Without really having noticed it, March is over. A far too calm month, especially during the weekends. Since my flatmates had either exams or spent time away from Aken with their family and/or girlfriends, I had to realize: I really hardly do not know anybody here. I tried to involve some random people, but I also had to realize real life is not as easy as erasmus or traveling. People are rather confused and on distance when being asked out for a drink or a party, although it is really only about going out. Therefore the going out during the weeks (birthday pary, St.Patrik's day etc.) have been more exciting than the weekends. Anyhow, as winter ends, the calm time does, too. Almost every weekend is booked in April. And as I am talking about traveling anyway, I booked my flights to Iceland to join Sandra and Ulli. Awesome! And last weekend Philipp even visited for a short visit. Ulrich, he and me have been eating, drinking and talking all the time. First coffee, then dinner, beer (and tea), then breakfast.But I already have the feeling, I need holidays, again. The last 2 weeks I experienced what my flatmate calls the "industry shock". That means, you have the feeling, you did not learn anything at school or university. I always believed, writing some code in order to solve a problem would be the the core of my work. No! I have to spend 90% of my time to get the environment for my code working! Before I can even test my own code I have to screen dozens of foreign files. There is so much I have to be aware of! In former times I just pressed a button and my programs worked. Now I have to take care of repositories, databases, application servers, rights managements, services and workflows! And for most of the terms I did not even know what they mean for me in my context! The only thing I always know: I heard it once before in the context with IT... Everything seems to be wired with 10 different complex components. And each of them does not work as I expect them to do. But the most problematic thing is, that I do not know these wires exist. I spend days to hunt mysterious errors caused by some programs. I modify, correct and improve. Several colleagues usually help me until one of them triggers a conversation like the following:
He: "So strange... the computer should get all the necessary data from the tables of your database"
I (realizing it was naive to think, I could avoid working with databases forever): "I need a database?"
He: "Yes, of course. But strange... it should have been generated automatically while you followed the manual for installing the application server..."
I (quickly concluding finally what an application server is): "There is a manual?!"
30 minutes later, everything is re installed following the secret manual and all the days becoming crazy about the strangest error messages have been for nothing. The only thing I why did not despair on my suffieness is that everybody struggles with those things in the beginning and suffers the industry shock.
He: "So strange... the computer should get all the necessary data from the tables of your database"
I (realizing it was naive to think, I could avoid working with databases forever): "I need a database?"
He: "Yes, of course. But strange... it should have been generated automatically while you followed the manual for installing the application server..."
I (quickly concluding finally what an application server is): "There is a manual?!"
30 minutes later, everything is re installed following the secret manual and all the days becoming crazy about the strangest error messages have been for nothing. The only thing I why did not despair on my suffieness is that everybody struggles with those things in the beginning and suffers the industry shock.
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