moment we cannot offer development power within our company. what we can do is to try to use our network of collaboratos and try to find a coder to replace vlad, but this could prove difficult given the winter hollydays that are aproaching 17:39:05 <Kalhaan> Hmm 17:39:30 <Kalhaan> For the 1), we could probably discuss this yes 17:39:38 <Teodor> or did you have other compensation in mind? 17:40:05 <Kalhaan> But we'd need to solve 2) first - because we are in a very difficult situation 17:40:33 <Kalhaan> Hmm, not precisely - I'm looking for a good way to solve the issue 17:41:29 <Kalhaan> If you were sure that you could help us find a good replacement for Vlad for this period, it would solve it, but if you think it will be difficult, it's hard to rely on it 17:43:38 <Kalhaan> Do you think that you could spare some of Vlad's time during that period - maybe one day per week? 17:44:36 <Kalhaan> This actually answers your point about the financial arrangement that is uneffective - the weekly milestones proved difficult to estimate in time, which has dragged some releases for weeks 17:45:27 <Kalhaan> We could switch to daily milestone - hopefully it would be easier to estimate the quantity of work to perform during the day, which would lead to a better financial arrangement for you, and more timely milestones for us 17:45:32 <Teodor> indeed - the estimation is a problem 17:45:37 <Kalhaan> This day per week would be an occasion to try that out 17:46:49 <Teodor> a big problem in this period is that in Romania, during hollidays nobody works (between 22 december - 4 january) 17:47:00 <vlad> this could work, the problem that i see is that if i estimate a day fro something, and at the end of the day there are reviews on it, it automatically goes into the next day 17:49:10 <Teodor> will help you if vlad could be online in this period to offer you consultancy? 17:49:11 <da> Teodor -> yes I'm aware of these holidays. Could we try Xav's solution of one day per week outside of these holidays, ie before the 22nd, and after the 4th until Vlad is 100% free again ? 17:50:08 <Kalhaan> vlad> true - I think a large part of the issues with reviews can be eased by automatic validation - we could have a rule saying that if it passes make check, it's ok - if we have something to change that is not part of the automated checks, this would be part of another daily milestone. 17:50:31 <Kalhaan> This way you can know, by running make check yourself, if the milestone is accepted or not 17:55:25 <Kalhaan> Teodor, Vlad, what do you think? 17:55:47 <vlad> and i it goes to another milestone, it will be reported to the next week? 17:56:28 <Kalhaan> Not sure I understand - what do you mean? 17:57:38 <vlad> what i'm trying to say is that if i only work for a day a week on hackit, everything that goes over a day will have to wait till the nex week to be done 17:59:26 <Kalhaan> Yes, it's an issue - which will make it even more important to plan for something that can be finished the same day 17:59:56 <Teodor> so - what we are talking about now it's only for the period until 20 january, right? 18:00:05 <Kalhaan> yes 18:00:59 <Kalhaan> but of course if it works better than the current arrengement, we could keep it afterwards - replacing weekly milestones by daily ones 18:01:41 <da> the way I see it : the daily task should have an operational objective that must be met at the end of the day. ie, If there is a blocking bug, it must be fixed on the day or the next one. But if we see in the review that something can be improved, we can have it done the week after. 18:04:55 <Kalhaan> Trying to rephrase david: if a bug is about a critical functional bug (something that prevents from using it at all), it would be solved the next day. If it's more a code review issue or a minor bug, for this period we can make an effort and wait for the next week 18:09:28 <Teodor> the problem i see is that right now, till 20 Jan, it's very hard for me to take more than a day a week from Vlad and the past experiences show that all of the iteration rolled over on multiple weeks 18:11:18 <Kalhaan> Yes - that's why we are trying to help you making more accurate time estimates 18:11:46 <Kalhaan> The two things that should improve the situation here are: 18:11:53 <vlad> who is going to make the day estimations? 