1. Doesnt want to pay for server
2. Doesnt want to pay for disk
3. Doesnt want to pay at all
3. Wants the app in 1 week

This rant has been written from the Signal messaging app and uses a custom Signal 'gateway' (a registered user which is a server in this case) with a PHP api behind it. If this rant appears on devRant, it fucking works!

Like many others my favourote shameless hack is a cronjob to restart our app server at 2am, thus preventing out of memory exceptions

I made a web app and a mobile app for a client two months ago. Yesterday I shut down the server because I wasn't paid yet despite my multiple warnings and reminders.

Under thirty minutes the money was in my bank account.

Sad thing is they weren't responding to me, ignoring or lullabying me with good cop bad cop acts, acting like friends etc...

Lowering my bar to people / agencies like this depresses me.

Btw they are my former agency, they have all the money in the world but turns out they are all jackasses after all...

Hey everyone,

We’ll be doing maintenance on our web server on Sunday, April 29 at around 3pm EDT. The app will probably be unreachable for about 10-15 minutes over that time. We apologize for the inconvenience and we’ll be sure to get it back up as quickly as possible.

Feel free to let me know if you have questions.

> installs devRant app on my iPhone
> too lazy to type my 18-char random password on mobile
> password manager app not on App Store yet
> dig up my old Macbook
> install XCode & homebrew package manager
> install 2 other package managers using homebrew
> install App deps from the 2 package managers
> query stackoverflow for why my deps fail to install
> open App in XCode
> setup Apple provisioning profile
> trust my certificate on my iPhone
> dig up an old router & setup a local WiFi network
> start a server on my laptop to serve my PGP keys
> download my PGP keys to my iPhone
> app crashes
> open an issue on github with steps to reproduce & stacktrace
...
> type my 18-char random password
> rant on how I wasted an entire afternoon

Uncle: I need a app for my company.

Me: Sure. What for?

Uncle: Managing my employees on the fly.

Me: So you need a backend, server cost around 20$ month.

Uncle: hmm ok I talk to you next time.

This happens literally with everyone that asks me for a App :/

First day at new web dev job:
Me: what IDE do you guys use?
Coworker: Notepad/notepad++
M: Okay... Any version control?
C: Oh we don't need it. We just update the server pages.
*Boss walks in*
Boss: Heres the project for you to do just need you to rebrand this web app we made for client A for client B just need to change some scripts. Should only take afew hours.

I take a look. No comments. Not formatted. Missing braces and brackets. Semicolons at odd places and missing at others. 7802 lines of code...

pm: our client wants a proprietary pdf compression app.
me: Okay gimme 3 days and some sample PDFs.
pm: they won't supply any sample PDFs because they contain confidential information.
me: okay fine, I'll download some from the interwebs.

** 3 days later **

me: here is the pdf compression app. all done and works with all of about 100 PDFs we tested with.
pm: okay great I'll have the client take a look.

** half and hour later **

pm: the client said that the compression app errors out.
me: okay I'll go look at the server logs to see what's up.

** 10 seconds later **

me: what the shit is a "foxit phantompdf" file.
pm: it's the proprietary pdf format that they are using.
me: oh joy. I'll go try to find some sample files and see if I can fix it.

** 1 hour later, no sample files found **

pm: got anything?
me: *sobs obnoxiously*

One of our clients deploy their own server app. So this happened after a prod deployment. (4am)

*Cellphone rings while sleeping*

Client : we need you on the conference call now. URGENT!

*Gets on conference call*
*Client explain the problem*
*Explaining to the client that the problem is in their side (https connection not working, either network or certificate problem)*
*Client doesn't believe it and pushes me for a fix that I have no control on*
*4 hours later in a heated conversation*

Client : ok problem is on our side. We used our SSL certificate from staging with production and thought it would work.

Me :

My new year's resolution:
- Learn more Java
- Build a web server with Java
- Make a 3D game with no frameworks in Java
- Make a simple Android app with java
- Try JavaOS
- Tell people I know Java

Nothing better on a Monday morning than oversleeping, realizing that that one server issue notification was a general notification app one and there actually have been loads of disruptions, trains are down...

If they're out of coffee at the station in fucking done with today already.

Our app server still restarts via cron job every night at 22:30, it’s been 3 years :)

"For our app we are using Docker, so for the new server we will need a barebone Linux install"
"Oh please no, Linux is not for a stable server and is very hard to manage, let's install Windows Server 2002 and you can virtualize everything you want"
"Wait, we really can use our cpu cycles to something better..."
"Sorry, too late, already installing!"

Our sysadmin is a Microsoft integralist, we should RUN!

Dev gets hold of me, says my service is down in QA. Works if he hits it locally, works via Postman, but via the QA app server it gives a 401.

I’m like, look, if it works everywhere else, there’s something wrong on your side in QA.

He insists, no, I must help him, and begins CCing all the managers telling them this system has been down for days.

So I eventually climb into his system, check the credentials they’re using in the QA environment, and sure enough, the password is wrong.

> Customer logs Jira ticket claiming app is not working
< I restart the app, investigate and explain tht their server has issues
ø Client closes the ticket as Resolved
-- a couple of days pass by ---

> Customer logs Jira ticket claiming app is not working
< I restart the app, investigate and explain tht their server has issues
ø Client closes the ticket as Resolved
-- a couple of days pass by ---

> Customer logs Jira ticket claiming app is not working
< I restart the app, investigate and explain tht their server has issues
ø Client closes the ticket as Resolved
-- a couple of days pass by ---
<...>

< I log a JIRA ticket explaining what and how is wrong with the server with suggestions how to fix the problem so the app will not crash any longer (client own the server, has his own sysadmins -- I don't even had permissions to open syslog.. had to hack dmesg on their PROD server to pin-point the issue)
> no reaction from customer for weeks. I ping the ticket

× app crashes again

> no reaction from customer for weeks. I ping the ticket
> customer leaves a comment that their sysadmins are looking at it trying to figure out what might be wrong (ignoring what I wrote in ticket's description??? srsly?)

× app crashes again
< I post detail investigation details: snips from logs, screenshots, everything with crystal clear explanations.

> no reaction for weeks
......

well that's fun..

Finally got myself a Lytro Illum!
I,v been wanting to buy one since it came out but the company who made it closed down in 2015..
Thoose fuckers just thrown everything in the trash and set it on fire, software, firmware, mobile app etc.. no open source, no archives, your expensive camera is now a paper weight! You’r welcome!
So i got myself a new hobby, started reverse-engineering the fuck out of it, luckily it’s based on android (api17), i have adb and it’s running a hidden DHCP server too so it’s coming along nicely :D
I’m planning to make a camera control mobile app for it and maybe some faster image processing, wifi sharing etc..
I love beeing in home office :D

Spending my 23rd birthday in a server room 700 km away from home, discussing the requirements for app deployment. Yep. Every dev's dream.

