Being kept from self-develop in job

[electroRF]

I'm very frustrated from my job.

I'm a validation engineer, and what I do most days is:
- Running automatic tests on SW Versions
- Going over logs (after running is done)
- Report on bugs

I wanted to program an automative script which will parse and analyse the logs.
For that, I need an API of the Tool which captures the logs, since this is the tool that can read the logs.

I approached several co-workers to get this API, but it seems that everyone tries to get me out of their code.

It's very frustrating 'cause it makes me feel like everyone is satisfied as long as I do my "monkey" job.

I have two questions folks:

1. should I approach my manager about it, and let him break these walls for me?

2. Is it possible somehow to access a log file which cannot be read by windows apps as word / notepad / csv?
This log file is read only by the specific Tool which was written by these co-workers.

Thanks guys!

 

[alec_t]

Personally I think that any competent manager would encourage team-work to automate the log analysis. Not only would that enhance staff morale, it could also save the company money.

 

[electroRF]

hi Alec,

When I approached these co-workers, then the guy who's in charge of the tool and refused to give me the API, told me that I could open a service request for an analysis script, and he'll provide me with one.

The thing is, I wanna write that script by myself, you see, because I wanna develop myself in programming as well.

How do I explain this to my manager when I approach him?

Is it acceptable?

 

[alec_t]

How do I explain this to my manager when I approach him?

Can't you just explain it as you have above?

Is it acceptable?

Not having met your manager how would we know?

 

[dougy83]

2. Is it possible somehow to access a log file which cannot be read by windows apps as word / notepad / csv?
This log file is read only by the specific Tool which was written by these co-workers.

If you're using C#,
**broken link removed**
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/...ead-a-locked-file-in-c-sharp-perhaps-in-unsaf

 

[KeepItSimpleStupid]

The Boss's attitude is going to matter. If he micromanages your time, you may have lots of trouble.

If your getting your job done and you have time, you can approach your boss and ask if it is OK if I do xyz because I'd like to groom myself for possible advancement.

The Boss can make you stagnate or allow you to advance. That was true in school too. Your adviser can work for you or against you.

The worst that can happen is that he could say no. I would not do it on your own especially if the time involved would be significant.

Explain what you want and why you want it in terms of how it will impact something of value to the company. Also,if you can try to come up with a payback period. Sell your idea to your boss.

 

[heydonms]

We've recently had a similar situation where I work, one of the people had made a spreadsheet to track some stuff but he wanted to add features beyond what was possible in Excel so he asked for a copy of Visual Studio so that he could write a custom program.

I am in charge of IT, I rejected the request and from a business point of view, I think it was the right thing to do.

Custom software can be a significant business risk, if it breaks in the future, or isn't compatible with new software versions, etc. it is important that it be maintainable. If you have left, someone else needs to be able to open up your code and take over.

We have a software development team, they have studied for many years, have significant experience and we know that they are very good at what they do. We can be confident that if you provide the specifications and they write the program that in the future we are going to be able to continue using that software and that the risk of it suddenly falling over is quite small.

If someone comes to us suggesting how we could automate common tasks, then we are certainly keen to help with that, but it doesn't mean that we are willing to drop everything we are doing and push their idea to the front of the queue (unless it is a really good idea) and it certainly doesn't mean we are going to allow them to implement something that the business is going to rely on themselves.

Good on you for wanting to improve your skills, but if there is already an existing software development team and you were hired in a completely different role, I can understand why the company isn't keen for you to do your learning on their systems.

Perhaps a good approach might be to ask to be assigned to the software dev team for X hours per week as a junior so that they can assist and supervise? That would help to mitigate the business risks and hopefully be a more productive way to learn. And as K.I.S.S said, all bosses like ROI, show how it will save some money.

 

[electroRF]

hi KISS and heydonms,
I learned a lot from your post.

I see now the company's point of view.

