Yesterday I told you about our struggles with the new door bell. While, sadly, this state is still unchanged, there’s another story there that relates to software development: The new door bell needed some power. The old one did not need this much power (230 volts), so there were no appropriate power cables laying around. That’s why we cut a different cable that lay in the vicinity but usually powers the automatic gate for the car. The plan was to have something like a t-shaped connection between the cables. So the gate would still have power, but a new cable would lead to the door bell and everything would be fine™. So I cut the power cable to the gate. What I did not know at the time was, that there are literally t-shaped connectors for power cables (not an affiliate link, just for reference. Don’t buy it! 😉).

Now that the project “door bell” is off the table, I had to connect the underground power cable for the gate again. Which, in the meantime, was missing a bit in the middle, where I made the cut. So I couldn’t just put it together anymore. I needed to insert a new piece of underground cable and connect everything on two sides. Here’s where today’s title fits perfectly: When connecting two cables with a new self-cut cable in the middle. DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT estimate the needed cable length before connecting the pieces. Just use something that is way longer than you need. Do not try to half-measure everything so it’s just perfect. Otherwise you might be as “lucky” as me: The self-cut piece of cable for connecting everything was too short. Of course I noticed this after I already connected 3 of the four parts, and only had the last part remaining. Did I mention before, that it was already dark outside and the mosquitos swarming around me—squatting and sweating there—with my pregnant wife sitting next to me holding a flashlight, so I could see while holding my face near the soil just to be able to screw the connection-screws into the connection thingy? WTF. The thing was, we needed the gate to be operational so we had the safety of being able to drive the car. Because my wife could give birth now any moment and we need to be in a hospital for that… 🎉

So, enough off my stories. To bring this around to software development: Once again, trying to optimise things before you have the complete picture of the situation, might not lead you to victory and success, but to soil on your face, mosquito bites on your whole body and more swear words than I’d like our daughters to hear. Take care.

Yours, Holger