Thanks to @dfox @trogus for asking users for a pittance to offset server costs rather than inundating the app with ads that make it unusable.

This has been a longtime suggestion of mine for other apps and social media sites. People will pay a premium (even if it’s only $2) for quality; just ask Apple.

Day 1:

Me: 'Hi'

Middleware guy: 'Raise a Jira. We have always been so accommodating. Contact your manager.'

*Jeez*

===

Day 2:

Me: 'Could you please start the server in dev environment? I am a new joiner. I don't have access. Here is a jira.'

Middleware guy: 'Deadlines may be for you. It is not for me. Wait until tomorrow.'

*Damn, did he get a divorce recently?*

===

Day 5: *An urgent delivery asap* 'Hi, could you please do the configuration of the new app in staging?'

Middleware guy: 'So, here is the split up...
Task 1
Task 2
Task 3
Task 4
Task 5 & 6
Your app will be configured by tomorrow first half hopefully.. Oh and you can escalate if it is too late..
'
*What a b...*

===

Day 8:

Me: *Doing late sit for pushing a task* 'Hi, we have an issue. The server is not starting. Could it be due to..'

MW guy in 'second' shift: 'Oh, we don't extend support on unusual hours'

Me: 'But this is second shift.'

MW guy: 'Yeah, but I have to go home early now...'

====

Day 10:

Team Lead: 'Any innovative solutions?'

Me: 'Let's go SERVERLESS!' :D

Got a call while on vacations, the main server is down.
*holy shit* I thought.
As I opened my MacBook, the phone kept ringing and slack was going crazy.

“What should I do? Where is the problem?”, the voices in my head said..

I opened the terminal and tried to get a ssh connection.
Sweat was dropping down from my forehead.

“Connected” the terminal said.

“Fuck yeah, the server is up, only the app is not responding”, I thought and opened the log files.

Suddenly, “STOP” I shout at the log files that were appended way too fast.

Then I saw it.
TimeOutExceptions..

I added an index to the modification date column,“ kill -9“ed the process, started again and went back to vacation mode 🙂

And of course I was the office hero for a while💪

For the smart asses, I’m aware that it’s a bad idea to -9 the app process in prod, but it was so overloaded that i was not able to kill it any other way. And we needed that server up again.

Customer: “How many concurrent users can use this app?”
Me: “web tech is stateless. (Insert explanation) So concurrency is meaningless.”
Customer: “yeah but how many concurrent users?”
Me: “infinite as long as they aren’t interacting with the server.”
Customer: “but how many?”
Me: “400”

Front end guy: Somethings wrong with your server. My app is crashing.
* proceed to check logs. Everything fine
Me: Ok send me a log, a printscreen something. What calls do you make?
*send a printscreen with a failling 404 request
* You dense motherfucker learn your fucking http status. They are there for a reason😤

someone deleted my android app's backend folder from the server.
Now i have to answer why the mobile app is not responding.

Had 4-5 hours of sleep last night because I had to wake up early this morning for an internal demo of the feature I worked on. It was scheduled early morning because the boss was busy.

I come to the office looking like a zombie, practically sleep walking my way to the office, and guess what... The app server is down! Yay.

I had to reschedule it to right in the middle of lunch time because hey... The boss is busy. Now everyone in the team hates me for ruining their lunch.

Now I'm sitting here, staring at my code, remembering the sweet luxury of sleep.

Difference n°538592 between developers and regular people:

"Do you listen music at work ? If so what app do you use ?

- (regular people) I don't / I use Spotify/Youtube.

- (me) I usually listen to my personal webradio server (running with icecast+liquidsoap on a little ubuntu DO droplet). Currently has a few funny jingles made by a friend and +3000 tracks (this number grows with time as I listen to new stuff), all crate-digged by myself for myself. Basically the the best radio in the whole world <3"

Had to get an app moved to a new test server “ASAP”. Got it done, emailed the tester, got the response “Great! We will start testing middle of next month.” Why is my side the only one that needs to rush?

Pro tip: never set custom script stuff related to dns server forcing things in a root firewall app if you don't know what you're doing.

How would I know? There's a slight chance that I just went offline for a few days (mobile only) to figure this shit out 😅

All fixed now, though!

*In the final weeks of development with a project on a short timeline because the client "needs it".*

Client: "We've hired a consultant we want you to work with."

Me: "Okay, can we push this to after the delivery?"

Client: "Of course"

Wake up to an email from the consultant with a list of scripts he just ran on the production database server for the currently live app.

Get follow-up emails about bugs and app crashes from the client.

My rage is so hot it can keep warm an Eskimo tribe over the winter season.

!rant

I just successfully deployed an app (twitter bot) to a remote server for the first time!

Client: "The app moves slowly and has moments when it freezes! Why?"
Me: "Let me check the server...it has 5 GB of memory allocated for it and you are making it load 4.76 GB and never cleaned the log files..."
Client: "Then it should work fine! Almost 500 mb free, it`s a lot! Let the log files be there, we might need them in 5 years!"
Me: "What?..."

DATA COMMUNICATION BETWEEN SERVER AND AN APP..

1. Write all data into files,
2. Make the files as zip,
3. Send the zip to server,
4. Server will unzip the zip file,
5. Read all the data line by line from the files and update the data.

** TRUST ME, THIS IS A PRODUCTION APP I HAVE SEEN FROM A CLIENT **

MY SERVER JUST DECIDED TO RESTART TO DO WINDOWS UPDATES!!!

Yesterday evening I stayed up late to install some critical updates manually as I obviously have auto updates disabled.
I didn't quite get everything done so I wanted to continue the next evening when noone was using the server.
Apparently that removed the rule to never ever restart automatically...
🤔🔫

I have my damn router and app server running in a VM on there!!!

B - Ok guys, here we are to decide who's gonna do what.
What part of the app needs to be developed
P1 - The UX
P2 - The Statistics
P3 - The calls to the server
Me - The flow of work

B - Uhm, right, well scratch that, I'm gonna need you to make a website for a costumer.

Me - But this app is due to the next two weeks!!

B - I'm sure you'll manage.

I know people complain about Android Gradle takes so long to build (and I know the reason why, thanks to @DRHAX34) but for me that isn't what I have to wait for.

It's the shitty WiFi at work that causes issues/bugs I'll never experience normally lol

When my app builds I have to also connect to the internet and check for updates against the umbraco server, and it works if it fails to connect (naturally) but our internet somehow manages to stay connected enough to trick the app into doing continuous checks or some form of tiny and long downloads

I've been tempted and sometimes do use my own mobile data which would waste my tiny data (at the time)

Anyways fuck you shiternet lol

Hey guys!
Just joined devRant! Can't wait to get more involved!
Bored in the lockdown, I built an app which lets you chat with people around you.
Its called Cyrcl!
Built in over ~40 days, I was the sole developer.
Here is the tech stack - React native for the android and ios apps, mongodb and redis for the database, nodejs for the server and aws ec2 for the hosting!
I'd love to get some feedback, or discuss some of the hacks!
- Ardy

21:30, sysadmin, chatting with my colleagues, when one posts a screenshot of a message he just received from a dev :
"Hello, sorry for bothering you this late but we have a demo tomorrow morning and the app is completely stalled. It fails with the message 'cannot write to <file>, no space left on device'"

I say "I bet that they somehow managed to make their DB grow uncontrollably".

