J2EE: The Final Conflict and Aftermath

The deadline for my J2EE project is now over. It marks the end of another one of those unpleasant and nerve-wrecking responsiblities in my life that I will remember down the road.

During the last few days or our project, we carried on with our meetings as usual, but were still as confused and lost as ever. We simply had nothing but raw Java codes to hand up as nothing was truly working as all. Saturday was a complete waste of time, with everyone sitting in front of the computer, staring blankly for hours on end, doing nothing.

By Sunday, most of us have already resigned to fate. We could not get anything done, so we will just hand up our raw codes with no form of implementation at all.

For me, I have been fiddling around with some sample reference codes I got from my friend (DJ aka 'Giant Hamster'). It was a JSP login page that I was trying to get to work for the past week, but to no avail. Just for fun, I asked XJ (sleepyhead who usually does nothing) to see if he can help debug my little JSP. Surprisingly, XJ did get it to work. I shared my find with the rest of the group, and at this very moment (11 am on Sunday morning), it became a turning point for the project.

I started creating several more simple JSPs to test my friend's codes, and when everything started working, I was very surprised and pleased with myself. And so, it all began. Everyone started refining their Java codes and passing them to me, while I took charge of integrating them into the website. I always considered myself a 'backseat rider' when it came to such difficult and arduous programming projects due to my lousy Java skills, but this time, I ended up being the 'driver' instead. I had a sense of achievement that I never felt before.

But, of course, that initial feeling of excitement died down as we worked into Sunday night. By then, I was very sick and wished it all to be over. I remember I was quite moody as my workload increased with every of my friends' compiled clsses. I even hinted that I was unhappy ("Please don't create more & more work for me; I can't do so many the JSPs, you know."), but I guess I really shouldn't have.

We worked through the night without sleeping (well, only the lazy slacking/leeching bastards slept), and decided to tie it all up by Monday morning at 9 am (Deadline was 3 pm). I was feeling moody/pissy from the lack of sleep. I was relieved that it was all over.

Indeed, it was quite an amazing feat. We actually did more work in 24 hours than in all of our 12 weeks combined. At last, it was all over. I am now pretty sure that I will not fail this module; our project is, by no means, an above-average effort, but I feel at least it warrants a "D" or "C" grade at the very least.

And so, just to formally wrap things up. Props & Slops:

Props to:

• AL, who is always the hard-working/responsible person he is, and endured my whinings during the wee hours of the morning.
• XJ, who made me rethink my opinion about him. I used to hate him because he was always late, or did not show up for our meetings, but during the last two days, he proved how excellent/resourceful he was at debugging all our problems. I take back my words; he is not a 'disgrace to all China students'.
• JN. I used to think she was a slacker as she just sat quietly at her laptop, quietly doing her own thing. During this time, she actually coded an entire booking system herself.
• DJ (Giant Hamster), who supplied me with J2EE reference codes, and consoled me during my horrdenous J2EE experience.

Slops to:

• SL, the ultimate bitch who did absolutely no coding during the entire project at all. She always sat in front of the computer with solitaire on and talked about irrevelant bitchy stuff all day. She would act like a selfish fooktard by repeatedly asking "How is the project?" every hour. She also was the only one who got more than 8 hours of sleep while everyone was slogging. True, she may have done the static web pages for us to add our codes to, but she did that like within 3 days. It wasn't well done at all, and even I could've done better in that same amount of time. SL is the perfect definition of a bitch, a slut, and a whore, all in one.
• KH. Ah here's the 'depression' boy. He came back to watch us work like slaves on Sunday, while always remarking how sorry he is that he is unable to help out. At least not as bad as SL. I can forgive him since he is such a nice guy.

Well, that is the end of my J2EE project. Quite an unexpected ending.

So now, let all the fun & games begin.