Hey everyone,

Merry Christmas to everyone who celebrates, happy holidays to everyone, and happy almost-new-year!

Tim and I wanted to reflect on the year devRant has had, and looking back, there are a lot of awesome things that happened in 2018 that we are very thankful for. Here are just a few of the ones that we thought of (this list is not exhaustive and I'm definitley forgetting stuff, so please comment about those!):

- After nearly a year in the making, the completely overhauled devRant web version was launched (https://devrant.com/rants/1255714/...)

- @linuxxx became the first devRant user to hit 100,000++! (https://devrant.com/rants/1157415/...)

- We once again pulled off the greatest April fools joke everrrr (https://devrant.com/rants/1311206/...)

- @trogus started making awesome devComics and http://devcomics.com was launched

- We added a feature to allow rant filtering by post type (https://devrant.com/rants/1354275/...)

- We made it so avatars could have expressions! (https://devrant.com/rants/1563683/...)

- We had a booth at TechDay New York and got to meet some devRant users! (https://devrant.com/rants/1394067/...)

- We made major backend architectural improvements - including spinning up a special high-powered-CPU web server to handle avatar creation and make the creation process much faster (https://devrant.com/rants/1370938/...)

- App stability: mainly Android - we fixed crashes, did a push-notif overhaul, and tried to continue making the apps better and more stable

- A record amount of devRant meetups were held, and we couldn't be more proud about that, and we thank every person who organized one! (just a few: https://devrant.com/rants/1588218/... https://devrant.com/rants/1884724/... https://devrant.com/rants/1683365/... https://devrant.com/rants/1922950/...)

We had a busy year, and despite some things going on for us personally and some setbacks around those, we think this was a very productve year for devRant and that we are going in the right direction. We're continuing to constantly evaluate feedback from members of the community to decide where to take the app next. We're fully committed to improving the devRant community in 2019 and we have a lot of ideas about how we can do that. We're working on some things, but we're not really announcing them yet, so please sit tight for those :) In the meantime, feel free to let us know what you'd like to see improved/added the most as we always like to get updated feedback from the community.

As always, thank you everyone, and thanks for your amazing contributions to the devRant community!

Looking forward to 2019,
- David and Tim

One of my favorite aspects of devRant has always been getting to learn more about the awesome people who use it. Beyond just the awesome stories posted by many here, one of my favorite ways to learn about and feel connected to the people here has always been desk/setup reveals. I personally love seeing different kinds of setups from all over the world, knowing that’s what the people here use to do their work and compute in general.

As an experiment, we want to try a few different things to highlight desk/setup/remote coding location posts. First, we’ve created the first devRant Instagram account, which is completely focused on developer desks/setups/workstations/remote coding. Please check it out here and follow: https://www.instagram.com/devdesks/

I want to use the account to bring more attention to the wide assortment of setups the awesome members of the devRant community post from all over the world. We’ll promote cool desk/setup/remote work images that are posted on devRant to the Instagram account for more exposure/additional audience.

Beyond that, I also want to try to come up with a way to better organize all of the desk/setup posts on devRant and encourage more of them. One kind we don’t see that often that I personally really enjoy is people coding with their laptops in locations that show the culture of their country or something special about the region they are from. Personally, I’m going to try to post some of those for where I live and work.

So how can you help with this effort? It’s easy! We encourage people to post their setups/working remotely pics and we will start featuring them on the Instagram account and hopefully elsewhere in the devRant app for some increased visibility/searchabilty over what we have now (since pics are kind of hard to search).

Also, we plan to make the weekly rant this week “post your setup,” so maybe wait until then to post, and you can work now on getting that awesome shot :) I know a lot of people here love photography like I do, so I think that part is fun too.

Please let me know if you have any ideas or questions about this, and I’m looking forward to seeing the desks/setups of many more devRanters in the next few days!

P.S. not a requirement, but one thing I think makes these photos better looking through a lot of them is when there is code visible in some way.

Recap: https://www.devrant.io/rants/878300

I was out Thursday at the Hospital. I'm what the doctors would call "Ill as fuck"

So, Friday I’m back in the office to the usual: "How was that appointment?"
I know people mean well when they ask this. So, I do the polite thing and tell them it went as well as it could.

Realistically it does't matter how well it went... They haven't cured Crohn's because I showed up to the appointment. They know I'm fucked already.

But, push it down, add it to the future aneurism.

I had to go through the usual resignation meetings with managers:
"We"re fucked now you're going"
"yep"
"we need to get a handle on how fucked"
"already done that for you, here"s a trello board, very fucked."
"we need to put a plan together to drop all the junior devs in the shit with the work you’ve been doing"
"You need about 4 devs, please refer to the previous trello board for your plan"

Meanwhile, me and Morpheus are in constant communication because all of this is like a Shakespearean comedy.

So, I overhear a conversation between a Junior Dev and the Solution Architect.

[SA] took over the project because he knows better than two tried and tested senior devs -_- (fuckwit).

JD: "It took me one and a half days to build it out"
SA: "Yeah, it must have taken me twice as long... It must be a problem with the project, you should just be able to check it out and run it."
JD: "I know, it has to be wrong"

All of this is about Morpheus' work of art, of an Ionic 3 hybrid app.

I fumed quietly at my desk because I've been ordered by the Stazi to be hands off.

Since Morpheus and me were pulled from the project [JD] and [JD2] were dropped into it to get it over the line.