Colleague asks which server hosts the app, Dev answers "one of ours", then adds after a few seconds "wait, do you need the IP of the server? Dev2 should be able to provide it", before finally adding "we use a scheme in <other project> DB actually".

Finally, Dev2 declares that the bug is solved: "There was a loop that caused a DB view to grow constantly and it filled the filesystem".

Me: "Called it".

They cleaned the view: 41GB freed.

Me : *trying to download latest version of android studio*
Google: "Your client does not have permission to get URL /studio/index.html from this server. That’s all we know."
Me: FUCK YOU GOOGLE
Me: *googles: دانلود اندروید استودیو* (which means download android studio)
*and downloads it from a random website*

It happens every goddamn time, why the fuck i can't download this shit !? Because these countries are fighting each other all the time! What did i do wrong in my life? I just want to download your fucking app to write another shitty app to continue my fucking life. I don't know shit about this wars happening, I'm just a dev like others all over the world.
Downloading an app, is that too much to ask? Well fuck you then.

How do I know when I’m ready for a junior dev job? Currently I’m very familiar with syntax rules, data structure, I even created my first p2p app and I’m feeling more comfortable with server side programming and handling dependencies.

But I can’t like code blindfolded and I’m very slow and have to think very deeply and concentrate very hard before doing any minor thing.

How do I know??

My Flask App all of a sudden started throwing 'Error 500 - Internal Server Error' pages at me for a new subpage I made.
I couldn't figure WTF was wrong because the method responsible for the page literally just returned the HTML-template.

After giving up yesterday night, I noticed this morning that I forgot the quotes around the HTML-file name...

Before becoming a developer, I used to work as a sales rep at this company that spent a good amount of time building what they believed to be an innovative state-of-the-art “code generator”. It was basically a scaffolding tool for generating software.

They were using it to auto generate customized iOS and Android native mobile app templates, along with a web backed.

The problem was that the generated code was shit, and the developers on the team basically spent more time fixing bugs than if they had built everything from scratch. But their passion for the product meant they just kept using it.

For some reason they never fixed issues in the original templates, so basically all the bugs that were found, kept showing up with each new app!

I have never seen apps like this that essentially had more bugs than features. Opening more than 10 app screen meant the app would freeze and crash. Sign up forms were actually dummy forms. The list goes on...

All the apps had the same shitty UI. For example, Product pages had a product image area that was like 5% of the screen view!

Last but not least, apps had a backend IP address hardcoded pointing to a server with an IP address that was temporary. So one day they had to restart the server and suddenly all customer apps stopped working and required a software update to work!

It was amazing seeing how a team of 3 developers trying to fix messy autogenerated code, couldn’t accomplish what was essentially a website on an app that I managed to build in my free time.

That’s how I knew it was time to quit my job and code full time.

IT Head: Hey, can you check out why application X isn't working? I've already restarted it and it isn't working anymore.

Me: sure.

Me 20 mins later: hey, looks like it is all good, website is normal, server resources are normal, etc...

IT Head: no no, the windows sync app isn't working.

Me inside: are you fucking kidding me you piece of stupid shit? Quit IT for good and die.

.Net is masterrace.
C# gives me frequent orgasms.
Use SQL Server for DB, add to that parallel querying and NoSQL capabilities.
Incredible development speed with EF
Incredebly powerful web framework...check
AI and neural networks...check
App Development...Xeck

If you want to do some of that functional programming F# is the language for you.

And the best thing: .Net core runs on Linux too

I am speechless! Assigned back to a project after leaving it for four months, went to see tasks, and they are like this:
Q1. Why did't you do this for the app?
A1: Because your team has not yet provided API, how is my team supposed to implement

Q2: Why having this in the app? either x or y not both!
A2: You guys wanted both

Q3: Why is the app showing data that must not be displayed?
A3: Because your server is sending me the data based on the criteria I sent? What else do you expect

and the list goes on ....

Moving legacy app from ubuntu 10 server to ubuntu 16 server

>be my team
>developing a mobile app
>I'm responsible for developing a "RESTful" API to interface communications between the app and the database
>there's also an "admin" web application which the client themselves will use to manage some shit in the database
>I've developed the API, it works with the mobile app
>instead of just making it simply a front-end app that makes requests to the API like the mobile app does, the guy responsible for the admin app completely ignores my API and implements his own with a certain messy dollar symbol language and a certain bloated piece of server software, accessing the same database directly, and does some operations in his own special way that will break what I've implemented
>now data inserted via admin app is inaccessible to the server API, and I'm expected to "fix" my code so it's consistent with this guy's shit, but the only way to do it is introducing interdependency between the actual API and the admin app's back end

Fuck my life, now I'm the one responsible for the app being broken because no way the guy who's used to kludging unmaintainable shit together fast would ever fuck anything up

I previously worked as a Linux/unix sysadmin. There was one app team owning like 4 servers accessible in a very speciffic way.
* logon to main jumpbox
* ssh to elevated-privileges jumpbox
* logon to regional jumpbox using custom-made ssh alternative [call it fkup]
* try to fkup to the app server to confirm that fkup daemon is dead
* logon to server's mgmt node [aix frame]
* ssh to server directly to find confirm sshd is dead too
* access server's console
* place root pswd request in passwords vault, chase 2 mangers via phone for approvals [to login to the vault, find my request and aprove it]
* use root pw to login to server's console, bounce sshd and fkupd
* logout from the console
* fkup into the server to get shell.

That's not the worst part... Aix'es are stable enough to run for years w/o needing any maintenance, do all this complexity could be bearable.

However, the app team used to log a change request asking to copy a new pdf file into that server every week and drop it to app directory, chown it to app user. Why can't they do that themselves you ask? Bcuz they 'only need this pdf to get there, that's all, and we're not wasting our time to raise access requests and chase for approvals just for a pdf...'

oh, and all these steps must be repeated each time a sysadmin tties to implement the change request as all the movements and decisions must be logged and justified.

Each server access takes roughly half an hour. 4 servers -> 2hrs.

So yeah.. Surely getting your accesses sorted out once is so much more time consuming and less efficient than logging a change request for sysadmins every week and wasting 2 frickin hours of my time to just copy a simple pdf for you.. Not to mention that threr's only a small team of sysadmins maintaining tens of thousands of servers and every minute we have we spend working. Lunch time takes 10-15 minutes or so.. Almost no time for coffee or restroom. And these guys are saying sparing a few hours to get their own accesses is 'a waste of their time'...

