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Search - "desperation"
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Do you ever feel coding fatigue?
My dev mana has run dry, I've hit my rate limit.
That moment where your brain thinks "I should finish building this React project, it's good for my portfolio" or "I should really work on fixing this query performance issue, I already know what the problem is" — but your stomach churns at the thought of having to interpret even a single line of code?
The last few days it really does feel like a physical illness, a nauseated feeling whenever I open an IDE. I have written about 12 lines of code since Monday.
It goes beyond writer's block, it's not a lack of focus or inspiration, it's a big knot in my head of everything that's wrong and inconsistent in development, and it causes feelings of dread, desperation and revulsion when trying to wrap my head around the simplest stuff.
Does anyone have good tips to overcome this feeling, something faster and less savings-account-destroying than "take a sabbatical year and travel the world riding an emu"? (seems tempting though)57 -
Job interview goes really well. Senior Dev 90-100k.
Ok, so for your "test" write up a proposal for a web based bulk email sending system with its own admin panel for building list, tracking emails, and with reporting.
I write up an estimate. Low ball the absolute fuck out of it because I'm trying to get a job. Know a few good libraries I can use to save some time. Figure I can just use sendmail, or PHPMailer, or NodeMailer for the emailing, and DataTables Editor for a simple admin CRUD with reporting. Write the thing up. Tell them they can have it in LAMP or Node.
Come in at 36 hours.
Then these fucking wanks told me they wanted me to actually do the project.
My exact response was:
"I bill $50 an hour, let me know"
They did not let me know.
Young devs, jobless devs, desperate devs. I've seen a fair amount of this. And for the right job I might go as high as maybe 4 - 6 hours of unpaid work for some "programming test". But please be careful. There are those who will try to exploit lack of experience or desperation for free work.15 -
I actually took the time to explain to a recruiter that java != JavaScript... He told me they were similar enough... I put it in terms he'd understand: "If you want to make money, you need to understand that they are not similar. If you keep saying they are and send your clients a dev with no java experience, you'll lose clients. if you send devs to a place that's looking for something they don't know, you'll lose devs. Your pitch reeks of desperation and you'll be out of the business within a year unless you actually start listening to the people who know the tech."
I almost felt bad, but... He kept pushing when I said no, haha.4 -
I'm beginning to get burned out on coding in general due to work-related stresses.
Is anyone hiring remotely?
Please?
Will code in Ruby/Node/React for food ☹27 -
I have seen it. They say it doesn't exist; just a story we tell our children so that their innocence does not lead them down into a nightmarish adulthood from which there is no salvation. But the evil lives. So vile that were you to look inside its soul, all you would find is a terrible desperation for suffering. To cause it. To revel in it. To bathe in the tears of those it considers less than human and feed off the emotional detritus.
It was 2009. The financial crisis. I was one of the lucky, having found refuge in a large company right before the jobs dried up. General IT: system administration, documentation, project management, telephony, software training, second level help desk. No software development, but with a two-year-old at home and Ph.D.s lining up outside the local Olive Garden whenever a help wanted sign was posted, I grabbed the health insurance and entered into darkness.
The Thing did not need to hunt it's prey. A manager title with 21 reports brought it new opportunities for fresh meat by the hour. But I was special. I resisted. I needed to know my place.
My first mistake was incomprehension. I did not understand the Thing's lust to be right at all costs. I was reviewing some documentation it had brought forth from its bowels. I mentioned that two spaces were being used between sentences. That proportional type made that unnecessary. It insisted, I was wrong. It insisted that Microsoft itself, the purveyor of all good technical writing, required two spaces. I opened the Microsoft Manual of Style for Technical Publications that it demanded its staff use and showed it that the spec was one space. It was livid. I was a problem.
From that point on my work life became exponentially more wretched. I was given three Outlook calendars to maintain: one with my schedule, one with the team's schedule and one with the Thing's schedule. Every time I had an appointment, I was to triple schedule it. If I was going to be away from my desk for more than 15 minutes triple schedule. Triple schedule my lunch, vacations, phone conferences.
