The last month at work has been a non-stop push of implementing features, testing, and fixing bugs. We spent hours and hours testing the software that I've been working on and I think we really polished it up nicely and have something that's going to make customers happy. We've actually had a couple of customers using a beta release of my application and so far the feedback has been quite positive, which makes me happy.
Today the last official document was signed off and the software I've been working on for the last 8 months has now gone gold for the first release to customers! I'm very excited, relieved, and apprehensive all at the same time. It's exciting to know that people are going to use the software that I created and put all of my work into. I banged my head against the desk trying to solve some very hairy and insidious problems, spent hours discussing how features should work and how to make the program as useful as possible, and delved deep into performance profiling and benchmarking to try and eek out as much speed improvement as possible. It was a lot of work and I'm thrilled that we came this far and that things are looking this good.
But all of that is followed on with a niggling doubts and worries that I've missed something that's going to be a big problem once people start actually using the software. One thing is true about writing software: you can plan all you want for how you think customers are going to use your software, but you can never be certain that you've got it just right. I worry that there are hidden bugs that we didn't find that are going to crop up and cause big problems or make us look bad. I'm concerned that the technology choices I made might not be the right ones .. maybe we didn't fully understand how people are going to use the application and it just won't scale well.
But after I calm down for a little bit I remind myself that I'm surrounded by a group of people that are working hard to make sure that we don't send out something that's going to be a flop. After all the hours of testing and of talking to customers and other users I think that it's going to be a success.
But I will still worry a little bit.