That was the time I discovered skrillex.

Got my first serious project about a year ago. Made it clear to the client that we are developing a Windows app. After around 80-100 hours of work client just goes "how about we make this a web app?" Got a "financial support" instead of the agreed payment. Got around 4 times less money than agreed upon. They never ended up using some parts of the software (I ran the server so I knew that they weren't using it)

I once had a nightmare explaining to the client that he cannot use a 30+ MB image as his home page background. Average internet speed in my country is around 1-2 MB/s. I even had to do the calculation for him because he couldn't figure out the time it took for the visitor to load the image.

Can someone explain the pricing for DO, AWS, or any other cheap hosting? DO $15 bucks for 1 database or multiple database in one server? AWS S3 or E2? Or should I stick with Heroku $7 (Web App server) and $9 for Postgres database?

Fuuuuck this corporate bullshit. I'm basically sitting around twiddling my thumbs waiting for some jackass to grant me access to the server that my boss moved my code over to. Why the hell did you put my app on a production server that runs every 30 minutes...THAT I DON'T HAVE ACCESS TO?? Now there's a critical bug and a $50K order in limbo because I can't push any fixes. Fuck me. The worst part will be in the next hour or so when dozens of people are calling, emailing, and attacking my cubicle like rabid animals about why orders aren't moving and I'll have to explain that production is a train wreck because reasons. Just end me.

Your web server config is fucked, and your app is down.

~ "Faithfully yours, nginx."

I was really hyped for what I would learn by doing internship.

The files on the web app server are updated by drag and drop on FTP.

True story
Was free at work so applied for a stretch project.
PM: you know mobile dev?
Me: yes, built a few apps
PM: good, we have an old app we want you to take the JAR change everything but the look of it and make it a new hybrid app with the required features.
Me: *kill me please*
PM: and use WordPress as the server.
Me: ...........

Accepted the challenge. Did the entire app in ionic and build a server for it with SpringBoot. Client loves it PM is still doesn't know😂

I just love how liferay keeps finding ways to surprise me...

Customer: need to fix this security issue
me: ok
me: fixed. Testing locally. Works 100%.
Me: testing on dev server. Works 100%
qa: testing on dev server. Works 100%
me: all good. Deploying to preprod
customer: it doesn't work
me: testing preprod - it doesn't work.
Me: scp whole app to local machine. App works 100%.
Me: preview loaded liferay properties in preprod via liferay adm panel. All props loaded ok.
Me: attach jdb to preprod's liferay to see what props are loaded. Only defaults are used [custom props not loaded according to jdb]

me: is there some quantum mechanics involved..? Liferay managed to both load and not to load props at the same time and the state only changes as it's observed...

> Tells client, if content isn't hosted on their server somewhere, we'll have to update the app every time they need new content

> Client refuses saying it will take too much time and effort to maintain

*Several weeks later*

> Get email from client asking to update the app because content is out of date

> I want to reply with 'Sorry no can do, it will take too much time and effort to maintain'

Both apps I'm working on have legacy code:

iOS app has 100's and 1000's of lines of code with no documentation, no proper naming conventions and cut and pasted code off the net.

Android app has skeleton code from a Spanish taxi app + remnants of a funeral webcasting app, there's also the same no documentation, bad naming conventions and cut and paste code off the net.

The server is also as bad, it had methods that we're never used, I for one don't fully understand the server but from what I can see it's a mess.

I had a hard time understanding both apps and gladly majority of the modifications I made we're not including existing stuff, so I guess I just basically pilled my code onto of the already existing software.

I would have gladly started from scratch given the chance.

Lesson of the day: never assume a language is bad based on internet comments.

PHP is awesome and solve most of my problems, I'm enjoying more to develop the server side of my app than the app itself and the language is not that complicated to learn and understand.

Do you have any related experience? I would like to hear from you.

Just fucked up two times in one week.

I was supposed to send alpha version of our app and also server configuration. I ended up sending configuration for completelly different server.

In second delivery i included correct configuration but forgot to include some jars ...

3 hours debugging on React server rendering....

The problem is I use class=“app” instead of id=“app”

Hahahahaha 🙄

These script kiddies fuck with my error metrics! I want 0 !

I swear I'll find them! Even enabled IP log for every request contain “.php”.

Needless to say, app is not even in PHP and PHP isn’t even present on server

I could not do anything else. Physics, Chemistry, Biology didn't interest me.

Tried competitve programming, failed miserably.
Tried app dev and server dev, they surprise me with their awesomeness everyday :D

TL;DR;

Idiot hard coded database host on the app... Pushed to prod and suddenly shit wasn't working... Took me 10 minutes to figure out what was going on...

Wrote a passive aggressive git message and commited.
Before updating prod my boss turns around to me and the following took place:

Boss: is there any problem with the server?

Me: yes, someone (i know who was ) hard coded the test db IP and it broke the backend.

Boss: oh, but will it affect the mobile app?

Me: well, it won't work but I'm already pushing the fix.

Boss: no..err.. I mean... Will I have to make any change to the mobile app?

Me inside: wtf dude... For real?! Get your shit together...

Me: no. It good, I already fixed it.

Boss: OK. Thanks

TL;DR;

Moron hard coded dB's host and stupid boss can't get shit together nor ask who did it to take precautions...

I got cut from a contracting job yesterday I have 3 weeks left in the contract. They said I worked well with the team, had a great work ethic but didn't think I had strong enough tech skills. In the past this would have hurt my feelings and it does a little but I think my tech skills are fairly high. There were three devs working on 66 apps with no tests, some source control but most of the code in source control was older than code deployed in prod, no automatic builds, people would wait a week before checking in code, others would check in code that would not build. Today the boss asked if I had messed with app pools on the prod iIs server because something was wrong. I said no because never remote into the server. Anyway it is the end of the world and I feel fine.

Dev: The server is completely down right now. Nobody can access the application, we need to divert some resources to horizontally scaling our app.

Manager: Hm, this was not in the schedule. I need to consult senior leadership on what to do about this. I don’t want to be held accountable for making a decision on this complex and highly nuanced situation.

Dev: No need, I have a solution. Just need a week to build/test/deploy the ability to horizontally scale.

Manager: But that will cause delays to new features.

Dev: New features don’t matter if the app can’t even load.

Manager: Ok you can implement your solution but it can’t take any time. I need those new features out.

Dev: ???????

Seems like everything on android is a "hack" or temporary solution, thanks to google .

Now how the fuck should i create a custom SMS inbox when:
1) i can't run the SMS broadcast reciever in a background service(because background services are deprecated )
2)message SMS reciever in a foreground service ,because this service is not fucking foreground! when the app is cleared from the recents , it shows the service as running, but on recieving the next message , the service dies??wtf?? i think its something related to processes

the app needs to detect a message instantly because some messages are needed to be sent to server the moment they are recieved :/

Those moments when your app server is down and you restart everything and then somehow it is magically working again.