18:12:37 <Kalhaan> you vlad : ) Of course, it will be a discussion, but utilmately nobody knows better than you what you can achieve in one day 18:12:49 <Kalhaan> The two things: 18:13:10 <Kalhaan> 1) It's only one day and not one week, which will make it easier to estimate 18:14:29 <Kalhaan> 2) Automation of reviews - make check will decide if the release is accepted from a code review perspective. If something needs to be improved, we'll reschedule it for a later release. Only functional bugs could create delays 18:17:24 <vlad> ok, i can try to make the estimations, but i will try top make them on the safe side, so that i will have time in the same day to do the make check and fix any problems that can appear 18:18:28 <Kalhaan> Yes, that seems to be the reasonable thing to do 18:20:12 <Teodor> ok, so we will try the daily iterations till the 20 of Jan and asses the success of them. If they do not work we will have another conference and see how we can change the system 18:20:31 <da> fair enough. This said, when you finish your day, maybe it's not possible on my side to test for functional bugs on the same day, so there is a risk for you to have functional bugs on your side the day after. The way we could solve that is if you test yourself the functional side on the same day, then when you commit you know that there is a lesser risk of surprises. 18:20:37 <da> what do you think ? 18:22:59 <vlad> i always test the functional side. i never commited something that had a critical bug that i could see on my system :) However, this doesn't mean that bugs will not appear. I think an interesting discussion will be to define what's a critical bug 18:23:14 <Kalhaan> ahah, yes : ) 18:23:18 <da> :) 18:23:57 <Kalhaan> We'll have to work out the specifics as it goes anyway, but this seems to be the right path 18:24:45 <Kalhaan> And we can definitely debrief it after jan 20 18:25:15 <da> yes. I didn't mean that you don't test the functional side Vlad :) I think that with a one day process it can be more efficient - definitely worth trying 18:25:32 <Kalhaan> Teodor, maybe we could start the discussion about the contract in the coming weeks, and finalize it for jan 20 when we have seen how it went? 18:26:50 <da> Vlad, one question for the short term : how many days left on Farsides do you have before moving on to the other project ? I'd like to see how we can close the remaining milestones until then ? 18:27:00 <Teodor> That sounds good - depending on this daily iterations we should also discuss about financial system 18:28:10 <Teodor> ok, so it seems we have an agreement for the next period. What do you think the financila terms should be for hte daily iterations? is "1 day = a fifth of a week" sounds ok? 18:29:06 <Kalhaan> yes, perfect 18:29:16 <da> yep. 18:29:18 <vlad> The only thing left on my plate was finishing the missions code review (moving code to the mission engine class). However i see that there were a lot of new stuff added to the bug tracker and i must go over them and see what is with them 18:30:02 <Kalhaan> vlad> the new bugs are mostly copy&paste from the code review - it's not new issues, I've just created bugs to be able to track them 18:31:00 <da> on the functional side, there are 2 bugs on my side if I remember correct (see the mail I sent yesterday) 18:32:07 <Kalhaan> Alright - seems all good on my side 18:33:23 <da> Vlad - before we finish this discussion I would just need confirmation from you on the ability to finish the milestones 18:34:01 <vlad> yes, i'm looking right now on the bugs 18:34:09 <da> ok 18:46:37 <vlad> i counted 9 issues on the bug tracker that are assigned to me and reffer to milestones less or eaual than 2.2 18:48:30 <vlad> from those, the one with the proxy is a week in itself. i treated the proxy as kind of a separate module so i didn't write tests for it. I'll have to do some research to see exactly how to write them 18:49:53 <vlad> for the other ones i'll try to finish them before i start work on the new project. The thing is that right now i have to prepare for my departure (some shopping some packing etc) and i'll be in romania on wednesday afternoon, so probably it will be thursday before i resume work 18:49:57 <Kalhaan> That one is for a future release, no? Let me check 18:50:10 <vlad> it's 2.2 i think 18:51:01 <Kalhaan> ah yes, you're right - sorry, I meant to target it for 3.0 18:51:42 <Kalhaan> fixed 18:52:06 <da> so do we have an agreement on the 8 others before you switch to the other project ? I'm a little lost on the dates, you resume on thursday but I'm not sure when you move to the other project 18:54:10 <Teodor> he's supposed to start as soon as he get's to romania, but we can probably pushed it back to next monday 18:58:03 <Teodor> one more idea before we finish this conversation 18:58:33 <vlad> so this means that i'll have thursday and friday to try to finish the 8 issues. 