The (Probably True) Plone News #3# A saving promotion
Written for Appy by Gaëtan Delannay on 2009-11-15
Flawinne, in the course of November
Gervais Pepe, a Plone developer working for a public administration in Belgium, has been declared "Red Code" by WoCoSuSS, the Worldwide Counsil for the Sustainability and Stability of the Society. An investigation has been conducted on Gervais after a private company denounced his "revolting, cupid and egocentric development practices".
Gervais was finishing several software projects for his employer before leaving him and starting a new life as self-employed. The informer, a company with more than 15 employees, preferred to remain anonymous. She was hired to continue Pepe's work. After several months devoted to analyzing the produced code and documentation, this company (called "COM" in the remainder of this article) was forced to admit their inability to do the job without exceeding, in a quite surrealist way, foreseen budget and planning (several years overrun were mentioned).
COM's complaint was based on the following charges: (1) code was totally undocumented; (2) projects were knowingly left unfinished for making the client dependent on Gervais' work as self-employed.
WocoSuSS' inquiry began two weeks ago. After a couple of hours, COM's initial charges against Mr Pepe were abandoned. Indeed, all projects were uploaded on a public forge, together with a detailed list of known bugs and feature requests. Moreover, they were all based on a framework published as free software on a website containing exhaustive documentation. But investigations led to even more appalling discoveries.
Words can hardly describe Mr Pepe's behaviour as developer. If we think in terms of required human resources, during the last 3 years, this guy created alone the virtual equivalent of several Gothic cathedrals. The flagrant immaturity of this act was granted a "Red Code" by WoCoSuSS because it represents the highest level of threat for our society. Indeed, it combines in a Machiavellian way the 3 worst forms of known dangers: (1) organizational (depending on a single individual for so much matters could produce severe malfunctions for the dependent administration in the case of death, disappearance or fatal illness); (2) democratic (so much power in the hands of a single human being is a firebox for tyranny and despotism) and (3) economic (too brilliant individual activity could lead concurrent companies to bankruptcies).
Gervais Pepe underwent the operation yesterday. The selective lobotomy was a success, according to the surgeon. "The gravity of the situation led us to annihilate any technical skill." A sadistic reporter asked some mathematical-
Due to its new, balanced, stable and sane postoperative abilities, Mr Pepe was hired again by its former employer as IT manager.
Updated .
