Series 2 Introduction - Electrotest

My colleague Stephanie, or Stevie, and I have working together for over six years. We’ve written commercial software that has managed billions in U.S. federal government funds. We’ve written software that helps an airline inspect their ramp operations. In the past, I worked on a team that use software to catch bad guys. The Electrotest project started in December of 2021. The audience for this podcast includes business folks who must manage data, manage software, or manage software development. Additionally, the audience includes technical folk interested in Oracle database application development. 

I blend story-based narrative with some technology and real-world business examples.

We learned of the project during the fall of 2021 as negotiations became an open secret within our team. I designated 06 DEC 2021 as the official start of the project. Reviewing my email one year later, I see that through the middle part of December of 2021, we were transitioning from one European-based client to this new client in Belgium. On 22 December 2021, I have an email with the subject line: een paar issues meaning “a few issues”.  

We spent most of that month finding our footing. We set up the tools needed to share code via GitHub. We established our management process with tickets and workflows. In our first European/Belgium project, we were late to the team. We came in with specific expertise. We communicated only with the existing development team who were located in Slovenia and Belgium. We never met the client. Lovely project. We came in as the “pros from Dover”. 

Through this podcast, I intend to illustrate that: 

• Writing code is writing.
• Writing code is elegant.
• Writing code is story telling.
• Beautifully written code is beautiful. 
• Well written code follows a streamline, logical, precise process called thinking.

My father, a novelist, once said: “Writing well requires thinking well”. My corollary to that statement is that: “Good code requires good thinking”. No one can write good code without clarity. 

I derive the same satisfaction from writing code as I do from writing stories. That thought; that vision; that story; that process in my brain needs to be communicated to another. That thought needs to be understood by another. That thought, when communicated, must be logical. My friend and colleague in Belgium seduced me by stating that this project is ours. We will start from scratch, from a white piece of blank paper, from an empty database, from a green field that has never been turned. The statement proved to be a little wrong. Who cares, he proved himself to be mostly correct. Yay! 

We are a couple of North American programmers based on the East Coast. I am in New England. Stevie is in Virginia. Eli, whom you’ll meet later in the series, lives now in Washington State. Our client and project manager live in Belgium. We got hired for this job precisely because we are experts in back-office functions such as invoicing, regulatory affairs, document management and all of the boring things that keeps our global economy rolling along.

Our client is a Belgium firm called Electrotest. This company inspects industrial and residential properties focusing on regulatory compliance and health/safety concerns. These are the guys who inspect lifts/elevators and cranes and smoke detection systems and fuel/petrol stations. If there exists a nexus between safety, health, and human occupation, then Electrotest is likely to inspect it. In some cases, the inspections fall within governmental guidelines. In some cases, the inspections are required by the domestic gas companies of Belgium. In some cases, they provide the home or electrical inspections related to new construction or home sales. 

For listeners in the United States, this process does relate. Nearly all of us have stood in a hotel lift/elevator reading the