18:58:55 <Teodor> the issues i see here is that vlad spends much more time on the iteration than one week and in most cases is the reviews and modifications that take more than the ite iterations itself 19:01:43 <Teodor> that is why the solution i initially thought was to switch to an hourly payment system, but let's see if the daily iteration works better 19:03:44 <Kalhaan> It's true that each iteration takes much more time than planned, but it's not due to functional modifications - we write detailled specifications beforehand, and we seldomly make any functional changes in the middle 19:05:59 <Kalhaan> Given the fact that we don't work in the same office, working with deliverables is the only way for us to ensure a fair deal for all our contractors - we don't monitor the hours, we just agree on deliverables, based on your estimates 19:06:43 <Kalhaan> So, hourly payment system is not an option, but we'll always be open to refine the system to ensure it works for both parties 19:07:44 <Kalhaan> Things like we did here, for example by providing a way to automate the validation of the code, to ensure you have more control over the acceptance of work 19:08:37 <da> and the daily iteration, which I think also goes in this direction - of more control on both sides 19:08:48 <Kalhaan> Does it make sense ? 19:11:11 <Teodor> The point i wanted to make is that we're working on the weekly system for about 4 months and there are only 3 or 4 weeks finalised. I do not think that vlad would give a week estimation for a 4 week job 4 times in a row. So it's probably a mix of modifications, bugs, reviews that add up to that amount 19:12:52 <Kalhaan> Yes, and we can work on those things - they are as unsatisfactory for you (because of money) than they are for us (because of unexpected delays) 19:13:40 <Kalhaan> I think the main point here is to communicate those issues 19:14:54 <Kalhaan> If you think that it's still not good, we can discuss it and find better ways for you to assess the quantity of work 19:15:14 <Kalhaan> But do you understand my point about the fact that we need to work with deliverables? 19:21:30 <Teodor> yes, i undersand that. i'm sure you also understand my desire to get to a point where we receive the amount of funds proportional with the time worked on the project. Knowing vlad, i'm sure he works reasonably fast and doesn't waste time so i don't think it's an issue with the coding speed, it's just that in the end there's more work than initially anticipated 19:22:24 <Kalhaan> Yes, there is definitely improvements to do in our process - and I'm glad that we could have this conversation, it will push us all to solve it 19:24:39 <Kalhaan> In any case, don't hesitate to drop an email at any time about these kind of things - we're still at the beginning, so any feedback will help to improve the process 19:26:47 <Kalhaan> Vlad, is it alright for you too? Or do you think there is something else that we could improve? 19:27:59 <Teodor> I think a good start could be to have vlad cc me on an email whenever he thinks the amount of reviews/bugs/modifications will significanly alter the deadline for the iteration. And then we will discuss on a case by case basis at least until we fine tune things and the process then goes without problems 19:28:39 <Kalhaan> Sure! 19:28:47 <Teodor> do you thing it will work like this? 19:28:48 <vlad> no, i think it's ok. i'm happy when everyone else is happy :) 19:28:54 <Kalhaan> Actually, if you want, you can even subscribe to our mailing list :D 19:29:08 <da> nice Vlad :) 19:29:35 <Kalhaan> ahah, thanks Vlad : ) 19:30:11 <Teodor> ok guys I think we had a good conversation 19:30:16 <Kalhaan> Yep 19:30:28 <Kalhaan> Thanks a lot for your time, it was a good chat 19:31:00 <da> absolutely. Vlad I'll be waiting for your ideas on what you can do in the days left, when you find the time 19:31:07 <da> Thanks a lot guys 19:31:19 <Teodor> and I will try to be more close to this project and hope everything will be ok 19:31:19 <vlad> sure David, most likely on Thursday 19:31:58 <Teodor> thanks for your time 19:32:11 <da> I'm confident it will. Have a good morning/evening :) 19:32:18 <vlad> Have a great evening guys. Bye 19:32:21 <Kalhaan> Looking forward to it - good day : ) 19:32:26 <Teodor> you also. bye 19:33:18 <da> Teodor quit (timeout) 19:33:30 <Kalhaan> vlad quit (timeout) 19:49:31 <da> Kalhaan quit (timeout) 21:33:08 <Kalhaan> da quit (timeout) 23:36:51 <Kalhaan> da quit (timeout) _______________________________________________ Farsides mailing list - [email protected] Wiki: http://farsides.com/ List: http://farsides.com/ml/ Forum: http://farsides.com/forum/ Ideas: http://farsides.com/ideas/ Chat: http://farsides.com/chat/