I heard my manager suggesting a teammate a week ago to develop some SW that would assist to the everyday work.

I think that it is good that people think out of the box and don't just do their job.

Otherwise, can you really expect people to stay at their job for that much time?

However, I'm sure you're more experienced than me and said all the above for a reason.

Regarding the approaches.

I doubt it that my manager will allow me to spend time at SW Dev team, because all he cares is about his team, and for him, me joining other team means he has less manpower.

I'll approach to him first day of the upcoming week.

So, I should mention that this script that analyses the logs that I'd like to write would help with the everyday work.

I should also mention to him that writing this script will make me go deeper into understanding the logs and therefore would enhance my skills.

Should I mention to him that I see myself as a programmer in the future and therefore I want to have programming part of my job?

Thanks friends!

 

[KeepItSimpleStupid]

So, I should mention that this script that analyses the logs that I'd like to write would help with the everyday work.

Yes, because it can effectively free up your time.

I should also mention to him that writing this script will make me go deeper into understanding the logs and therefore would enhance my skills.

Yes

Should I mention to him that I see myself as a programmer in the future and therefore I want to have programming part of my job?

A tougher one to answer because it depends on your your Boss's attitude and whether or not your projecting yourself as "willing to learn", "I want to get out of here" or "I would like to advance here".

Thinking out loud:

Remember Who, what, where, when and Why?

Who: You,
What: You have a problem of some sort
Where: You or IT (Work, Work at home?)
When: How long to you think it would take
Why: Why do you need it.

* I'd like to talk to you about an idea I have. Can we schedule some time. I need about x minutes to present it.

* I'd like to improve my efficiency of going through the log files by trying to write some scripts to help me analyze them. I don't foresee this impacting on what I do now, but I would really like to work on this in my spare time. I could, for instance, give you an update at least once every two weeks on my progress.

What if I give you my ultimate list of requirements (what I'd like it to do) by next Friday and what I think is essential. Now, you could present the ultimate list or not, but it's IMPORTANT that you design your program using the ULTIMATE list. Trust me.

Aside: I have always learned that when specifying software and hardware, it's important for me to plan for the Ultimate system. When you do that, it's easier to add stuff rather than to re-write the package. That's how I managed to not have to rewrite a software package that was used for 16 years. The technology required the re-write.

In one case, I anticipated spreadsheets, but they didnt exist at the time. PC's didn't exist at the time, but in my specs, I could have very easily added write comma separated data.

We wrote the program so it could do recipies as a set of @filenames. Somebody, just like you, and in his spare time created a FORTRAN program to CREATE the recipe files.

The program we wrote was a proof of concept PID controller for 7 heaters with recipe controls back in the early 80's. The system was written in FORTRAN on a Real-time operating system. It also required a real-time and a non-real-time task and used a VT100 style terminal. Definately a radical idea for it's time. Removable Hard disks were 10 MB and about the size of a microwave.

We ran out of memory. It was hard fitting this thing in 28K of 16 bit words with disk overlays. We were limited in being able to used thermocouples in groups of 4 and they had to be R,S, J or K. There was no spreadsheet output, no Ethernet (didn;t exist) and files had to be transferred via Kermit. There was no ability to add it.

One of the processes used a "C" thermocouple. While the software was "designed" to handle it, it was unable too. We were also forced by management to use an OS system we were somewhat familiar with rather than use one with better memory management and we were told to write it in FORTRAN and not C. I knew C at the time, but not FORTRAN.

So, we did anticipate the ability to handle multiple thermocouple types, but it probably would have had to be done in hardware. We were tight on the Budget, $25K in parts.

Later, the DC power supplies used became a model to replace the AC supplies and a autotransformer and making a custom panel. So, the DC supply reduced the expense of making a voltmeter, ammeter and variac panel and gave us the ability to measure real power.

Even later, when the temperature controllers were obsolete and had to be replaced, recipie based controllers could do the job. The communocations option was ordered and in the next iteration was used, again someone wanting to improve what they had.

