Journal Entries
6th November 1999
Posted Nov 7, 1999
Saturday morning, but I'm in work by 9:30 with the plan that the sooner I start on the address checker bug, the sooner I can get done and go home. When I get there, I'm the only one in. The bug database contains no reference to the latest bug and I have no email about it. My manager had told me last night on the phone that it a particular type of address checker bug: the type of memory that was being illegally accessed was of a type that was particularly fragmented. I can only test for accesses to 6 areas at a time; there are 34 blocks I need to keep an eye on. Thing is, I have no proper details of what they were actually doing that caused the bug. My manager turns up about an hour and a half later to find that he's received a further email about the problem. The bug has remained unreplicated, despite several attempts, so the powers-that-be have decided it's not worth worrying about, so to leave it. The email was sent last night, but as it wasn't sent to me (the guy who's fixing the damn things) I've wasted most of my Saturday morning coming into work for nothing. Hurrah.
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5th November 1999
Posted Nov 7, 1999
The only new bug that cropped up overnight was one I'd fixed yesterday. The only stuff they are still complaining about is sound related, but programmer B is still away ill. Programmer A does make some progress on the more serious bits, and I track down a couple of bits. I also start work on the European version - reconverting the speech audio streams and rearranging the way we've got the data stored on the network. Sent a version off last thing - the good-grief-if-this-isn't-the-final-version-then-I-don't-know-what-is version. Got a phonecall later in the evening to say an obscure address checker error had been found right at the end after a successful playthough of the game.
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4th November 1999
Posted Nov 5, 1999
Still more bugs found in last night's version. Still full of cold. Programmer B still away ill, so no progress on the sound bugs, until out of desperation, they were passed on to programmer A. Got another cor-blimey-mate-if-this-ain't-the-final-version-i'll-eat-me-'at version ready and sent by the end of the day.
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3rd November 1999
Posted Nov 5, 1999
They've uncovered some more bugs that they want fixing. Programmer A returns, but Programmer B is still away ill. I've caught the cold that's going around, which makes the whole experience a lot more fun. Prepared another supposedly final version, but got informed of more bugs before I had the chance to send it. Ended up staying late to fix those ones to produce an absolutely-no-questions-about-it-this-time final version.
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2nd November 1999
Posted Nov 2, 1999
There's still serious bugs turning up that will prevent the game being approved. Some of them are due to accesses to illegal areas of memory, as detected by some kind of special address checking machine that the US testers have available. Not sure why we haven't got one. Rigged up the debugger to test for some of the more troublesome areas of memory - this worked, and I found a couple of potentially nasty, but so far undetected bugs. Programmer A phoned in ill, Programmer B turned up but decided he was too ill and left by lunch time. Nasty cold going round, it seems. Again, prepared a final-definitely-this-time-last-one version, including some last minute hack like "the lawyers want the copyright/legal messages to display for two seconds before you continue". Sent this version off and crossed my fingers. Have started preparations for the Euro versions by converting all the non-english speech audio tracks into our format.
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Latest reply: Nov 2, 1999
Scorchio
Researcher U48428
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