At work there are several applications - some I deal with a lot, some a little, and some not at all. About a year ago, one of the not so nice developers here was 'let go' and one of the apps he was working on got handed to me because it needed a new data feed socketed into it, and I'm the guy that built the new feed adapter to replace the old. So that's how I got 'ownership' of this one app. It happens.
So now I find that there's an effort afoot to rewrite the app. Good news to me. I've said from the start that it's more than a decade old with untold number of hacks on hacks to get it to where it is. A clean rewrite with today's machines in mind, and today's visualization tools is in order. Good choice.
Another developer was tasked with the re-write - and good for him. I think it's a great opportunity to give this new guy something that's manageable, do-able, and good for the business. It'll be a good thing for him to work on and refine over the coming months. Good choice.
Here where it gets a little odd - to me.
For all the time they are spending talking to others about how to show the data, how to update the data, etc. the one person they haven't spent 5 minutes with is the current maintainer of the code - me. That's very odd, in my book. Were I the one doing the port, or re-write however you look at it, I'd want to know at least a little something about how the data feed is socketed in - if nothing else. But there's probably a lot more I would want to try and pull out of the current maintainer, if I had the chance.
But not these guys. Which, I have to say, includes the management.
I look at this one of two ways: they either think I have nothing of value to add, or they don't want to bother me and think that they can pick up anything I've learned easily. I'm not very happy about the first, and the second isn't much better.
If the current maintainer is a valuable developer, as they say I am, then why on earth wouldn't you spend at least 5 minutes talking to him? I can't figure that out save one of these two possibilities?
In one case, they are saying I'm valuable, but acting as if I'm not. And in the other case, they are thinking that all I've done for this app in the year I've had it is easily seen by the code - which after looking at the code, I can say that's a stretch and a half.
So I'm coming to the opinion that this is nothing more than a slap in the face. No respect for the maintainer - not even 5 minutes. They talked for an hour and a half with another developer about including this table applet in the final product. But not 5 minutes for everything I might know? Yeah, I'm coming away that this is one more Dilbert moment where I'm talking to Dogbert saying how this is a slap in the face... and then he slaps me again - for comic effect.
Wish I were laughing.