Whenever it held a meeting, I and a colleague would be taken off mission critical IT projects to set tables with name tents and to serve as greeters as attendees arrived.
I was called into its crypt to be told never to say anything in a meeting unless I told the Thing beforehand what I was going to say. Naive, I mentioned that I often don't know what I will say as it is often in reply to someone else. Of course the response was that I should not say anything.
I would get emails 10-20 times a day asking about a single project. I would regularly complete work that was needed to be completed ASAP, only to have the Thing rake me over the coals for not completing it a week later. And upon resending the emails proving I notified it of the work being competed, disparaged at length a second time for not sending repeated notifications of the competed work.
I would have to sit in two-hour meetings to watch it type. Literally watch it try to create cogent thoughts. In silence.
I received horrendous annual reviews. At one, it created a development plan that stated a colleague would begin giving me lessons on the proper ways to socially interact with personnel. I pointed out to HR that this violated privacy concerns and would make the business liable in many areas, not least of which would be placing a help desk person in the role of defining proper business practice. HR made the Thing remove this from my review. She started planning to remove me.
I had given a short technical training to a group of personnel months earlier. Called into its tomb I was informed that feedback surveys on my talk were disturbing. One person stated that they did not think I was funny. Another wrote that I made an offensive statement. That person did not say what the offensive statement was. Just that I had said something he or she didn't like.
The Thing interviewed the training attendees. Gathered facts. Held three inquest-like meetings where multiple directors peppered me with questions trying to get me to confess to my offensiveness. In the end the request to fire me was brought to the man who ran the business at the time. The statement on high: "Humor is a subjective thing. Please tell This to be sensitive to that."
The Thing had failed, but would no doubt redouble its efforts. I had to find a new job. I sent hundreds of resumes. Talked to dozens of recruiters. But there were no jobs. And I had a family. And the wolf was at the door.
So I didn't say a word to the creature. For six months. Silence. At one group meeting it shrieked at me "what are you smirking at? If you've got something to say then say it!" I just shrugged. For my salvation was revealed. The Thing could not stand to be ignored. And at the end of my penance I was transferred to another group: Software Development.
I am one with the Force. The Force is with me. I am one with the Force. The Force is with me.4 -
Whoever coded tinder and bumble, fuck you for preying on desperation to try to make a quick buck.
Dating apps are just a tool for attractive folks to get quick self validation and for desperate folks to lose even more self esteem.18 -
How I discovered I was a developer:
The company had hired a pair of computer science graduates and we had been commissioned to build a magento store. Weeks went buy with limited progress, and missing functionality was met with protestations from the devs about unreasonable demands.
At this time I had been taken on as a designer / casual front end developer (though the focus was on design). I knew HTML, CSS and some very limited php and js.
We were severely over deadline, and seeing the desperation on people's faces I suggested looking into it.
I read the magento docs, got an install up an running, configured an installed plugins, integrated the theme using the complex multilevelled XML/phtml architecture magento uses and even got some of the more complex js functionality working using JavaScript.
In two weeks.
I'm now the lead developer4 -
My cat's always with me while coding.
It's nice, he's cute.
Then he decides to wake up, and to walk on my keyboard to go away.
Code looks like hcozpxucksl,,lOs', thanks man.
Not a big deal but I wanted to share my desperation with you, thanks for the listen12 -
Fuck post-it notes.
Oh look, another product manager found his inner child and plastered a wall with a colored arts and crafts project.
Don't misunderstand me, I'm abso-fucking-lutely in favor of connecting with your deep childish nature -- but then at least enter the meeting room like a boss, armed with some creative ideas, really get to work with some fingerpaint, modelling clay, glitter, molly, acid blotters and grape juice for the whole party.
Not only was that project poorly thought out. Not only does the assortment of colored squares contribute nothing to the clarification of ideas. The issue is also that by Monday morning, the meeting room will look like a strip club after an escalated party, floor littered with 60 little neon pink and green slips reeking of desperation, cheap glue and failure.
Now your whole project is on the floor.