It"s unfortunate and I was clear and honest with my advice to them: I personally would not take over the project because I"d be way out of my depth... Oh, and the App works, so uh, there's no work to do.

They have been constantly at our desks. Asking fuckdiculous questions about how to perform basic tasks. So they can get Morpheus" frigging masterpiece to the user.

It"s like watching that touch up of jesus that got borked by an amateur. Shit I have google, it's like watching this happen: http://ti.me/NnNSAb

[JD] came to me Friday evening.
"I can’t get this to build to iOS or install on [Test Analyst]'s phone."

Me: "No worries brother, where are you stuck right now?"

[JD] describes the first steps with clear indication he hasn't googled his problem.

Life lesson: http://lmgtfy.com/?q=lmgtfy

Que an hour of me showing [JD] how to build an Ion3 project for iOS. Fuck it, your man's in a bind and he"s asked politely for help. I can show him quicker than he can read 3 sets of docos.

I took him through 'ionic cordova build ios', the archive and release processes in XCode 9, then the apk bundling process for droid. Finally we have an MAM so the upload process for that too.

All the while cleaning up his AppIDs, Profiles, deployment attempts.
Damn they were a mess.

I did this with a smile on my face, not because I could say "I told you so"... But. because when any developer asks you how to do something. If you know how to do it, you should always be happy to learn them some new tricks!

Dude's alright, he's been dropped in the shit. Now I know how badly so I'll help him learn things that are useful to his role, but aren't project specific.

As a plausi-senior dev (I'll tell you about that later); it's my job to make sure my team have what they need to go home smiling!

I’m not a hateful fucker, the guy asked me an honest question so I am happy to give him the honest answer.

I took him through it a few times and explained a few best practices. Most were how to do his AppID and ProvProfile set up. Good lad, took it all on board.

However! In his frustration, he pointed the finger at Morpheus' "David" (ref: Michelangelo).

He miraculously morphed into a shiny colourful parrot and fed me SA's line:
"you should just be able to build from a clean clone"

My response was calm and clear:
"You can, it took me 20 minutes on Thursday evening. I was bored and curios, so I wanted to validate Morpheus' work. Here it is on my iOS device and my Android device. It would have taken me 5 if my laptop wasn’t so horrifically out of date."

I validated Morpheus' work so I have evidence, I trust that brilliant bastard.
I just need to be able to prove it's good.

[JD] took this on board.
Maybe listening to two tried and trusted senior devs is better than listening to a headstrong Solution Architect.

When JD left for the weekend I was working a late one (https://www.devrant.io/rants/874765).

His sign off was beautiful.
"I think I can happily admit defeat on this one, it can wait until Monday."

To which I replied: "no worries brother, if you need a hand give me a shout."

Rule 1: Don't be a cunt.
Rule 2: If someone needs help and you can give it: Give it!
Rule 3: Don't interrupt James' cigarette time.
Rule 4: goto Rule 3.

!rant

Request for DevRant android app:

Currently when I tap a rant on the feed I am greeted by an empty screen while it is loading all details. Usually I am on a slow mobile connection so this can take quite a while.

My suggestion is to load the rant text (and image) which you already have from the feed view into the newly created single rant view. This way I can already read and inspect the rant while loading the details.

One objection to this might be the truncated rants. However, when I checked the api when developing http://jsRant.com it turned out that the feed response isn't truncated at all. This is a ui thing, meaning that my suggestion could be implemented fully in the app without backend changes.

Please consider this suggestion @dfox or @trogus since it would make the app a lot more user friendly for those with a slow connection.

Anyone here from Brazil?

If so, please check this out: http://catarse.me/salvavidasapp

For those who aren't, let me explain: I started a crowdfunding project - because I want to make an app tp "prevent suicides".(there isn't one like this here in Brazil)

Why? In 2014 a classmate of mine took her own life. And since then, I had this idea. Since my last job ended (you can read about that in my previous rant...) I now would be able to try to do it.

Long story short, I'm utterly disappointed. Some of my friends helped sharing the news - I myself mailed over 3000 different reporters / news sites - all trying to get people to notice (and hopefully contribute) with the project.

But most of them? They didn't even clicked on the damn link I've sent them.

Almost half of the funding time gone, I only got 476 visits, and 1% of the goal. Out of the 3000 I wrote about, only *4* published a small story - and that was because of a friend, not those emails/forms I sent.

I tried posting everywhere I could on Facebook. Tried on foruns over the internet. Tried twitter, tried several universities (only the one I went helped - and half of the money raised is due to them)... everything I could think of - and nothing.

It's 5:30 AM here, and I can't sleep. I'm devastated.I knew it would be difficult to raise the cash - but not getting the news out and having so few people visiting the page... it hurts.

!rant

This year marks our 5th anniversary of devopsdays in Amsterdam and the whole team is working hard on making it the most awesome experience of 2017 for anyone interested in the devops movement. :)
I really believe this will make us be less frustrated and rant less! Though, I never want this app to end! =]

But what is an amazing conference without amazing talks? That's where you come into the picture. We have spots open for talks (lightning and non-lightning) and workshops.
If you feel like you have a valuable devops story to share please fill in our CfP here - https://devopsdays.typeform.com/to/... .

You can expect about 300-400 people at a talk and somewhere between 10-30 at workshops.
When is it? 28th-30th of June (2017)
Why Amsterdam? