Extreme Programming

For those of you that don’t know “extreme programming” is actually a real term that has to with a certain method of programming that follows certain rules and tries to make projects as successful as possible.

But I don’t mean that. Those of you who know me technically know that I can get a very good product, but that I can be cavalier at times (we can get into that some other time :).

But lately I’ve been given several projects and some of them have been presented as “we have this HUGE target and we need it done NOW or we lose a LOT”. I love these kinds of programming assignments, though I’m sure my wife isn’t so thrilled with them as she gets ignored a bit. These assignments often turn out to not be as bad as was initially thought, but the crunch time is where I have the most fun. There’s not enough time to think or try a bunch of things or have lots of meetings or whatever other distractions can come up. It’s just a straight line of intense pressure to the end. I love that. I guess it’s sort of like the geek equivalent of jumping out of an airplane or being that guy in the movies that has to disarm the bomb as the clock ticks down–what a fun job.

And I’m pretty good. I don’t usually miss on these. I usually get them done and have everything calmed down in the process. It’s the slower projects that are much more methodical that I have more of a hard time with since I just get bored. I have fun planning it all out and figuring out what needs to be done in what order, but then most of the game is already handled and it’s just plodding along the path. It’s sort of like copying a book by hand at that point. I can’t imagine being a monk in the old days!

I guess I’ll just have to keep getting the high pressure, big jobs to keep my interest up (not to mention my paycheck, since these kinds of projects usually pay a bit more 🙂