For the past week and a half at work we've been putting together a point release of our software. This involves taking stuff that was going to be in the next release and stuffing it into the current one so that it can be delivered to a customer. Ok, not the best plan for how to go about things but that's the way it is.

The fun part has been fixing lots of little bugs and tweaking the UI. It's very satisfying to be able to knock off five or six or more issues in a day and see an improvement in the software. Having a close deadline and having to work under time pressure can be motivating. Everyone pitches in even more than normal and things really move forward. It's only when it drags on for weeks or months and becomes the company's normal way of operating that it's a problem. After a couple of weeks you need to slow down, step back and refactor, and make sure the code's still in a good state. I've certainly seen some stuff in the UI code that could benefit from some cleanup when we have the time.