Log the time and temperature data with a laptop rather than by hand and to write a program to program the controllers.

In one case the researchers had to know the power of one of our AC powered heaters. The only solution was an AC 3 phase power monitor and a current transformer to measure 0-40 V and 0-30 A of a single phase output. That device added about $1000 to each heater and $1500 or so was the cost of a DC power supply.

There were a lot of challenges and technology upgrades were giving me fits. It was fun because we had the power supplies made for 208 input, the meters were analog and the current ended up being measured from an internal sense resistor.

Later a replacement had 0-5V out for voltage, 0-5V out for current, was a 1 RU case and had a universal input with digital meters for about the same price. This also created a problem with spares being used for swapping out, but to cut down significantly on rack space the 1 RU supplies HAD to be used as well as the 1/2 Rack, 4 RU height modules.

Power distribution became a headache as well.

I guess, I was trying to tell a story.

At one time I had a system that would do I-V-t measurements in an environmental chamber with programs to help analyze the data. I built in an RPN calculator with units conversion to input cross sectional area. You could type
PI 2 cm 2 ^ * or 100 um 10 mm 100 A * / which would do L/A in the formula L/(cross-sectional area) where L was 100 um, and the cross sectional area was 10 mm x 100 Angstroms. The units would automatically be converted to cm.

---

The KEY is management wants choices and recommendations. You need to make sure management hangs for the bad decision. I recommended that we use an SMU unit for measurements. Boss said no, re-use what we have and the SMU's use feedback and Feedback is bad. It took 15 years, but the latest incarnation uses, you guessed it, SMU's. The old boss retired.

Just like way back, we might have not had the memory limitation had we chosen an unfamiliar operating system, but we probably developed it faster. C probably could have been more portable, but FORTRAN went away. Those decisions were not mine. They were, however, recommendations.

You also have to watch moving targets. You make a decision based on time t, and you have to buy all the capital equipment at time t. At time t+delta t, the entire decision process would have changed and that's the time you needed to use the stuff.

IEEE-488 has pretty much been replaced by USB and Ethernet. In the early days parallel was the way and RS232 was slow. There were even PC based stuff such as EEProm programmers or CNC control that used the parallel port. Will they work on Windows 7? Not likely.

 

[electroRF]

Hi KISS,
I thank you so much for your advices!
And thanks for the great example you've given here

I talked to my manager.

He said that he'll be willing to support me with getting what I need, and that I need to make a plan with all the analysis I want to perform on the log, via the script.

The problem is, it turns out that someone else has started working on something similar, and he'd like to perform similar analysis to what I wanted to.

therefore, I need to think on new information I'd like to gain from the logs

I'm currently working on it.

 

[KeepItSimpleStupid]

Well, It looks like I hit everything on the money except the duplication of effort. I've seen that happen too on a big scale.
The real problem was accounting.

Eventually, a single system, single operator calibration traceable system emerged with data being stored and backed up by IT. The major analysis engine was still Excel.

Eventually, the data storage migrated to other production/analysis systems. We had tried to do it within our department via filesharing with enough success that it was migrated to a hands off linux Samba server.

The annoying part was the security. Totally accessable from the subnet and secure FTP accessable via the "gatekeeper" machines which you had to be logged into from the internet. So to access the files remotely, you had to download them to the "gatekeeper" via sFTP and then to your PC/MAC via sFTP.

I did manage a man-in-the middle method to circumvent the restriction.

Furthermore, the MAC address had to be registered just to get into the subnet from a personal laptop or you had to be assigned an IP address.

The middle thing still required VPN and a secure certificate. Certificates allow a remote login via ssh or sftp without a password from trusted hosts.

Later this fully maintained server became a software license server as well.

 

[Mikebits]

If you have to resort to number 2, your in a bad work place, time to seek other employment.