OH DIGITAL WHITEBOARD YOU SAY. NOW WE HAVE 10 MANAGERS FIGHTING DIGITALLY OVER VIRTUAL POST-ITS, ON A CLOUD SERVICE COSTING $500/MONTH.
Product managers, just go fuck yourself, I don't care about your kindergarten bullshit processes.
Call me when you manage to pull a workable idea out of your ass, and just draw an SVG diagram with Inkscape, or write your brainfarts into a nicely organized Markdown file.1 -
I just wasted 20 minutes debugging a component that, when included in the parent template, caused an untraceable infinite loop.
Out of desperation, I finally just renamed component to "pants". It works.
...huh?
Renamed back to its original name. THAT works too.
...Huh??7 -
Today I reached a point where I made an really bad looking, uneficient, unreadable function, but it works!, That's what counts right?!
Just kidding, I just couldn't fix it, hopefully the me from tomorrow will be smarter.7 -
Well... I accidently deleted a whole tables contents and the day just has started. Fuck this day already.2
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Currently trying to convert a Python (2.7) framework into its C++. Surprise, surprise, the C++ APIs are also all deprecated
"Here's a guide to creating your project using our non-deprecated framework, except it will still call our deprecated methods under the hood"
Additionally, I had to make this framework work with OpenCV, which was complaining about my C++ framework being deprecated and not being able to link to missing modules (which were already installed).
All of this has eaten 4 hours of my life, I could as well throw the laptop out of the window
"Try reinstalling the missing modules separately"
*installation takes less than 1 minute*
*runs build again, everything work*
I'm done for today *flies away in desperation* -
I solemnly swear I won't help anyone no more.
I solemnly swear I won't help anyone no more.
I solemnly swear I won't help anyone no more.
I solemnly swear I won't help anyone no more.
I solemnly swear I won't help anyone no more.
I solemnly swear I won't help anyone no more.
I solemnly swear I won't help anyone no more.
(Fucking bitch dragged me till 3 A.M, NO SHE'S NOT WORTH IT)3 -
Still I'm getting hardly fucked by Webpack. If there's any good god in this universe, please kill me. 😰33
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Anyone who has experienced this without falling into desperation deserves a beer, I know I need one.
Colleague: Python says I have an indentation error, halp. *Sends screenshot*
You: okay, it says it's located on file.py line 39. Can I see the related line?
Colleague: *sends a screenshot of the whole file, without numbered lines*
You: ummm, could you send me the related lines tho?😐
Colleague: 😒 yeah. *Resends a screenshot of the error and the whole file...again*
You: I REALLY need you to send me only the function scope to help you cuz I can't visually debug the whole file on a picture.
Colleague: *sends a panned phone picture with an arrow to the function (half of it)*
Plot twist: she's your girlfriend.
[EDIT]
GF: I can't see it, I'll go have a snack.1 -
Small company, sole engineer. Non-tech management. Increasingly fancy job titles despite working alone most of the time, with the promise of hiring someone (again) I can actually manage soon.
Backlog of projects/tasks is truly a mindfuck, with new things being added each week. This backlog will never ever get done, and nothing matters anyway because the next idea is "the future", all the time.
While I have influence on some aspects of decision making, it usually ends up being what the boss wants. Actively opposed a project because it's just too big of an undertaking, it was forced through anyway. I'm trying to keep the scope manageable as I'm building it now, and it's hard.
"It's the future, we absolutely have to do this. It will be the biggest thing we've ever done."
Boss's excitement then quickly faded since it's actually in development, now nobody really seems to want to know where it's at, or how it will all work. I need to scope it out, with the knowledge that many decisions boss signed off will be questioned when he actually looks at it. We now have even more "exciting" ideas of utter grandeur. Stuff that I can't even begin to comprehend the complexity of, while struggling to keep a self imposed deadline on the current one.
Every single morning we sit on Zoom for a "valuable" "catch-up". This is absolutely perfect for one thing: Completely destroying whatever drive and focus I have going into the day. Unrelated topics, marketing conversations, even more ideas, ideas for ideas sake, small problems blown out of proportion, the list goes on. I recently argued in detail why it should be scrapped or at least be optional to attend. No luck, it's "valuable".
Today a new idea was announced, and we absolutely have to do it ASAP because it can only be better than the current solution. I raise my concerns, saying it's not as easy as you make it out to be, we should properly think about it. Nope! We'll botch something to prove that it works... So you'll base your decision whether it's good on some half ass botch job that nobody really has the mental capacity to actually pay attention to. What a reliable way to measure!
"Our analytics data isn't useful enough to tell us the impact of things we do. We (you) have to fix this." Over the last 2 or so years, I've been pushing for an overhaul and expansion of our data analysis capabilities for exactly this reason. Integrating different data sources into a unified solution so we can easily see what we're doing, etc. Nope, never happened.
The new project idea which is based on wild assumptions is ALWAYS more important than the groundwork.
Now when I mentioned that this is what I wanted to do all along, it got brushed aside. "We don't need to do anything complicated, just fix this, add that, and it's done. It should be an easy thing to do. This is very important for our decision making." Fine, have it your way.
I'm officially burned out. It's so fucking hard to get myself to focus on my work for more than an hour or two. I started a side project, and even that effort is falling victim to my day-job-induced apathy.
I'm tempted to hand in my resignation without another offer on the table. I just need time to rediscover my passion, and go job hunting from that position, instead of the utter desperation of right now.
If you've read through all this rambling, kudos to you!8 -
I am a TA for a college level introductory Java programming course. We are doing a virtual help desk to walk student through debugging and any other issues.
Today I got on a teams call with a student and with desperation in his voice he says, "Please, help me with the red..."
I could barely contain myself. Poor soul haha! -
Continuation of the issue I had yesterday, and a realization of just HOW FRICKING STUPID C++ could be. Basically, yesterday my code for class was skipping a line of user input code, I checked the code for hours to see if I missed anything, if anything was out of scope, both input's I was using were back to back and absolutely identical all the way from the implementation both equaling "\0" and I couldn't figure why only one of the input lines were being ignored. Out of desperation posted the code on here (see my last post). Welp, I finally fixed it, and BOY AM I SO SIMPLE. cin.ignore().
TL;DR
Dumb issue, dumb solution (in my opinion)2 -
When the code is so bad that fixing one thing breaks 10 other things because the code was made to work with broken code.3
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That very "awesomeee" moment when you have to create a website to a new startup which are using all the right buzzwords such as blockchain, AI and machine learning... (wuhuuu)
Btw. will you help a fellow dude by answering my survey for my final paper?
https://goo.gl/forms/...
Thank you!
- and it took a whole year for me (and some desperation for help) to write my first ever post on here :p4 -
Under the guise of being security conscious, our section had a informal "doughnut charter" whereby if you leave your computer unlocked and someone managed to send an email to the section (cc'ing you) shouting everyone doughnuts then you must comply with the "promise". I was referred to at the time as the "god of email" and everyone knew not to do it to me or I would retaliate. This is because it happened once before. In that case, I set up a secure hidden rule in the person's email so that if they received a doughnut email they would automatically send a doughnut email from them... this also meant it was possible to trigger it at any time. They quickly begged for it to be removed. From then on, no dared touch my unlocked computer. When we got a new boss he was informed of the charter and was repeatedly warned not to 'doughnut' me but one day he ignored the warnings. In his case I set up a rule so that if he sent any email, he also sent out a doughnut email as well. Over the next four days he sent sooo many doughnut emails... He went from happy, to frustrated, to angry and then simply desperate. No one dared tell him I was my doing... He eventually came out of his office and begged for it to stop... Seeing his desperation, I stopped it. He was very appreciative but never put two-and-two together (that his actions caused it). He didn't find out till three months later that I was the one who did it to him. That was the second and last time I was ever doughnut'd.
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So today I was messing with a side project and for context it’s a networking program.
So I’ve designed the programs packets and what each do. The final step is just constructing them and sending them, but wait some random error that I traced from the file path being wrong to the packet containing a files name but then I realized that the packet after the file name wasn’t sending and so I looked at the contents of the first packet and IT WAS SENDING BOTH CONTENTS IN ONE and I fucking can’t tell you how hung up on this I got because there was nothing wrong with any other packet in anyway, and if I commented the file name packet out the next one worked and vice versa and it was so fucking infuriating and out of desperation I thought “what if I just gave it time between sending both” AND IT FUCKING WORKED. ONE LITTLE FUCKING sleep(.5) FIXES THE PROBLEM THAT PLAGUED ME QUITE LITERALLY ALL DAY I CANT. IM PRETTY SURE ITS STILL NOT A GOOD SOLUTION BUT IM ROLLING WITH IT!1 -
I failed at university, spent too long there without ever graduating. I learned a lot through self-study, though. The only company I worked at was an arrangement with a friend whose company needed people, so I stepped in, but eventually I deserted the job after the company went out of money and I went two months straight working without getting paid. Now I feel apprehensive of putting that job experience in my resume because I didn't come out of it in good terms with the company. I have many unfinished projects but keep them private on GitHub because I feel like the code is too bad to show off. How do I even get a job, now? Should I just quit the industry altogether? Aaaaaaaaaaaaa
Right now I'm just self-studying some things I had wanted to do since college (namely computer graphics and trying to build a game engine) but never actually got to study formally because I kept failing at the prerequisite courses because I always kept distracting myself from my studies and just not putting enough effort. Anyway, I'm willing to listen to your advice and your judgment alike. I feel somewhat confident that I can actually do a good job, but I also don't feel confident enough to apply for jobs since I always feel like my skills are lacking. I know about impostor syndrome, but at the core of it is the matter: is this impostor's syndrome, or am I in fact *actually* consistently bad and incompetent? Rationally speaking I tend to feel like the latter, yet I know the only thing I can do is to try and be better. I guess.
Anyway, completely unstructured thing, just me venting off my frustration and desperation in a place where at least people will read it and possibly offer some advice. Thank you for reading this far.4 -
May IE burn in hell.
One time I was trying to get something positioned properly, and it worked on all browsers except IE. There was this little gap between two divs and I couldn't get rid of it. In desperation after hours of troubleshooting and lots of CSS attempts with no solution, I removed the whitespace from between the two divs in the HTML:
<div>...</div>
<div>...</div>
to:
<div>...</div><div>...</div>
And voila! No more gap when looking at the rendered page.
FML I hate you, IE.1 -
that moment when all you did was fix indentions and bracket spacings then tried to recompile hoping that that fixed the problem1
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Holy fucking shit! Almost 5 hours I was trying to make Docker container with PHP 5.4 to work, because I couldnt fucking connect to my fucking localhost DB. After 5 fucking hours of desperation I tried to create DB on my hosting and... IT FUCKING WORKS LIKE CHARM. IF I KNEW SOONER!!!
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Today is very special day. Our whole PHP app has connection problems with DB. After 6 hours of desperation still nothing...6
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So fucking stressed. I've been working on multiple projects at the same time, most of which have no clear goals because the one who assigned them to me doesn't know a shit. Everything is done superficially and without purpose but to make money. I need a break, a long one, and after that the only thing I will have to do is find a new job.2
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Just spent the whole night awake to do a university coursework.
Not because I was late or it was difficult, but because the framework we had to use was so wrong that I had to take a 20 minutes break for desperation for every line I wrote. -
Hey everyone, have you ever had a creative block right when you're up against a tight deadline? It's like your brain just decides to take a vacation at the worst possible time.
I had a project due yesterday and I was feeling pretty confident about it until I sat down to work on it. Suddenly, my mind was blank and I couldn't think of a single idea. I tried everything from taking a break to listening to music, but nothing seemed to work.
Eventually, I resorted to staring at the wall and hoping for some sort of divine inspiration. But all I got was a headache and a growing sense of panic as the deadline drew nearer.
Finally, in a fit of desperation, I started randomly typing words and phrases into my project, hoping that something would stick. And to my surprise, it did! I ended up with a project that was not only finished on time but also creatively interesting.
So, the lesson I learned from this experience is that sometimes you just need to let go of your expectations and dive headfirst into the unknown. Who knows, you might just surprise yourself with what you come up with.3 -
cataloguing and accounting for known unknowns and knowing when exactly you need to turn them into knowns (if ever).
basically getting used to the idea that you're always in some way and to some degree stumbling in/through the dark because your light is too dim to illuminate everything, so you have to choose the right direction to point it in. getting lost isn't not knowing what's everywhere around, it's not knowing what's in the specific direction that you need to go in.
oh and, also, sadly, this shouldn't be true, but at least in my life it is: there's nobody to ask for help when you're the one others come to to ask for help. either I solve something, or it will stay unsolved. which is... stressful and exhausting, and often desperation-inducing, but i guess it is what it is...1 -
Find a cool package that need improvments, author has left a lot of unfinished tasks.
Fork project to fix some errors and add new features
None reply to my pool request so out of desperation i create a new project from scratch esponentially more complex
Someone finally reply to my pool request commentting that i "used mixed tab and spacing for indentation"
...well i tried to be as polite as possible on the reply😡 -
Whenever someone would like to look up something on my laptop I take a deep, dark pleasure in watching them first struggle to move the mouse with the broken track pad, then drowning in desperation after they realise it's a Linux system with i3-wm.
But alas, I am a generous God and help them with 3 lightning fast keystrokes to open my installed browser - which is eLinks.
That usually does them in 😬2 -
Today I finally finished editing the video for my new song. I have been working on the song itself, recording hundreds of takes of instruments and vocals, for almost four weeks now.
Editing the video took about 3 days, partly because I am using Hitfilm 4 Express for the first time. It's definitely a huge step up from Windows Movie Maker, but I did hit one mindboggling snag which delayed me for more than an hour.
When the editing was done and I exported the finished video, I play it, only to discover that the first second or so of audio is missing. That's kind of important for a music video.
So I try all kinds of things. Reimporting the audio into the project in different resolutions, trying different rendering settings, deleting or adding audio tracks, you name it. And each time the finished video is missing that first second of audio.
And each render takes about 10 minutes to complete, which is a long time to wait for one second of silence!
Out of desperation I start thinking about adding the audio to the video in Windows Movie Maker, just because I know that always works, even if that will degrade the quality.
But before I do that I try one more thing: I add a few seconds of silence at the beginning of the song in Audacity, then import into Hitfilm one more time.
And then it works!
I shall report my findings to Hitfilm shortly :-)4 -
So here is a mini rant from an amateur/hobbyist developer (me).
Over the past week, I've taken on a project that is much larger than any other projects i've attempted to handle (steam trading bot). This meant that there would be logic flaws, weird bugs due to unexpected behavior from shitty web apis (and their poor documentation hmmmm).
Anyhow, fast forward a few days and the code is complete. It's mostly functional, apart from a few glitches and unexpected behavior here and there...or so i thought. Apparently if someone trades and item to me that isnt in my pricegrid, the bot freaks out and kills itself, relaunches, and repeats this cycle (pm2). And i only found out about this on my way to school
So in desperation to fix such a critical flaw in my code (if my bot breaks a lot and doesnt accept trades, i can get banned from backpack.tf), i bust out my only device which is my phone, and start editing away (JuiceSSH and turbo client is godsend ty). 30 minutes later, after toiling through code with no indentation or syntax highlights (mobile pls), ive fixed it. So i push to live and alls well.
Then I arrive at school, pull out my laptop and decided to check up on my code to see if anything needs fixing.
Oh look in one line i used '||' instead of '&&'.
ok lets fix it.
ok lets push to live again.
I launched WinSCP to move the files onto the server, and just as the loading bar finishes and the file is overwritten, i realized; FUCK the code i had on my laptop wasnt the latest version i just worked on on my phone.
So that's that. 30 minutes of typing code without indentation and syntax highlighting on a 5 inch screen and it's all gone.
TLDR:
Version control is a must.