On a play off of my last blog (my review of Godin’s Linchpin) I actually think shipped something yesterday to a client. I’ve been working on it since March with my colleague Michael Montgomery (who was kind enough to moonlight for me on this and put up with my crap). The system is C#, Winform, LINQ, QF (State Machine Framework ported to C#), and massively complicated. It communicates via serial, SNMP, Telnet, TCP, GPIB, Windows external processes, and WCF all in one tester. The System coordinates RF Integration Testing for my client’s product and offers a level of automation and flexibility they did not have before.

I wished I could have thrashed earlier. It’s 3 months late. I totally underestimated what it would take to integrate. Some things like the target system not working are out of your control. You need to grit your teeth and suck it up sometimes. I have to admit I made some rookie mistakes on this one. Some late requirements from me caused more thrashing.  And I’m pretty much broke from the whole episode.  These projects are like wars. It takes persistence to complete them. It becomes like the good shot at the end of a golf game. It keeps you coming back. Seeing the Test Engineers start to use the system reminds me its the beginning. So there might be a long way to go. Since the lifetime of these testers could be 10 years it is just the start. I hope to see improvements made by me or who ever takes it over.