First Contract, last day, are they all like this?

[Cr1spy]

Today is my last day of my first ever contract. Kind of a relief.

Over the last 6 weeks I've reviewed a solution that is basicially the biggest pile of tulip I have ever come across.

Mission critical component updates are delivered from a third party without versioning or change logs, often with a note to say "It should work, but I haven't tested it".

The ClientCo owns the third party component and source, buy they have never seen the code.

The ClientCo "Software Architect" couldn't design a bucket without a hole in each end.

The system was intended to support 1000+ users in it's first year. Load testing revealed it falls over with about 90.

Not a sniff of an automated test in the entire system. No unit tests, functional tests or even UAT.

Business logic calculations all over the place, including in the javascript of the users browser.

The system is "designed" so that each user has to have their very own SQL Server database instance. The concept of a multitenant solution blew their minds!

Guess what? It's already out there, live and waiting to crash and burn at any moment.

Are there any good software solutions out there?

Mind you, writing the final recommendation report was fun

[Mich the Tester]

First Contract, last day, are they all like this?

Yes

Are there any good software solutions out there?

No, and be thankful for that. Contractors are hired in because somebody has f**ked up. Their stupidity is your living.

Please advise your customers, friends and everybody at the pub to buy SAP, and even better; try to connect it to Siebel. This will be of great assistance to contract testers.

[DimPrawn]

The system is "designed" so that each user has to have their very own SQL Server database instance. The concept of a multitenant solution blew their minds!

I've seen this before and it is to partition users data so that one "customer" does not have their data "mixed" with other customers data "for security reasons". Make of it what you will.

[Cr1spy]

No, and be thankful for that. Contractors are hired in because somebody has f**ked up. Their stupidity is your living.

Oh yes, I get that bit. I'm hoping they take me up on my "12 months to fix it" recommendation too.

[lukemg]

You could only spin this out for 6 weeks ? Looks like an opportunity to present and implement a viable roadmap to a decent solution over the next 6-12 months under your supervision....

[DimPrawn]

You could only spin this out for 6 weeks ? Looks like an opportunity to present and implement a viable roadmap to a decent solution over the next 6-12 months under your supervision....

After a good bit of blame-storming first.

[Cr1spy]

You could only spin this out for 6 weeks ? Looks like an opportunity to present and implement a viable roadmap to a decent solution over the next 6-12 months under your supervision....

That's the idea.

This was a 6 week discovery phase engagement. I've delivered a comprehensive damning of the system (being careful not to upset the tulip permies) including a recommendation to hire me for 12 months.

Fingers crossed.

[eek]

Are there any good software solutions out there?

Mind you, writing the final recommendation report was fun

Not based on the code I saw earlier today. Two different companies have looked at it both using "Agile" methods neither of whom have ever refactored or even by the looks of it tested the code. I think the only reason it even compiles is because they used intellisense to write it.

I take it the director who asked you to come in is happy with your conclusions?

[Cr1spy]

I take it the director who asked you to come in is happy with your conclusions?

Time will tell. Waiting on the owners response.

However, one of the permie girls (who I got on with quite well), let slip that it was OK if I didn't finish the all UAT automation scripts* (by today) as I could sort it out later...

* Part of the discovery phase was to implement an automated UAT suite.

[Mich the Tester]

Time will tell. Waiting on the owners response.

However, one of the permie girls (who I got on with quite well), let slip that it was OK if I didn't finish the all UAT automation scripts* (by today) as I could sort it out later...

* Part of the discovery phase was to implement an automated UAT suite.

Why is it being offered to UAT if it's still a pile of tulipe?