I broke the build!

[wshaffer]

Yes, I have achieved a rite of passage for anyone who works in a software development organization: I broke the build. I checked in a new version of the online Help, and now the code won't compile. There's possibly a score of programmers who are twiddling their thumbs waiting for me to get the fix in. (So, why am I on LJ? My Help is compiling. Nothing I can do until it's done.)

It's really quite a special feeling.

Now I need to develop an appropriate pre-checkin test to prevent this from happening again.

Comments

[sbuchler.livejournal.com]

congratulations :-S

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

Congratulations indeed!

That's like that Dyson vacuum-cleaner commercial where Dyson was saying that failures are quite as exciting as successes, because they point one towards the right direction, or open up new avenues.

[wshaffer.livejournal.com]

What was really interesting was watching the consequences of my error propagate through the company. 2 hours after I made the error, I got an email from a single developer saying, "Hey, you broke the build!" 20 minutes later, a second email from another developer, with a cc to a developer mailing list. 40 minutes after that, the official build tracking system had picked up my error and was filing bugs, just as I was checking in my fix. 30 minutes later, the engineering manager was sending me email saying, "Hey you broke the build!". 15 minutes after that, the first developer who emailed me was sending around emails saying, "Hey, Wendy's fix worked, everybody chill!"

If you want to know how information flows in an organization, break something, and watch the pattern of the screaming.

[wshaffer.livejournal.com]

Leave it to a vacuum-cleaner manufacturer to point out that failures don't always suck! (groan)

The most immediate new avenue is that I get to learn how to compile the piece of software that I broke, so that I can compile it myself as a test. This opens up all kinds of avenues...

[sbuchler.livejournal.com]

lol ;-)