The Technician

30 Seconds to Mars recently released their third album, This is War, and it is quite the departure from their first album. Brand New Day was raw and angry, with amazing guitar sounds, great composition, and a real sense of urgency in the writing. The album was really exciting to listen to, and the live performances were great. I saw them at Avalon in NYC a few years ago, and it’s still one of my all time favorite shows.

This is War is mild and boring in comparison. The effects driven distorted guitars characteristic to Brand New Day is missing. They seem to have been replaced with over-produced electronics. Jared Leto has less than half the intensity than he did in Brand New Day, and the lyrics have lost their edge. The focus on deeply layered choruses of what sounds like children singing lacks impact. The collaboration with Kanye and his 808 didn’t really go anywhere, and just seemed to pull the band further from their roots. It’s sad to hear a band that had such a great band with a unique sound has gone so far off track.

Occasionally, a project will come across my plate with the criteria, ‘Make sure this works everywhere, is completely template-able, and is something we can grow with.’ Normally this is coupled with ‘We need this to work with X *right now*, and Y and Z later.’ What I really hear is ‘Make it work for X, and ship the damn thing.’ After all, hitting those deadlines is really important.

Of course, this has a whole bunch of ugly assumptions tied to it. The first is: when I get to Y, everything I did for X will work. All I need to do is drop in a few config changes, and tweak a few parameters, and I’m done. (Yea, right) Secondly: that every case Y needs to cover is contained within X. (Not Likely) Third: All of this will be so well documented that any literate individual will be able to implement Y by osmosis.

So. Do we spend time now or later? Shipping X seems pretty simple, so why not just build X, satisfy the business dude and call it a day. Spending time now means that deadlines may have to shift, and something that should be simple becomes complex. We have other, more important, projects to work on.

Eventually Y comes calling. So let me introduce you to…Future Web Dev Guy Person Girl! If you’re lucky, that person is you. If you’re not, it’s another dev. The assumptions we made back in paragraph 2 have reared their ugly heads. Since they were assumptions, you’re probably boned. If not, you’re probably one of these guys. If you’re the rest of us, Future Web Dev Guy Person Girl definitely hates your guts, because the groundwork that was supposed to be laid out is not there. They’re running through a lice-infested rat’s nest of procedural functions trying to pass the additional variable that will make this all work.

The best way to keep Future Web Dev Guy Person Girl from cursing like a sailor is implement correctly, test thoroughly, and deal with Y before it’s due. Deadlines need to be managed according to project scope, and if project scope includes Y, it needs to be accounted for now, before you lose a friend in Future Web Dev Guy Person Girl.