Defeat from Victory

Today has been a day of crushing defeat in the face of victory.

Firstly in World of Tanks, I played WoT when it first came out, but I laid off playing after bad experiences with it in a clan back in 2009.  All these years later I decided to jump back into it and having installed it and checking through my garage I got my light tanks out and went scouting, then a medium then a heavy and finally even tried some artillery play... Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory each game were the team mates around me, either morons driving up mountain walls, or retards asking - nay screaming - for artillery fire and then driving over the spot where the enemy where so I end up hitting them.... The numpty fuck-wit dick head random matches I got put into paled into a mash up of the worst of the worst each time.  So, I stopped playing that and set about doing something constructive.

I set about researching something for work - if I say what it was people will work out why I'm moaning and probably get a bit pissy with me, but suffice to say I spent three hours reading some very old (2005) manuals for some systems and finding a potential solution to a problem at work.

When I arrived this morning, I set about turning things into code, and with a prototype working I added the feature to the main system and delivered a build... Only, the main system would not work... The prototype fine... Main system... nada...

"Have you tried this before - manually - before I wrote any software?" I asked.

"Yes"

"Right, well, its not working is it..." back to the drawing board I went, two more checks and multiple re-reading, it should work.  "You've tried that action on this software on this machine?"

"Oh, no, not on this machine on that one" Points to machine over the side of the room.

"So, the machine which is fitted with hardware from 2009, hardware running a different operating system and software system works - whilst this one you've never tried?"  I ask hoping they'd spot my worry.

"No, never done it on this" They're too chipper for my liking.

"I don't think you're grasping my drift here" I sit and explain "I only did this change as you told me that you needed it and had the rest of the system working on this old box, that was the only reason I did all this reading, and all this work this morning."

"Oh, well I never ran it on this machine" he's still smiling.

"Yes, but I thought you had, I asked if you had and you said 'yes'"

There you go, more defeat int he face of victory.  After a bit of cajoaling they're going to get a new piece which can test the feature required on the hardware, proving whether what they want is possible.  My code should work for them, but you know... Right now I'm so deflated.