I'm a web dev who decided to take a shot at mobile development (My first mobile app mind you). I'm writing a mobile app and one of it's features is communicating to my server via websockets.

So I write the code, click to send the data and my server doesn't receive it. Fuck. I check why. I log everything. Nothing.
I spend several of hours and I'm exhausted by this point so i call one of our mobile developers to help me. Turns out my emulator didn't have a WiFi module. FUCK.

Alright so I compile it to an apk and install it on my phone. I popped open a terminal and started my local node server.

I click on the mobile app...

NOTHING LOGS. FUUUUUUCK.

And this is the best part.
Apparently I deleted the console.dir call from my server that executed when it received some data from an emitter.

I only thought of this last night at 2am so I got up and checked. Yep. Kill me.

I've just added the possibility to connect to an external game server to my app and immediately regret it. People started sending me emails saying that it doesn't work. What they entered in the URL bar? "hi", "cunt" and a porn website...

Sometimes your music app knows just the right song to play.

Story:
Production program was working (has been for a long time). But suddenly it starts failing. I spent a long ass time trying to see what went wrong.

Problem:
Security update on the server 🙃

Now I've got the client, his minions, and the users emailing me to fix this. But I didn't start this fire!

Song: We didn't start the fire, by Billy Joel

Started the year well :D
Making an app to view our home energy usage and output (solar panels).
Raspberry pi is connected to our energy meter and is used as a server.

But some of you may not like this...
The Pi is running Windows IOT :P

This evening for curiosity i executed a nmap over my android phone expecting (like everyday) all port closed.
But i see
9080/tcp open glrpc
Wtf??
Let me check something....
--adb shell
$cat /etc/net/tcp

And the first line provied me the UID of the app that was running on 9080 port (2378 in hex)
So let me check which app is that
$dumpsys package | grep -A1 "userId=*UID*"

And the answer is com.netflix.mediaclient

Wtf??
Why netflix is running a http server on 9080/tcp on and android phone??

Amazing! My joke functionality worked and the server delivered it's content successfully to the client. The joke: malloc is wrapped to give that message and retry IMMEDIATELY. Expectation is that the computer that was already in panic mode gets even fucked up more because it's out of memory. My malloc is literally while((ptr=malloc()} == NULL) { show_warning()
;malloc();}. Imagine if it didn't give that warning, I would've never known that a malloc failed. Who checks their freaking malloc result? You should, but i do not see much people doing it.

The previous crash on screen is what happens if you're doing a get instead of a post. I just declare my server app indestructible btw. Ffs!

Developing a notification API, sends emails to subscribers, email API can take only 100 IDs at once, so partitioned the email list and send mails in blocks of 100.

Forgot to reset the list after every block, so each new partition got appended to the existing list and kept going on.

Ran it against a test DB, which was recently refreshed with near-prod data !!! Thousands of emails went out of the app server in one shot and everybody receiving numerous duplicate emails. Especially the ones in the very first partition.

Got an incident raised by the CEO himself reg the flurry of emails. But, things were out of our hands, quite literally. All emails are queued up in the exchange server.

Called up the exchange server team, purged​ the queued emails. No other emails were sent/received during this whole episode.

Thanks to Iterables.partition in the present day.

I'm trying to explain to this dumb mf-er why we can't use send data simply.
It's a mobile platform I said, you can't rely on having network I said, the dumbass users might try it on 2% battery I said.
DO'H BUT MY INTERZ CAN DO IT IN 5 MINUTES.
Yeah, enjoy crashing the app with asynctask like a stupid bitch. When it fails under nearly every possible condition that deviates from the ideal, you can go write down how great your interns are, eat it up, shit it out and when you grow a flower from that, then I might help you again.
Retard server people.

Currently working on app that is about 10 years old at work. Here’s how today has gone:

Can’t run application locally because the process management engine doesn’t allow access locally, can’t access in development because process management engine doesn’t work here either, can run app in test but waiting on special server access to get the logs.

Make the request to security to access the server - they decline it telling me that the form I submitted is outdated and to submit a new one. Requires three approvals, am still waiting on them.

Every time I make a change and want to test, I have to commit the changes, wait for them to build. Release the changes, build the release project and then deploy it in bamboo.

I can’t wait for my new job to start.

I was at my study once where I had to start a node app on a server I couldn't reach because SSH was bound to a port blocked by the network. SSH'd into my vps and from that vps, ssh'd into that box 😁 worked like a charm!

In my senior year of college we had to make a restaurant pos system. Our group made a functional realtime android tablet app.

That allowed for customers to place order, request refills, play a very small game, chat with other tables, and pay for the check which supported splitting.

When an order was placed it strait to the cook part of the app. Which could view orders and complete them based on table number.

When an order was complete or a drink refill request the server part was notified. Where the server could view and finish orders based on table number.

There was also a very lite admin web component for basic reporting.

The UI was horrid, but we completed this in less than a month.

Any fun self-hosted app or useful services you guys use on your own server?

For some weeks I have started to host my own git repository with gogs and take continious development into my control with jenkins and feel pretty neat.

Now I understand why my grandmother loves to raise her own food even when she could buy everything in the supermarket.

Let's take this on-site, single-tenant, heavyweight ASP.Net app, and start offering it "in the cloud"... by provisioning an entire 4GB Windows Server VM with SQL Server for every single customer.

I was hired to make a little app, alone, for iOS, Android and I had to code the server and the database. At first it was only à little app on Android and I had to do it in one month and go back school after.
Finally, the client was upset that the app was buggy and asked me to stop school because it was my duty because he paid me

Docker is awesome for minimizing environment problems.

Current side project needed a database, a web server with php and a transpiler server running. Before, other people developed using XAMPP on windows. I dockerized the project and have now just one build script setting up everything the app needs, regardless of the underlying operating system.

Deployed new app server at night for a number of prime client companies

It crashed at peak hours

The company's director and I:

Him: I think we need to build a hybrid mobile app, because the JavaScript code that renders images is the same on our front- and backends.

Me: Well, we could just send the parameters to the server, let it render it and get a response back.

Him: How?

Me: With an API.

Him: Oh!

!Rant #motivation #hugeProject
Yesterday i started a new app and i designed some of it but classes i coded will speed up the whole coding of other parts .
Anyways today i needed to work on the server side of the project and when i was working on setting up the databases structures i realized how big is this project (it uses like 3 APIs) so i was unmotivated because its a side project and it takes alot of time and overall it dont worth it and even app may fail or may be successful.
So i said i dont care about how it will turn out
Im gonna do it , and im gonna do it right now
So i did now its 6 am and the server part is almost finished ! 75% done .
It was a secure login system and signup with verifications and more security stuff and the codes that provide the server status and most of the user parts . And some of the features of the app .
The most hard thing remaining is to setup the in app purchases and the APIs .
So if you see a project that is huge .
Dont give up . Just do it as long as you can
And you will see how much you progress !
And the huge project will be a big project ;)
Then a normal project , then a tiny project :P
Good night

Listened for about a half-hour yesterday to DevA ‘beat down’ DevB writing a console app for trying out a proof-of-concept idea he had.

DevB: “What’s the URL of the development server?”
DevA: “Why? What are you doing?”
DevB: “I’m needing to throw some messages to it so I can capture data for something I’m working on.”
DevA: “How are you calling the service?”
DevB: “I wrote a console app”
- you could almost hear the eye roll -
DevA: “A console app? Why in the world would you write a console app?”
DevB: “Oh..um..no reason. I just need log some test data for something I’m playing around with. How should I do it?”
DevA: “If it’s test data, you should have wrote a unit test. You see, unit tests …”
- yammer on and on for about 5 minutes about the virtues of unit tests…never really explaining anything -
DevB: “Yea, I’m not needing to test the result or anything. I just need to log some data.”
DevA: “Then you should use a unit test for that, not a console app. With a unit test, you’ll be able to validate the data. That’s what unit tests are for. Microsoft should have never put in console apps in Visual Studio. It just leads to bad coding practices.”
DevB: “Um…I don’t care. It’s a console app because I just need data…thanks anyway”

Today, DevC was talking to DevA

DevC: “Charlie is testing the order module, but there isn’t any test data. Do you still have the data generating script?”
DevA: “Oh yea, I’ll send him my console app that populates the database.”

It was all I could do from screaming “You stupid –bleep-er!! What the f–bleep-ck was all that yesterday?!”, but none of my business. Better to devrant about it than start a fight.

Just got an email from my company that a http server app I wrote years ago exposed the whole server it runs on because of a misconfig parametered...

Can use it to read any file using server.com/path/to/file

I'm learning nginx and it's simplying the way I think about web projects.

I used to think that when I used a server side framework, then that should be the master and all should go through it. Noob me.

I used to put client side projects (like create-react-app of vue-cli projects) right inside the server side project.

But with nginx you can just route subpaths to different places, then instead of having, let's say, the react project inside rails, they would be in separate git projects.

In fact, I no longer need to restrict myself to a single server framework.

I love several aspects of rails. I love several others of node. And if I need multithreaded performance, I'd very much use something like phoenix or go.

Again, with nginx, you setup subpaths with the `location` directive in the same server and voila, a no CORS setup, cookies shared and homogenous versatile website.

I am building a website inspired by devrant but have never built a server network before, and as im still a student I have no industry experience to base a design on, so was hoping for any advice on what is important/ what I have fucked up in my plan.

The attached image is my currently planned design. Blue is for the main site, and is a cluster of app servers to handle any incoming requests.

Green is a subdomain to handle images, as I figured it would help with performance to have image uploads/downloads separated from the main webpage content. It also means I can keep cache servers and app servers separated.

Pink is internal stuff for logging and backups and probably some monitoring stuff too.

Purple is databases. One is dedicated for images, that way I can easily back them up or load them to a cache server, and the other is for normal user data and posts etc.

The brown proxy in the middle is sorta an internal proxy which the servers need to authenticate with to connect to, that way I can just open the database to the internal proxy, and deny all other requests, and then I can have as many app servers as I want and as long as they authenticate with the proxy, they can access the database without me changing any firewall rules. The other 2 proxies just distribute requests between the available servers in the pool.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advanced :D

I wondering what could possibly slow down our server app , Just found out there's one mother fucker who use async in every cases and async everywhere. Hey not all function are async!

BlackDuck or the way it's implemented at my company...

-The site is so slow and often times out
-Scans take 3 days to complete
-Server only keeps the latest for each app

So you have to wait 3 days to see if an issue is fixed and hope no one ran a build right after you...

>Be a customer
>Ask to reduce number of servers you rent at our company
>Agree to a date when the one server you no longer needs will be due to be disconnected and taken apart
>Date comes
>I have the honors of sending the final /sbin/poweroff
>All goes neatly... until...

The web that used to be there, now moved to another one of their machines, goes down, wtf???

Oh. a 500. What?
Checks logs...
Cannot connect to Database.
Wtf? Local database works... Oh. OH. OH MY GOD.

>Turn the server back on and tell the customer to fix the app to no longer connect to that machine

Sometimes, being a sysadmin can be a real fun!

Python haters, gather 'round

oh come on... In java it's all simple as 123. You build an app, you have like 200 dependencies, you pack it all in a single fat jar and only deploy that single .jar. Don't need no internet, no installs, no pip, no nothing: just your .jar file and the JVM.

So java:
- build an app
- use 200+ deps
- build your whole project into a single fat jar
- deploy your jar in the env
- install [*khem khem* scp into the server] jre
- run

Now let's look at py, shall we?
- build an app
- use 1 dep
- deploy all the 20 .py files in the env
- make sure you have internet access
- install python
- install pip
- pip install <my dependency>
- run your app

Why do most apps have a password reset page that redirects to a mobile site ?

Why not give them a code they can enter into the app which would then show a password reset page within the app or a link which opens the page within the app.

Isn't it good practice to keep the user within the app?

Isn't it better to serve a token than serve an entire html webpage for the server.

I've been thinking about this but 90% people follow the website pattern and Idk why. Am I missing something ?

Please fill me in on it. (Even devrant uses the same pattern)

So client wants an android app that implements some legacy Epson printer SDK, works on a chinese Windows device with an android Emulator on it, connects to local Webservice that had to be configurated and ran (local Network) , sends and tracks data, if Server down then handle it on the Client and reconnect as soon as Server up, running own TCP Server on Android device that listens for specific http requests, which make the android connect to an Epson printer to start printing. The stuff that is being printed? A png file that has to be converted to a Bitmap, a QR Code that has to be generated by the bugged base64 encrypted stuff coming via http in (webserver-> Android TCP server)
Dont forget the Software Design (MVP), documentation, research etc.. Im about to finish the app , its my 5th day on this Project, the 6th day was planned to be full testing. Client Calls me and ask me how far I am, I reply, he says ok. 30 minutes later he tells me he wont pay me next time that much because this work should take 3 days, or even 2. "A senior Android developer could do this in 2 days"... When i sent him my notices he called me a liar, his webdev has alot of experience and told him it should take 2-3 days...ffs

Developer vs non developer interview:

Non developer:
How well do you know excel ?

Developer:
How would you write spreadsheet app, what if it was cross platforms mobile application but also desktop app ?

Non developer:
Do you know how to use windows?

Developer:
Do you know kubernetes, distributed systems, lambdas, cloud services and how to deploy to server farm ?

Non developer:
You know how to use printer / fax and coffee machine ?

Developer:
Do you have experience in writing code for embedded devices ?

Non developer:
Do you know powerpoint ?

Developer:
How well do you know javascript / html / css, are you comfortable with writing backend node.js code or electron applications ?
React native and native apps maybe ?

My biggest mistake was that I didn't check the file extension of a uploaded file. Or more correctly forgot that I turned it off for debugging and pushed the app to production.

Somebody noticed an uploaded a hacker php script and got access to all the files on the server. Including some semi sensetive clients information.

A talk with the client that followed was not a pleasant one

I found a great app on iOS that allowed me to clone my Git repo, make commits, change branches, it had everything! I made a small commit and went to push to the remote server, but then it told me that I had to purchase premium to be able to push to remote. I was kind of upset, but I went to check the price of premium, in case it was a few cents. Nope, $25 just to be able to push commits. Seriously? If I was at my computer I’d be able to do this for free.

No x-server, wayland. just drm and framebuffer. use computer just fine in this env. I can watch youtube and video. play music, play twitter, read rss, edit my program, surf a web, connect with other computer, view my image, read pdf with this freaking lightweight env.
Basicly, my super battery saver mode.
(want me to list all of these cli/tui app?)

What the best database solution for web and smartphones dev?
Is mysql the good choice?
I’m an “old” dev with old usage, php-mysql-JavaScript.
Is it a 2018 solution or am i a dinosaur?
All data will be stored on server side. Web and smartphone app as client.
Thanks for your experience sharing.

F*** u apple. From time to time I develop Apps for Android and iOS and boy is the whole iOS app distribution workflow bad.

I try for hours to upload a update for my app.

First I needed the readd my credit card then there were internal server errors and after that I needed to regenerate provisioning profiles.

Everytime I use something from apple, then I experience such a bad user experience. "It just works" not anymore friendo...

Well well well.
Story time.

Since we are working from home for the past 4 months, I finally decided to install a Microsoft SQL server on my home server. (Mostly was using Azure)

My server is running Windows Server 2012 R2.
Tried installing SQL 2019 : fail, 2016 : Fail, 2012 : Fail. Some obscure message about some DLLs not being at right version. (And a warning that it is no recommended to install SQL server on domain controller, but I know, it is my home setup, not roduction)

“Ok fine, I’ll install it on my PC instead”. Windows 10 PC. NOPE. “Cannot install on a compressed drive”. Welp, wtf ? (Of course you cannot select destination install folder, I could’ve put it on another drive).

So here I am. Working 100% on Windows, installed Ubuntu server 20 LTS in Hyper-V, Installed Microsoft SQL server on it (BTW, install is very easy compared to windows). And that shit is working. And new “Terminal” app does support SSH out of box, no need to add Putty !

So as a Windows user, I needed Linux to make Microsoft SQL techno work.

Nothing will ever surprise me anymore. (BTW it’s fucking fast. I like SQL server on Linux)

This codebase had 50+ main() functions and 80+ Material App. 5 of them are nested MaterialApp

Redundant widgets, security leaks, and print Sensitive information from the server to console without using (kDebugMode), therefore in prod, the data are leaked.

I refactored until I screamed.

So I left a gift inside.

I just had such a forfilling moment.

Normally, i often (force myself) go to bed at night, after i worked on a project of mine, with these thought saying "oh man i wanted to get that feature done today" or "i want to finish this and that part of my code".I am sure everyone of you knows the feeling, when your brain communicates that you are just not done for today.

Today it was different. I got a project of mine working in it's first state, where i put much heart, love and time in.Just a few minutes before i finished for today i got my server responding the expected numbers(some kind of pin-code). It's a very easy system: Someone(at the time only me and my debug mode :3) on a android phone request a verification which is checked and processed by the server. The server creates a random six-digit number, returns it encoded to the client and sends an email to the user, which currently sends it in plain text(shame on me).
Yeah, the user enters the number and voilà
And of course, all the Pincodes can only be used once.
I got to bed with this feeling of luck and succes.

I hope tomorrow is going to be a productive day!

I am so lucky right now.

Have a good day everyone!

Recently made a sub 750 euro in home server with raid 1, to back up all pc's laptops and smartphones in the house to. Never been better!

Using a simple little daily backup tool on all pc's, and another app to sync 2 way to my phone, i was able to have all my data safe on that home server.

It even allows me to edit content on my phone which will sync overnight, because of the way usb access is shit on android since.. 5.0?

I am loving it! Worth every penny and week of setup effort.

I will give you the money for the server and the domain name (not caring about the conversion rates and transfer charges) and I expect the app delivered in record time. We can talk about payment later.
Note to self: “Never work with people you know.”

so I installed nginx on my server this week. I feel like a giddy kid now installing one self hosted app after another. REVERSE PROXY ALL THE THINGS!

Right now I have reviewboard and drone (drone.io) installed. Any of you guys have suggestions for other cool stuff to try out? Mostly interested in something with a web API that can do fun stuff :)

When you're on holiday with the missus and she won't let you use the laptop so you download an app to ssh onto your server and vi your way through bus rides and beach days.

How do you counter DOS attack? I have one online service where an idiot just calls curl command to one endpoint.

Although my service is working and server performance is not affected, I found it annoying.

Cloudflare could be a solution, the reason I did not use before is user might have to wait a few seconds before seeing the app, but if no choice then.

I haven't said anything yet, but an AltRant notification server exists. Support for it will arrive very very soon on the AltRant app. It will run locally on the end user's personal computer, and it does not require a constant connection to the phone. Both devices need to be connected to the same local network on first connection, but after that you can wander out of your house or disconnect from the local network and still receive notifications.

DISCLAIMER: ALL SENSITIVE USER CREDENTIALS ARE NOT STORED *ANYWHERE* EXCEPT ON THE LOCAL USER'S MACHINE. NO DATA IS SENT TO ME. THE SERVER IS OPEN-SOURCE, HAS NO RELEASE BINARIES AND RUNS ON PYTHON.

Note to @dfox: if you want this to not exist or not be supported inside AltRant, please tell me or send me an email about it.

Has any of you reached a point that you want to resign from work because of a client?

We are dealing with a client at work that uses the app for prototyping instead of making designers create wireframe, imagine the amount of code to write,edit, remove, write it again and yet there is always something isn't right from the client point of view.

What is even worse backend guys screw the server and I am the one to be blamed for errors: 5xx
I even get blamed for error 400 (bad request) when that request passes tests but out of a sudden server returns 400, when you hit refresh the exact same moment of error and server decides to return data and stop throwing error 400.

I also get blamed for server fails to return data from a search endpoint, and if server throws 403 for a public endpoint.

This isn't a rant or getting out of my system but I need opinions, I've been working on this project for a year, with complete mess from either client or backend team, if any of you is instead of me, what would you do?

I'm not a complete guy either, but that situation is just beyond my abilities to handle.

I'm developing a web app, which is purely based on some commercial .NET driven API. The documentation is a 12 page MS Word file with incorrect parameters and non-existing endpoints. I think there's also a cronjob which purposely crashes their server every 15minutes. I just love getting client emails saying I need to fix my app and get my shit together.

Recently i learned about pipes in C#. I made 2 simple console apps(client and server) in visual studio. They work flawlessly. After that i made plugin for unity that uses those pipes. (because i want to crunch numbers in .net 4.7 app and display results in unity). Every function in my plugin is wrapped in try-catch block. Unity frezzes/crashes everytime i try to use my plugin 😥

As many of you might know, the PYX servers are down. It happens that I run an Android client for PYX, that was obviously a tragedy for me. I didn't give up and I've immediately setup a backup server, then due to lack of resources I had to shut it down, but I provided a list of servers run by other people.

Yesterday I've updated the app once again to do some fixing. Today, this guy leaves a review: "Absolutely useless until they bring back the servers. Why update the app when literally NOBODY is playing??"; Why am I updating the app?! Jesus Christ, why can't I update my app?!?! Should I delete it from the Play Store just because some servers are down? I get it, there are a few people playing, but please, don't fucking say that the app is useless.

This kind of people makes me very angry.

Meeting about brand new web app system to replace an ancient MFC app.
director: can we just use the old subsystem manager? (horrible mix of management ui and SOAP listeners in the same app...)
developers: No, that's an MFC app... not even just a server.
director: but... can't you just plug it in? you're using web components right?
developers: *weary sigh*

every day I see full stack here and there...
full stack is not only db and code, but also "every step the bit goes through " from end user's screen/input to server and back to him
whether is an app or service, end user is only an example.

it's about knowing how the language behaves, how the server interprets and replies to requests, protocols, even how to do every single configuration on the systems you are using, and in my point of view that includes hardware.

pretty much that...

I get sic when I see on a resume claiming "I'm a full stack dev" and there's nothing on it saying that the guy knows at least to change a light bulb... lol
Even worse, when I see job offers asking for "Full stack Dev, with no experience" ...

that's not possible without experience ! sorry

Yesterday was a horrible day...
First of all, as we are short of few devs, I was assigned production bugs... Few applications from mobile app were getting fucked up. All fields in db were empty, no customer name, email, mobile number, etc.
I started investigating, took dump from db, analyzed the created_at time stamps. Installed app, tried to reproduce bug, everything worked. Tried API calls from postman, again worked. There were no error emails too.
So I asked for server access logs, devops took 4 hrs just to give me the log. Went through 4 million lines and found 500 errors on mobile apis. Went to the file, no error handling in place.
So I have a bug to fix which occurs 1 in 100 case, no stack trace, no idea what is failing. Fuck my job.

I am a web app developer by profession and software engineer by qualifications but when there is a problem with router, firewall or a server needs to be setup, whether internal or for client, all my employer can see is me. Sometimes i get too tired of this shit. Also I am expected to work at home during night as if I don't have any life outside this field. I need to enjoy my life with I am young. I am twenty and stuck. Fuck it.

For all the cheap-ass sys admins:
I wouldn’t pay 100$ a year to apple just to have push notifications when my server fucks up or an user fill my support form but I want to know that in real time but I have iPhone(forget about FCM).

So I downloaded pushbullet to my phone and integrated its API in my server and when something important happen I get completely free notification which (thanks to url schemes in ios) redirect me to my server administration app.

Note: I used xamarin for my management app to be ready for the moment when I switch back to android.

I really don't understand this particular Government Department's IT Unit. They have a system and network to maintain except:

- They don't have a DBA
- They don't have a dedicated Network Engineer or Security Staff
- Zero documentation on all of the systems that they are taking care of (its all in each assigned particular staff's brain they said)
- Unsure and untested way of restoring a backup into a system
- Server passwords are too simple and only one person was holding this whole time and its to an Administrator account. No individual user account.
- System was developed by an in-house developer who is now retired and left very little documentation on its usage but nothing on how its setup.

But, the system has been up and operational for the past 20 years and no major issues whatsoever with the users using it. I mean its a super simple system setup from the looks of it.

1 App Server connected to 1 DB Server, to serve 20-30 users. But it contains millions of records (2GB worth of data dump). I'm trying to swing to them to get me on a part time work to fix these gaps.

God save them for another 20 years.

Something I would like to finish :
- Learn server-side language so I can create more then front end. In my case I'm learning asp.net core.
- Finish a project called coffeeBreak. Users adds some web sites he likes to read and he reads them all in one page without opening multiple tabs.
- Finish a simple Reddit client for mobile, and make a desktop app out of it.
- Go through all the Pluralsight courses I have on my PC

The moment you realize that you have successfully beaten reality with your unit-tests...

There are unit-tests for ...
... the api returning a 408 Http StatusCode when an internal request times out.
... the react app take this status-code and fires an action to display a specific error message for the user.

Every bit of code runs just fine.

Deploy this hell of an app on the server. Dandy Doodle.

Do a smoketest of the new feature.
FAIL!
Chrome starts to crumble during runtime. The api Request freezes.
Firefox takes the 408 api response but fails to interpret it in react app.

So I began to wonder, what the hell is going on.

Actually I recognized that I had the glorious idea to return a clientside error code in a serverside api response.
Glorious stupidity :/

Finally I fixed the whole thingy by returning an 504 (Gateway timeout) instead of 408 (Clientside timeout)

Cheers!

My new project: a camera sends an image of the electricity clock to a server that does ocr and submits the value to the electricity company on the 5th of every month

Current progress: spent 4 hours trying to get emails to work in scala when i found on an obscure forum that you have to enable insecure app access in your gmail to use smtp

If I'm writing an app which has the sole purpose of receiving some data from a server, then sending some other data back (so nothing is stored locally) - what sort of stuff do I write tests for?

Client wants lots of testing to occur, but all of the tests I can think of wouldn't add any value

I have a web app that is currently running on a production server with no issues, but at the same time, it isn't working on my machine which I used to write, test, and deploy the app. The thing is, I haven't touched the code for a full month.

Now, I know this has to be logical and that there must be an reasonable explanation for all of this that I do not know yet.

However, and out of frustration, my mind wants to believe that there's some sorcery involved here or that a cosmic ray has actually penetrated the machine and messed its registers.

Damn the cosmic ray!

For what fucking reason the ability to set the date and time programatically has been blocked on Android?!
Why you can create fucking invisible apps that work in the background, mine cryptos, steal your data but they decided that something like that is considered dangerous?

Can anyone give me a logical explanation?

P.S.
There are cases (big pharma companies) where the users don't have access to internet nor a ntp server is available on the local network, so the ability for an app to get the time of a sql server and set it in runtime is crucial, expecially when the user, for security reasons, can't have access to the device settings and change it by himself.
"System apps" can do it, but you would have to change the firmware of a device to sideload an external "System app" and in that case it would lose the warranty.

So, yeah, fucking Google assholes, there are cases where your dumb decisions make the others struggle every other day.
Give more power to third party developers, dumb motherfuckers.
It's not that diffic