My boyfriend.

He's an amazing software developer, has a few more years of experience with me, and because he's not a colleague, I feel comfortable asking him dumb questions. Combined with his patience and willingness to explain things very thoroughly, it's helped my post college learning immensely.

I love that I can cook him dinner, and then go to him with a code smell that I found at work, and spend the meal discussing ways to make cleaner code. I'm not sure who the real winner is in that situation. Probably my employer, haha.

!rant

I've always wanted to son to enjoy the the same feeling I get when I'm developing. Today my son pulled up a chair next to me and started asking questions about my code, it's safe to say I got those proud dad feels.

Feels good man, feels real good.

Finally, someone's asking the real questions.

Lads, I will be real with you: some of you show absolute contempt to the actual academic study of the field.

In a previous rant from another ranter it was thrown up and about the question for finding a binary search implementation.

Asking a senior in the field of software engineering and computer science such question should be a simple answer, specifically depending on the type of job application in question. Specially if you are applying as a SENIOR.

I am tired of this strange self-learner mentality that those that have a degree or a deep grasp of these fundamental concepts are somewhat beneath you because you learned to push out a website using the New Boston tutorials on youtube. FOR every field THAT MATTERS a license or degree is hold in high regards.
"Oh I didn't go to school, shit is for suckers, but I learned how to chop people up and kinda fix it from some tutorials on youtube" <---- try that for a medical position.

"Nah it's cool, I can fix your breaks, learned how to do it by reading blogs on the internet" <--- maintenance shop

"Sure can write the controller processing code for that boing plane! Just got done with a low level tutorial on some websites! what can go wrong!"

(The same goes for military devices which in the past have actually killed mfkers in the U.S)

Just recently a series of people were sent to jail because of a bug in software. Industries NEED to make sure a mfker has aaaall of the bells and whistles needed for running and creating software.

During my masters degree, it fucking FASCINATED me how many mfkers were absolutely completely NEW to the concept of testing code, some of them with years in the field.

And I know what you are thinking "fuck you, I am fucking awesome" <--- I AM SURE YOU BLOODY WELL ARE but we live in a planet with billions of people and millions of them have fallen through the cracks into software related positions as well as complete degrees, the degree at LEAST has a SPECTACULAR barrier of entry during that intro to Algos and DS that a lot of bitches fail.

NOTE: NOT knowing the ABSTRACTIONS over the tools that we use WILL eventually bite you in the ASS because you do not fucking KNOW how these are implemented internally.

Why do you think compiler designers, kernel designers and embedded developers make the BANK they made? Because they don't know memory efficient ways of deploying a product with minimal overhead without proper data structures and algorithmic thinking? NOT EVERYTHING IS SHITTY WEB DEVELOPMENT

SO, if a mfker talks shit about a so called SENIOR for not knowing that the first mamase mamasa bloody simple as shit algorithm THROWN at you in the first 10 pages of an algo and ds book, then y'all should be offended at the mkfer saying that he is a SENIOR, because these SENIORS are the same mfkers that try to at one point in time teach other people.
These SENIORS are the same mfkers that left me a FUCKING HORRIBLE AND USELESS MESS OF SPAGHETTI CODE

Specially to most PHP developers (my main area) y'all would have been well motherfucking served in learning how not to forLoop the fuck out of tables consisting of over 50k interconnected records, WHAT THE FUCK

"LeaRniNG tHiS iS noT neeDed!!" yes IT fucking IS

being able to code a binary search (in that example) from scratch lets me know fucking EXACTLY how well your thought process is when facing a hard challenge, knowing the basemotherfucking case of a LinkedList will damn well make you understand WHAT is going on with your abstractions as to not fucking violate memory constraints, this-shit-is-important.

So, will your royal majesties at least for the sake of completeness look into a couple of very well made youtube or book tutorials concerning the topic?

You can code an entire website, fine as shit, you will get tested by my ass in terms of security and best practices, run these questions now, and it very motherfucking well be as efficient as I think it should be(I HIRE, NOT YOU, or your fucking blog posts concerning how much MY degree was not needed, oh and btw, MY degree is what made sure I was able to make SUCH decissions)

This will make a loooooooot of mfkers salty, don't worry, I will still accept you as an interview candidate, but if you think you are good enough without a degree, or better than me (has happened, told that to my face by a candidate) then get fucking ready to receive a question concerning: BASIC FUCKING COMPUTER SCIENCE TOPICS

* gays away into the night

I was thinking today about a certain aspect of running a software startup and then it came to me...

Hank Scorpio, from the Simpsons, was right in his approach.

So many time I have seen people get hired only for the company to get a less-than-optimal performance from them.

But why is this? Of course, it is many factors but one of the major ones is...

Employers seem to lump employees in together and assume that since most developers operate in one way that the new devs should be the same way.

The problem with this seems to be that we are all pandering to the lowest common denominator.

Let's face it, most devs (like most people) are not good, and almost everyone is not living up to their potential because of a lack of understanding of themselves and how they can achieve more.

On top of that, most devs are just employees who will do what you tell them to.

Since those above developers are the norm (Reference Seinfeld "95% of people are undatable") we have to assume that there is a 5% who are exceptional.

The difference between the 5% and the 95% is NOT some built-in superiority but that the 5% has a good idea themselves and an understanding of how to get the most out of them. They set goals and then find the right path to achieve them. They don't coast.

By assuming these developers are the same as the others is REALLY hampering their potential and by doing this the company only hurts itself.

So, that's a lot of talking but what actionable things can be taken away from this?

Hank asks Homer "What is your dream?"

Well, employeers should take the time to identify which of these developers are in the 5%. A problem arises though when the 5% decide it is in their best interest to blend in.

Like when home says his dream is to "Work for you?" Hank shuts him down and wants to get to the truth. He makes Homer comfortable with not only vocalizing but achieving his dreams.

When an employer is looking for their types they should be looking for the following...

1. A real genuine desire to achieve
2. A real plan to get their goals done
3. Critical thinking and self-evaluation

But more importantly, when they identify these types they should be asking questions like...
- How can we help you be more productive?
- Is there anything about our current operating norm that is hindering you?
- How does your productivity workflow look?

3 difficulties arise though…

1. Most hiring managers are incompetent, and quite frankly, everyone thinks they are in the 5% and for those managers who delude themselves into this without putting in the work, they will have an impossible time actually identifying those who are actually good and productive employees.
2. Showing special treatment to these folks may upset the people below.
3. You will hear things you don’t like…

Examples include…

- That new fancy open-office that you got because it was the trendy thing to do, you might hear that this is a huge hinderance.
- These days people seem to treat devs like nomads, “just give him a laptop and a table and he is fine”!. You may hear that this is complete BS. Real achievers may want a dedicated desk with multiple monitors, a desk with drawers etc.
- This WILL cost you money. I know of developers who cannot work without a dedicated whiteboard. Buy them whatever they need.
- They may want BOTH a standing desk and a chair to sit on.
- Etc.

The point is that it seems to me to be a foolish strategy to tailor your entire company to force everyone into the same work habits. Really good employees have the self-awareness to develop their own productive practices and any keeping of them inside a box will NOT help.

Working in the IT Department is just funny man. Sometimes I wonder if I'm dumb, too smart to answer these dumb questions or these clients are just asking questions they already have answers to that I don't.

Client: Hey, can you please give X access to Y's Dropbox? He gets error saying he doesn't have access to the file.

Me: Uhh, you have to share a link to the specific file you want to share with X. Then only he can access it.

Client: Can you send him the link?

Me: Uhhhh, what link?

Client: The link to the file.

Me: Who created the file you want to share?

Client: My boss did. And he wants me to send the link to X. But I don't have the link so he said to check with IT.

Me (in my mind): WTF!!!!

Me: Ok, ask your boss to share the link to the file he created with you then you can send it to Y. He can also send it to Y directly himself. IT doesn't have and has no idea of what file your boss created. Only your boss knows.

Client: Ok, hold on let me check with him..

Client gets back on the phone.. "he said he deleted the file".

Me: Well, there's no file to share here.

Client: Can you find it?

Me: Call Dropbox.

Client: do you have his number?

Me: Who?

Client: Dropbox..

At this point I started laughing.. 😂😂😂🤣🤣

Me: Dropbox is a company.

Client: Ok, thank you. I'll call Dropbox.

At this point, I'm wondering. If this client thought Dropbox was person, then what did she mean by her initial question? 🤔

Can this be real life? This happened less than an hour ago, and going home now still confused about this whole situation. 😂😂

Does anyone remember MUDs? Multi-User Dungeons — working on those in LPC was my first experience with real programming. Before that, I'd only made simple websites.

To get permission to program in one MUD, you had to prove that you knew the world, by reaching a certain level in the game. Death had consequences, with a level being lost, as well as risking loss of your items if someone looted you or your corpse was lost. This alone was hard enough to make most players give up. I played (and played wisely) to get there, being the first of my friends. It was hard work and fun.

After months of playing every day, finally, I was a wizard! Well, first, I had to convince someone else to take me as an apprentice, which was it's own challenge, because I was a 13 y/o girl. I ended up having to wait for an older male friend to get to the proper rank and get made a full wizard himself, because anyone else was reluctant (thinking that I'd just screw up or make them look bad), and no one was very happy about it. After some more weeks, I started programming my own content for the MUD, to share with others. It was a great opportunity to learn and express myself, seeing how creative programming could be.

I got called all kinds of names for asking questions and making mistakes, and I questioned why I even wanted to work with these people who hated my guts and didn't want to teach me anything, but I kept going. As I wasn't allowed to take computer classes in school, being able to do projects on my own like this was the only way to learn. I also became more stubborn, patient, and independent, which has always been necessary for this career.

Most importantly, I saw what could be done with programming, and was inspired to keep going with my own projects, no matter how much hate that I got for it. I went on to work on more games and software, often on my own. I always explore new technology, ignore the haters, and forge ahead with my own vision.

Been a while since my last real proper rant.

Multiple projects. Business side going into panic mid. Devs are staying cool as usual.

We, devs, have to hold hands so they don't completely break down.

We are wasting precious time in order to rub their feelings.

Get. Your. Shit. Together.
Or atleast, go cry in a corner AND LET US FUCKING WORK.
STOP. FUCKING. SPAMMING.

Can't fucking work for more than 10 mins.
I go take a shit, I have 200 notifications when I'm back.

Omfg their lives must be so hard, really. How can you fucking go into full retard whenever there's a small roadblock.

DO. YOUR. FUCKING. JOB. And let me do mine.

As soon as you let us work, issues are going to be solved, you'll be less stressed and everything will be fine.

Keep asking the same questions over and over, arguing on non-critical things (who cares about wordings... it's 1min change) and the stress will only build up for everyone.

DAMN. Fuck off, fucking emotional idiots.

This guy is asking the 'real questions'.

My parents are real sticklers for who is allowed to be on Netflix. They only let people on when they are present, and they never click 'save password'.

Me being a poor college student and desperate for the Netflix password, created a fake website for one of my parents to sign into.

How did I do this? I created my own localhost server with a backend database for the password to go to. I then copied the Netflix home screen and log in and asked them to log me into their account.

They said I can be on for one hour, and then they were signing me out.

I agreed to these terms.

As a small twist, I had also copied the no internet tab from Chrome for the page to redirect to. Knowing that once they logged in they would be expecting the main UI.

They logged in and then waited for the page to load. I, of course, put in a delay for the page to load and then displayed the no internet tab. They were confused and asked me to refresh, still nothing. I asked them if the router was out, and they went to check.

While they were away I quickly switched back to the real Netflix website and yelled back saying I got it working again. They came back over and saw that it was asking for a password again. They signed in and saw the main homepage and none were the wiser that day.

Once they left I checked inside the DB and found the plaintext password they typed in... The damn password was so simple, I cursed myself for not having figured it out sooner. No matter, I had my parents Netflix password.

So you're probably wondering how they didn't see the URL above and think something was off?

I pressed F11 and fullscreened my entire browser. They did ask, and I simply replied with, I don't like seeing all the crap up above when I'm streaming. No further questions, perhaps I was lucky.

Devs are my closest friends and I have learned so much from you all.

They ask some of the best questions, their skill set is ever evolving, they have the real problem solving mindset, they are critical towards any and everything in a good way, and so much more.

There was this thread asking what a bad Product Manager is and this answer takes the cake.

The point highlighted in red is the ultimate truth.

Devs are most innovative people of our times. Big shout-out to you all and thank you for making me who I am today :)

Resumes don't mean jack shit!!

I just got off an interview call with a candidate for a hardware role. On paper this guy is absolute gold, having worked for some of the best robotics companies and research groups(in India at least) It took me an hour to realize that the was just spitting out buzz words. So I started asking him some very fundamental questions, like ohms law and such.. high school stuff. But, phrased in real world terms. And it took me another half an hour to realize that the guy is dumber than a sack of peanuts!

I can't believe how easy it is for people to coast by on paths paved by seniors and teammates. By any objective assessment this guy would be lucky to get a job as an electrician and instead I'm wasting my time interviewing him for a six figure salary (well, the Indian equivalent). Gaaah!!

Okay so this is just a rant about my personal life because if I post it any where else no one will really care.

So I graduated from a vocational high school where I learned about basic IT and networking skills but I mostly focused on my programming. and I LOVED that school honestly the environment was so amazing and everyone and everything about it was amazing. then I started college recently hoping for the same thing and its just depressing me, and my depression is coming back and I cant stop it because I cant distract myself from it. My friends are always off playing Monster Hunter Ultimate and Im just wishing theyd hop back on Warframe so we can play again.. They say they will but they really wont so im usually just playing alone or going online which is sometimes fun if you have people that talk back.

so i took myself to the official warframe discord to find people that would help but everytime I ask I just get ignored. So Im stuck playing alone.

while thats happening Im not really getting any messages from anyone besides my girlfriend which is nice but she isnt able to really keep up a conversation and shes often busy with school as well. when I try to talk to any of my friends they arent really interested to talk or just send short replies that obviously tell me to go away. one friend in particular she and I used to talk everyday not even in a romantic way just straight up besties for life, but after one of my relationships ended she basically took her side and never talks to me now. Ive just been really lonely and wanting to just have my friends talk to me again or just have some programming friends I can chill in a discord server while we code but I cant bring myself to ask anyone on the specific server im in for programming..

Honestly idk if anyone on devrant really looks at my posts and thinks "oh look Bubbles posted again". I feel like im not good enough to be here because Im not nearly as good as all of you, Im mostly just here asking questions or posting extremely fucking long posts no one wants to read. and yet this is still where most of my interactions are and I love that this devRant community makes me laugh or feel better about myself sometimes. and I thank all of you for that and I remember your @ 's all the time.

honestly the only real highlight of my week was when my teacher of my vocational class asked me to come back as an unpaid intern to help teach his new programming class and It made me happy but other than that I havent been too happy.

if anyone actually got through this holy shit youre awesome and thank you a lot its appreciated.

I'm coming off a lengthy staff augmentation assignment awful enough that I feel like I need to be rehabilitated to convince myself that I even want to be a software developer.

They needed someone who does .NET. It turns out what they meant was someone to copy and paste massive amounts of code that their EA calls a "framework." Just copy and paste this entire repo, make a whole ton of tweaks that for whatever reason never make their way back into the "template," and then make a few edits for some specific functionality. And then repeat. And repeat. Over a dozen times.

The code is unbelievable. Everything is stacked into giant classes that inherit from each other. There's no dependency inversion. The classes have default constructors with a comment "for unit testing" and then the "real" code uses a different one.

It's full of projects, classes, and methods with weird names that don't do anything. The class and method names sound like they mean something but don't. So after a dozen times I tried to refactor, and the EA threw a hissy fit. Deleting dead code, reducing three levels of inheritance to a simple class, and renaming stuff to indicate what it does are all violations of "standards." I had to go back to the template and start over.

This guy actually recorded a video of himself giving developers instructions on how to copy and paste his awful code.

Then he randomly invents new "standards." A class that reads messages from a queue and processes them shouldn't process them anymore. It should read them and put them in another queue, and then we add more complication by reading from that queue. The reason? We might want to use the original queue for something else one day. I'm pretty sure rewriting working code to meet requirements no one has is as close as you can get to the opposite of Agile.

I fixed some major bugs during my refactor, and missed one the second time after I started over. So stuff actually broke in production because I took points off the board and "fixed" what worked to add back in dead code, variables that aren't used, etc.

In the process, I asked the EA how he wanted me to do this stuff, because I know that he makes up "standards" on the fly and whatever I do may or may not be what he was imagining. We had a tight deadline and I didn't really have time to guess, read his mind, get it wrong, and start over. So we scheduled an hour for him to show me what he wanted.

He said it would take fifteen minutes. He used the first fifteen insisting that he would not explain what he wanted, and besides he didn't remember how all of the code he wrote worked anyway so I would just have to spend more time studying his masterpiece and stepping through it in the debugger.

Being accountable to my team, I insisted that we needed to spend the scheduled hour on him actually explaining what he wanted. He started yelling and hung up. I had to explain to management that I could figure out how to make his "framework" work, but it would take longer and there was no guarantee that when it was done it would magically converge on whatever he was imagining. We totally blew that deadline.

When the .NET work was done, I got sucked into another part of the same project where they were writing massive 500 line SQL stored procedures that no one could understand. They would write a dozen before sending any to QA, then find out that there was a scenario or two not accounted for, and rewrite them all. And repeat. And repeat. Eventually it consisted of, one again, copying and pasting existing procedures into new ones.

At one point one dev asked me to help him test his procedure. I said sure, tell me the scenarios for which I needed to test. He didn't know. My question was the equivalent of asking, "Tell me what you think your code does," and he couldn't answer it. If the guy who wrote it doesn't know what it does right after he wrote it and you certainly can't tell by reading it, and there's dozens of these procedures, all the same but slightly different, how is anyone ever going to read them in a month or a year? What happens when someone needs to change them? What happens when someone finds another defect, and there are going to be a ton of them?

It's a nightmare. Why interview me with all sorts of questions about my dev skills if the plan is to have me copy and paste stuff and carefully avoid applying anything that I know?

The people are all nice except for their evil XEB (Xenophobe Expert Beginner) EA who has no business writing a line of code, ever, and certainly shouldn't be reviewing it.

I've tried to keep my sanity by answering stackoverflow questions once in a while and sometimes turning evil things I was forced to do into constructive blog posts to which I cannot link to preserve my anonymity. I feel like I've taken a six-month detour from software development to shovel crap. Never again. Lesson learned. Next time they're not interviewing me. I'm interviewing them. I'm a professional.

Init and Hello. My name is git and this is my story.

I just arrived in this system recently by the apt highway. It's not the only way though. Some for example used the npm hype-train, others arrived from the ssh shore. No matter where we came from the next step on our agenda was time to introduce our self at the event destined for all new-comers to the system.
"As many of you I reside in the usr-bin district. I'm really into history and commitment! I like it when people work together, so I'm always eager to bring all branches together."
"But what is it actually good for?", asked Curl, which I already met at the bus station. Many nodded in agreement. It was odd. Somehow I felt not quite at home. All the others seemed so different based on their field of work.
"We have worked here in a really agile environment for ages. There is no need for any kind of strange bureaucracy.", said another voice.
All attempts to convince them from the beauty of history or a little bit of management were unsuccessful. It was just the beginning of a not so interesting stage in my life - to say the least.

Today was another of 'those' days. I live in this community for quiet a while now and unfortunately nothing really changed - at least for the good. I sat on my branch of the tree with all the others around and there was nothing really to do for me. Again. I mean, actually it's true. I have to admit it. There is just no work on this world for someone like me. All the others seem to be so busy, while I just have to sit around and question my own existence. Since I grew tired asking these questions to myself, I stopped it. I can't do a thing actually. That's not how this world works.
"Hey fagit, anything meaningful to add to our delightful conversation?", nginx shouted over to me from another branch of the tree. Before I was able to give an indifferent answer the voice just continued.
"Oh, sorry. I forgot that you have no purpose after all. Well, never mind!"
Everyone started laughing at me. It was not too bad by the way. Actually, this was quite ordinary. These fucktards completely ran out of creativity. If it wasn't for that mere emptiness gaping right above my guts, I'd actually be disappointed. I even got accustomed to the alias 'fagit'. Quiet sad given the fact that i really like my real name. If only someone would mind using it... First too quiet to notice but growing in intensity a rumbling emerged from somewhere deep within the tree. Out of a sudden everyone stopped laughing. The voices slowly faded while the growling from afar grew louder. It had come. Not more than a shadow reached out from the tree and faster than anyone could comprehend nginx was simply gone. Killed in an instance.

Disclaimer: This story is fictional. No systems were harmed in its creation.

Have you ever had a problem with a partner, but you cannot prove at 100% that he has something against you? But you cannot stand him?

Well, this happened two years ago. I was working as a tester, and “John” (I won’t say his real name) was the dude who tests my tests, but in production.

I ‘m a sociable person, and I don’t mind talking with another people. Suddenly, I noticed that my co-worker started to behave a little bit... rude? Plain? I don’t know, but sometimes he didn’t answer my conversations/questions, or sometimes answered with extra-negative stuff.

“Well, his life is not easy” I said to myself. “Everybody haveproblems”, “I have to understand him and calm down”.

Two weeks later started to report really REALLY absurd production bugs, and with absurd I mean, for example, that he didn’t like the color of a button, a point next to a phrase, etc., things very very simples, but sometimes he ignored big errors.

Once I had to went out of the city for few hours, and asked to permission to go out. I had pending tests, but I left a document with specifications in case of emergency. Even passwords. Before I could finish the thing in the other city, my partner called me two times, and asking me obvious things! I had to go back to the office ealier that I had planned, so f*** angry 😡 and when I arrived to the office, John said “no, forget it, let’s solve it tomorrow” 🙃 WTF?!!!!!!

I decided not to argue with him.

Also noticed that his headaches suddenly increased, and looked so tired ☹️ I felt guilty to judge him

I felt so guilty, and even today I don’t know what to feel about that or what to think. I don’t work there anymore, but, What do you think? What would you do?

I'm not sure where I'm going with this, but I'm fucking sick of my experience with the world.

I have a feeling that all that 1984 conspiracy type of ideas that I previously considered bullshit and fear mongering are real.

(Just to be clear, I'm not including most conspiracy theories which are very ignorant like flat earth, fake moon landing, or antivax, the people that spread those theories can die a horrible death IMHO).

Corporation consolidation is a fact and appears to become irreversible.

Because of technology, I can stay in the comfort of my house, safe from crime and be entertained without needing to have direct contact with humans.
People might say "that's your fault for not leaving the house". True but that is just how the world is.

The outside world in the cities I lived in is not a welcoming place.
Hell if you fucking find a bench it's a goddamn miracle, and if you do and sit for a long time, the police stares at you like you are up to something.

People don't talk to you because "don't talk to strangers".
It can be rare to find water or a bathroom that isn't a complete shithole.

So no wonder I rather stay at home, the outside world is hostile.

So yeah, go to a mall or something. And consume, consume, consume, because the outdoors suck.

Many pioneers thought technology was to improve the quality of life.

But no, it's just more isolation, less direct contact with people, less giving a fuck about other people.

And that's how feel about people of today. The least amount of fuck giving about others possible.

You would you would connect to more people faster, but no, the result is just millions of people browsing through the same "entertainment", shitty aggregated content.

Yes, consolidation affects internet too. Everything goes through fucking google, youtube, or whatever other fucking top 10 company.

Just like the class disparity, 1% of the things online get 99% of the exposure.

So if you're a small time anything, basically fuck you, because you're not something enormous.

Like, I wished I was a game developer, but there's thousands of brilliant indie games that get released every year, and they barely make what they're worth.
So why should I fucking try? So I can get ruined financially and I don't have a place to live in?

Software itself is so complex that is impossible to scrutinize decently.
We all laugh at congressmen asking the zuck silly questions.

Out of touch, true, but in hindsight, it is true to some extent that software is hard to regulate. Every software I on earth doesn't meet some standard one way or another.

Or maybe it's just too many of us right now.
When people scroll their search results to get access to the things they should be interested in, the only practical interface right now is being showing one link at a time.
But there's millions and millions of results.

One redeeming aspect of life is that one day I won't be alive anymore to observe the disgusting world we live in.

This could be just pure rambling and I can't prove any of the things I'm saying, I could just have been making the wrong friendships. So take this with a grain of salt.

Storytime!

(I just posted this in a shorter form as a comment but wanted to write it as a post too)

TL;DR, smarts are important, but so is how you work.

My first 'real' job was a lucky break in the .com era working tech support. This was pretty high end / professional / well respected and really well paid work.

I've never been a super fast learner, I was HORRIBLE in school. I was not a good student until I was ~40 (and then I loved it, but no longer have the time :( )

At work I really felt like so many folks around me did a better job / knew more than me. And straight up I know that was true. I was competent, but I was not the best by far.

However .... when things got ugly, I got assigned to the big cases. Particularly when I transferred to a group that dealt with some fancy smancy networking equipment.

The reason I was assigned? Engineering (another department) asked I be assigned. Even when it would take me a while to pickup the case and catch up on what was going on, they wanted the super smart tech support guys off the case, and me on it.

At first this was a bit perplexing as this engineering team were some ultra smart guys, custom chip designers, great education, and guys you could almost see were running a mental simulation of the chip as you described what you observed on the network...

What was also amusing was how ego-less these guys seemed to be (I don't pretend to know if they really were). I knew for a fact that recruiting teams tried to recruit some of these guys for years from other companies before they'd jump ship from one company to the next ... and yet when I met them in person it was like some random meeting on the street (there's a whole other story there that I wish I understood more about Indian Americans (many of them) and American engineers treat status / behave).

I eventually figured out that the reason I was assigned / requested was simple:

1. Support management couldn't refuse, in fact several valley managers very much didn't like me / did not want to give me those cases .... but nobody could refuse the almighty ASIC engineers. No joke, ASIC engineers requests were all but handed down on stone tablets and smote any idols you might have.

2. The engineers trusted me. It was that simple.

They liked to read my notes before going into a meeting / high pressure conference call. I could tell from talking to them on the phone (I was remote) if their mental model was seizing up, or if they just wanted more data, and we could have quick and effective conversations before meetings ;)

I always qualified my answers. If I didn't know I said so (this was HUGE) and I would go find out. In fact my notes often included a list of unknowns (I knew they'd ask), and a list of questions I had sent to / pending for the customer.

The super smart tech support guys, they had egos, didn't want to say they didn't know, and they'd send eng down the rabbit hole. Truth be told most of what the smarter than me tech support guy's knew was memorization. I don't want to sound like I'm knocking that because for the most part memorization would quickly solve a good chunk of tech support calls for sure... no question those guys solved problems. I wish I was able to memorize like those guys.

But memorization did NOT help anyone solve off the wall bugs, sort of emergent behavior, recognize patterns (network traffic and bugs all have patterns / smells). Memorization also wouldn't lead you to the right path to finding ANYTHING new / new methods to find things that you don't anticipate.

In fact relying on memorization like some support folks did meant that they often assumed that if bit 1 was on... they couldn't imagine what would happen if that didn't work, even if they saw a problem where ... bro obviously bit 1 is on but that thing ain't happening, that means A, B, C.

Being careful, asking questions, making lists of what you know / don't know, iterating LOGICALLY (for the love of god change one thing at a time). That's how you solved big problems I found.

Sometimes your skills aren't super smarts, super flashy code, sometimes, knowing every method off the top of your head, sometimes you can excel just being more careful, thinking different.

Over the summer I was recruited to be a supplement instructor for a data structures course. As a result of that I was asked (separately by the professor) to be a grader for the course. Because of pay limitations I've mostly been grading homework project assignments. In any case, it's a great job to get my foot into the department and get recognized.

Over the course of the semester I've had this one person, OSX, named after their operating system of choice, who has been giving me awkward submissions. On the first assignment they asked the professor for extra time for some reason or the other, and that's perfectly fine.

So I finally receive OSX's submission, and it's a .py file as per course of the course. So I pop up a terminal in the working directory and type "python OSX_hw1.py". Get some error spit out about the file not being the right encoding. I know that I can tell python to read it in a different encoding, so I open it up in a text editor. To my surprise it's totally not a text file, but rather a .zip file!

I've seen weirder things done before, so no big deal. I rename the file extension, and open it up to extract the files when I see that there's no python files. "Okay, what's goin on here OSX..." I think to myself.

Poking around in the files it appears to be some sort of meta-data. To what, I had no clue, but what I did find was picture files containing what appeared to be some auto-generated screenshots of incomplete code. Since I'm one to give people the benefit of doubt even when they've long exhausted other peoples', I thought that it must be some fluke, and emailed OSX along with the professor detailing my issue.

I got back a rather standard reply, one of which was so un-notable I could not remember it if my life depended on it. However, that also meant I didn't have to worry about that anymore. Which when you're juggling 50 bazillion things is quite a relief. Tragically, this relief was short lived with the introduction of assignment 2.

Assignment 2 comes around, and I get the same type of submission from OSX. At this time I also notice that all their submissions are *very* close to the due time of 11:59pm (which I don't care about as long as it's in before people start waking up the next morning). I email OSX and the professor again, and receive a similar response. I also get an email from OSX worried about points being deducted. I reply, "No issue. You know what's wrong. Go and submit the right file on $CentralGradingCenter. Just submit over your old assignment".

To my frustration OSX claimed to not know how to do this. I write up a quick response explaining the process, and email it. In response OSX then asks if I can show them if they comes to my supplemental lesson. I tell OSX that if they are the only person, sure, otherwise no because it would not be a fair use of time to the other students.

OSX ends up showing up before anyone else, so I guide them through the process. It's pretty easy, so I'm surprised that they were having issues. Another person then shows up, so I go through relevant material and ask them if they have any questions about recent material in class. That said, afterwards OSX was being somewhat awkward and pushy trying to shake my hand a lot to the point of making me uncomfortable and telling them that there's no reason to be so formal.

Despite that chat, I still did not see a resubmission of either of those two assignments, and assignment 3 began to show it's head. Obviously, this time, as one might expect after all those conversations, I get another broken submission in the same format. Finally pissed off, I document exactly how everything looks on my end, how the file fails to run, how it's actually a zip file, etc, all with screenshots. That then gets emailed to the professor and OSX.

In response, I get an email from OSX panicking asking me how to submit it right, etc, etc. However, they also removed the professor from the CC field. In response I state that I do not know how to use whatever editor they are using, and that they should refer to the documentation in order to get a proper runnable file. I also re-CC the professor, making sure OSX's email to me is included in my reply.

OSX then shows up for one of my lessons, and since no one had shown up yet, I reiterate through what I had sent in the email. OSX's response was astonished that they could ever screw up that bad, but also admits that they had yet to install python(!!!). Obviously, the next thing that comes from my mouth is asking OSX how they write their code. Their response was that they use a website that lets them run python code.

At this point I'm honestly baffled and explain that a lot of websites like those can have limitations which might make code run differently then it should (maybe it's a simple interpreter written on JavaScript, or maybe it is real python, but how are you supposed to do file I/O?) .

After that I finally get a submission for assignment 1!

1) Never be afraid to ask questions.

There are so many instances of situations where assumptions have been made that shouldn’t have been made, resulting in an oversight that could have been rectified earlier in a process and wasn’t.

Just because no one’s asking a question doesn’t mean you’re the only person who has it.

That being said, it’s really important to figure out how to ask questions. Provide enough context so that the audience for your question understands what you’re really asking. If you’re trying to troubleshoot a problem, list out the steps you’ve already tested and what those outcomes were.

2) When you’ve learned something, try to write about it. Try to break it down as though you were explaining it to a child. It’s through breaking down a concept into its most simple terms that you really know that you understand it.

3) Don’t feel like you have to code *all of the time*. Just because this is what you’re doing for a living doesn’t mean that you have to make it your life. Burnout is real, and it happens a lot faster if it’s all you do.

4) Find hobbies outside of tech!

5) Network. There are a number of great communities. I volunteer for and am a member of Virtual Coffee, and can vouch for that community being particularly friendly and approachable.

6) Don’t let a company pay you less than industry standard and convince you that they’re doing you the favor of employing you.

7) Negotiate salary. Always.

8) If you’re a career transitioner, don’t be afraid to talk about your previous work and how it gave you experience that you can use in programming. There’s a whole lot of jobs that require time management, multi-tasking, critical thinking, etc. Those skills are relevant no matter where you got them.

9) If it takes a while for you to get a gig, it’s not necessarily a reflection on you or your abilities.

10) Despite what some people would say, coding’s not for everyone. Don’t feel like you have to continue down a road just because you started walking down it. Life’s not a straight path.

Learning to program is just learning what the real questions you should be asking is.

I’m shocked, some of the hideously embarrassing questions these dim mother fucking senators have been asking Zuckerberg. Is this for real?

I know everyone hates when people ask them for help with fixing IT related stuff.

I have a different approach to all similar questions. I don't get upset or anything, I just tell them that the device they have is a little bit shit, and suggest them buying a new expensive one that is better and will do all that. Your router isn't working as you want? Buy a Cisco (a real one with $1k+ price tag, not that Cisco branded Linksys garbage). Your printer isn't working as you want? Buy some high end Brother stuff. Etc...

After first few times they just stop asking...

2023 is the year where i am making a lot of bold choices and immediately regretting them.anxiety is at peak, and my past good deeds are hopefully saving me from getting into a real danger, but i am not aure for how long.

1. (technically a 2022 choice/blunder but impacted in2023 ) : we go for a yearly trip to a religious place in dec last- jan 1st week. i booked a flight instead of trains which we usually take, and are cheaper but take 16 extra hours. result? flight got cancelled, wr booked another more expensive flight for the next day, i got extremely sick and being stuck on a totally strange place on the 2nd day of 2023 was a nightmarish experience for mom ( the airport was 400km away from the village we go and its a totally new city for us)

2. resigned from my job on the pretext that they will be eventually asking us to work from head office(which is in a far city). they are yet to mandate it, and are rather opening a new office in my own city , so i would have to probably report from my city's office if i had stayed. super regrets, as that company gave very less work and lots of perks. this was the first job in which i was able to disconnect from work to understand real world and care for my people.

3. when i quitted the above job, i had no offer from any company after applying to 200+ job openings. one large MNC, with which i interviewed in last November 22 had given me an offer back then which i had rejected due to being a low offer , and having shitty popularity and policies ( they are known for being a toxic, mind numbing workplace and have a 3 month notice period) . but due to panice caused by work-from-head-office rumour, i asked them to give me offer again. the did and now i regret joining them and their shitty policies

4. latest in line : i have been fantasizing a trekk/hiking trip but neither do i have any siblings to go on with, nor my friends got time or interest in it.
i saw a few pages on Instagram, they take groups of people to mountains and offroad places via buses so booked a seat for me. a freaking solo trip! lots of exciting happy thoughts when i gave them my money, but as i approach the date of departure , i am freaking the fuck out.

they are not communicating with me . i don't know what to pack, whom to rely upon , whether they will have single traveller like me or if they will have couples and i will be left out to rot and struggle on my own, will it he safe or not,... to many questions and they aren't satisfying me with any of their answers.

i know my parents are in guilt about me resigning from my jobas they didn't wanted me to work from head office and they are shit scared too, but still allowing. however, i am even more double shit scared

i hope this doesn't turn into my last worst decision.

So how long before someone like @Jumpshot44 or our won @dfox reaches a million +1s on their profile?

@dfox @trogus what is the datatype you guys used, in other words, how much can fit?

If each developer can be substituted with finite number of student developers and each student can be substituted with finite number of answers to StackOverflow questions, then who would ask and answer the latter? 🤔

Asking the real questions here.

Hi. I'm a recent senior dev and for a long time, even before reaching senior, I'm always being overloaded with questions and meets everytime. People asking why are the services returning error (when they could at least make the first analysis and give it to me), asking me to join meets for whatever the reason, people asking how to configure environments, interns asking for help, HR asking for interns feedback. So much workload I can't even focus on the actual developments. Is this the real meaning of a senior dev? Or is this just bad management and bad company culture?

My consuming cycle:
1. An urge to buy a new shiny thing. No peace of mind if I refuse to buy it. My brain starts to generate sentences like "Treat yourself", "Why are you even living if you can't buy what you want", etc.
2. Acquisition. Immense guilt about the money spent. My brain somehow classifies any non-electronic thing that costs more than $30 as "ridiculously expensive", no matter how much money I make, no matter my reserves.
3. A short period of... no, not peace of mind. It's just an absence of that urge. I can't quite call it "peace".
4. goto 1

Hyperconsumerism is hell. I don't want my life to be ridden by guilt. I want to break that cycle, but when I try, it's just me asking that blaming questions to myself.

Somehow I probably got an answer. I should make my everyday thought process and patterns independent of buying stuff. Money shouldn't define what I do and what I think about.

Everything I need with an exception of medicines is both factually cheap and perceived as cheap, and I don't feel guilty about buying medicines.

What should I aim my thought process to? I'm tired of programming, because it provokes an entirely different kind of guilt, the guilt of "you shouldn't be resting, go write that article, go study that new web shit, go build that another open source thing (that nobody cares about)".

Art makes me a bit happier though. I studied 20th century progressive art a bit, and appreciating the ideas behind certain pieces of design, architecture and fine arts make me feel superior than other people, and also superior than my past self. I don't know if it's healthy or not, I'm just being honest now.

I think I need more art in my life. For now, I'm fine with knowing that I'll probably never create a real piece of art (aside from programming), so at least I can consume art instead of buying worthless shit that doesn't make me happy anyway.

Wolfram Alpha asking the real questions here

(imagine all of this said in Undoomed's "hey moron" tone)

Hey, moron, fuckin moron! How about if you're a noob with no actual programmer on your side, you just tell me so we can work it out together, instead of sending a moronic 4page "acceptance criteria" that pretend you know what you're talking about, and then bury me under loads of moronic noob questions that reveal you as thenmoron you are, all of that for a fuckin 50 quid?! I thought it's me being an idiot, not being able to do the task within two days timeframe, but now I see you're just too much of a moron to have any idea how much these things take. And now you nonchalantly mention a one-line one point from the four page document full of drivel, which (loads of moronism credit for me here) i didn't notice amongst all of that other mundane drivel, which actually like doubles the whole workload on the task, but your moronic document, which makes 3 parts of the same algorithm into three separate MILESTONES, makes this whole thing that nearly DOUBLES the workload into a shitty SEVENTH SUBPOINT of the completely unrelated first "milestone"?

FUCK YOU, YOU STUPID ROBBERY CHEAPFUCK, and fuck me for letting myself be tricked by all your fancy wordings that pretend you actually know what the fuck you are asking for, so i assumed you did, so I missed THE POINT, WHICH ACCORDING TO THE SEGMENTATION LOGIC OF THE WHOLE REST OF THE DOCUMENT SHOULD BE 3 SEPARATE FULL-SIZED MILESTONES, NOT A SINGLE SUBPOINT, YOU FUCKING FUCK!

... so much for still trying to at least a bit trust people.

FUCKING DISGUSTING MORONIC CHEAPSKATE FUCK.

and I can't even tell him to fuck off through the rectum he came here because he's all nice and polite so I would be the asshole!

"hey, please, can you build me a house?"
*house is basically finished*
"oh, great job, i love it, but i think you might have missed the fineprint in our contract that says that the house is supposed to stand inside an entry hall of a multibillionaire-sized mansion, so could we please sort that out and add it to the building real quick before i pay you the toolshed's worth we agreed on based on the contract? "

FUCK. HIM.
FUCK
FUCKFUCKFUCKSHITFUCKERYFUCKDISGUSTINGIDIOTICFUCKINGFUUUUUUUUCK!!!!!!

i thought i can be a shitty liar and a con man, but this is some next level shit that would be totally beyond my abilities to pull off...

YES I KNOW IT'S MY FAULT I DIDN'T COMB THROUGH THAT BULLSIT "SPECS" OF HIS LETTER BY LETTER TO MAKE SURE THERE'S NO CON BULLSHIT LIKE THIS HIDDEN AMONGST ALL OF THAT MUNDANE SELF-EVIDENT PSEUDO-TECHNICAL DRIVEL, SHUT THE FUCK UP.

fucking disgusting moron, pretending all nice and innocent probably even to himself because he HAS NO FUCKING IDEA WHAT HE EVEN ASKS FOR.

i bet it's one of those pukefucks who get an overpriced contract for 50k without even knowing or caring what programming is, because "i'll just outsource the core functionality of the app for 50 quid to some naiive idiot who lives in the illusion that people are not diarrhorea-worthy pieces of feces, and this other third of the app to some other moron for hundred quid and then i somehow outsource gluing it together to some third poor sod, and that's 49.8k quid of pure profit for me, yay"

and now i'm torn between three options, just cancelling the "contract" with a comment saying "fuck off, you con man", or cancelling it with a lengthy explanation why he's a know-nothing piece of shit who conned me already into having done something worth about 5x more than his shitty "acceptance criteria" requests, or just start conning and bulshitting him back, which won't net me any money, and waste my time, but at least will also waste HIS time, which might be nice because he seems to be on a tight schedule so if i play this right i might have the chance to sink his whole contract which might be mighty nice satisfying...

FUCK THIS, ALL OF THIS, FUCK HIM, FUCK ME, FUCK ALL OF YOU, I SHOULD HAVE STARTED FUCKING OVER EVERYONE RUTHLESSLY A LONG TIME AGO BECAUSE FUCK THE WHOLE WORLD, WHY SHOULD I CARE WHEN NOBODY ELSE DOES, WHY SHOULD I BE DECENT WHEN NOBODY ELSE IS, AND IT ONLY ROYALLY BITES ME IN THE ASS.

stupid fucking lobotomized fuck, IF YOU DON'T KNOW HOW TO DO SOMETHING, DON'T OFFER YOURSELF TO DO IT FOR MONEY AND THEN CON-SOURCE IT TO OTHERS YOU SHITTY BARFPILE!

FUCK.

I was frustrated when I lost almost all my life savings to a cryptocurrency scammer. I had invested a significant amount of money in a promising project, but it turned out to be a fraudulent scheme. I was left with nothing but a trail of broken dreams and a lighter wallet. I was devastated, to say the least. I had never felt so helpless in my life. I didn't know where to turn to or who to trust. I was at a crossroads, unsure of what to do next. That's when I stumbled upon Cranix Ethical Solutions Haven online. I saw their testimony and reviews from people who had similar experiences to mine. They claimed to have recovered their stolen cryptocurrency with the help of Cranix Ethical Solutions Haven. At first, I was skeptical. I didn't know if I could trust another company with my sensitive information. But something about Cranix Ethical Solutions Haven resonated with me. Maybe it was their professionalism, or maybe it was their commitment to helping people like me. Whatever it was, I decided to take a chance and reach out to them. I contacted Cranix Ethical Solutions Haven and explained my situation to them. They listened attentively, asking questions and gathering information about my case. They were empathetic and understanding, and I felt a sense of comfort knowing that I was in good hands. They told me that they would do everything in their power to help me recover my stolen cryptocurrency, I was amazed at how quickly they got to work. Within 24 hours, they had already started making progress on my case. They kept me updated every step of the way, explaining what they were doing and why. I was impressed by their expertise and their dedication to their craft.
  In the end, Cranix Ethical Solutions Haven was able to recover my stolen cryptocurrency in its entirety. I was overjoyed, to say the least. I couldn't believe that I had finally gotten my money back. It was a huge weight off my shoulders, and I felt a sense of relief wash over me. I want to take this opportunity to thank Cranix Ethical Solutions Haven for their help. They truly are a lifesaver. Without them, I would still be struggling to recover my losses. They are a beacon of hope for people like me who have been victimized by cryptocurrency scammers. If you're reading this and you're in a similar situation, I urge you to reach out to Cranix Ethical Solutions Haven via EMAIL: (cranixethicalsolutionshaven @ post . com) or WHATSAPP: (+4,4,7,4,6,0,6,2,2,7,3,0),  WEBSITE: (https: // cranixethicalsolutionshaven . info) TELEGRAM: (@ cranixethicalsolutionshaven). They are the real deal, and they can help you recover your stolen cryptocurrency. Don't hesitate, don't wait - contact them today and let them work their magic. In conclusion, I want to say that Cranix Ethical Solutions Haven is a trustworthy and reliable company that can help you recover your stolen cryptocurrency. They are professional, efficient, and effective. They truly care about their clients and will stop at nothing to help them. I am forever grateful to them, and I know that you will be too if you give them a chance.

So I have this new role at work, still app development with some added responsibilities. Nothing major. But already I'm noticing what could be a pattern.

Zoom meetings that could have been phone calls or emails. Meeting was setup a week and a half or so in advance. Had real a meaning last week where a team member mentioned it and reminded the other team members of the upcoming meeting. We all confirmed that we'd be there.

I get a notification that the meeting is in 15 minutes. Meeting time!!! So I log on, only to see one person from the other company, two more people from said company log on then my team member. But to my surprise him and I are the only people from my team on zoom.

My team member then goes on to waste this poor man's time asking him questions that he doesn't really have the answers to and I'm here just wondering why.

Why isn't this meeting a 2 minute phone call?
Why am I in this meet?
Is my team member bored?
How does this make my company look in the eyes of these people?

Now I know why my other team member didn't log on. They smelled the rat and knew this would be a wast of time. And me being new to the team walked right into it 😐