Problem with New Team Member

[SueEllen]

I don't think it's a question of like or dislike. I think he's very eager to please and is consequently like a bull in a china shop.





Yes, some useful advice there.

It's actually quite easy to finger him because I only have to look at his check in history in GIT. He introduces errors whenever he has to merge conflicts when merging his branch with the master branch.

Worth sending a link after your talk with him about how to use GIT - loads are available via Google. If he's merging into master he should be resolving the merge conflicts on his machine first and testing them before pushing them up.

[SueEllen]

Am I supposed to extrapolate from the puppet references that you think I am some kind of troll?

I've noticed that I'm not the only newbie being goaded in this manner.

That's because for seasoned contractors human conflict is part of our job.

You either put up and shut up, or call it out and don't worry if you have to walk out.

[pauldee]

In a few places not there have been CI build servers with monitors visible to the whole room that publicly shame whoever checks in a broken build. Maybe you could suggest this to you devops people without naming any names. Then Jenkins/TC will do the work for you!

[The Castle Cary Fairy]

In a few places not there have been CI build servers with monitors visible to the whole room that publicly shame whoever checks in a broken build. Maybe you could suggest this to you devops people without naming any names. Then Jenkins/TC will do the work for you!

The problem is it doesn't break the build as such. They're mostly merge errors of the nature of lines of code getting inadvertently deleted.

What's really needed here are unit tests that are run on build and cause the build to fail in the event that they don't pass.

EDIT - And to the rude keyboard warrior who is active in this thread - I saw your rude message and I hope it makes you feel good about yourself.

[simes]

Worry not about him.

Small life, small existence compensated for by post counts, one wonders.

As to the issue, there is a school of thought that the contractor is him/herself an industry professional that unearths, highlights, corrects and betters the ills caused by others. I would say it is almost incumbent upon you to find some professional way to make know to the managers.

This person's good will may be the only issue so I would always advocate presenting the problem together with a solution. "The coding is being broken. He means well. Provide him with training." ...sort of approach.

Good luck.

[WTFH]

EDIT - And to the rude keyboard warrior who is active in this thread - I saw your rude message and I hope it makes you feel good about yourself.

Your unfortunate issue is that your user name is close to where a certain user comes from who creates multiple sock puppets. His most recent one was banned two days before you turned up. Some people have put two and two together and decided that you are one and the same.

I am fairly certain you are not.

[pauldee]

The problem is it doesn't break the build as such. They're mostly merge errors of the nature of lines of code getting inadvertently deleted.

What's really needed here are unit tests that are run on build and cause the build to fail in the event that they don't pass.

EDIT - And to the rude keyboard warrior who is active in this thread - I saw your rude message and I hope it makes you feel good about yourself.

You're certainly right you need unit tests. Unfortunately as a contractor I've found it's generally not a good idea to tell clients what they need. You could probably have got away with suggesting a monitor to display build status, but I'd steer away from telling them they have to start writing unit tests for everything. The merge errors are ultimately the fault of the management that haven't enforced a TDD culture.

Also, DON'T react to trolls. I've found the ignore button pretty useful on here. I use it far more here than on any other forum.

[simes]

There is an Ignore Button??

[WTFH]

There is an Ignore Button??

Click on the user you want to ignore, choose View Profile and in their profile, under their name on the left of the screen, is "Add to Ignore List"

-Add as Friend
-Send Message
-Add to Ignore List
-Find all posts
-Find all started threads

But, before you get your hopes up too high, you can't ignore moderators or the administrator. We are beyond ignorance

There's also buttons at the bottom of posts down on the left, one is a smilie face, the other a thumbs up. You can use those to like or thank someone for their post, if you have found it educational, informative or entertaining.

[The Castle Cary Fairy]

Thanks all for the above.

In truth, the application we are putting together is a proof of concept and there are aggressive deadlines hence the lack of any unit tests.

Ultimately, what the trade off is between investing effort into writing tests vs downtime from errors is anyone's guess but they've made the call not to do TDD.

As a contractor, I am ever so slightly concerned about not getting blamed for errors that are not of my doing. I think I'm finding a way of subtly dropping the issue into conversations with other colleagues and it appears this individual's blustering approach hasn't gone unnoticed by them either.

By the way - does the ignore feature stop people from leaving rude messages?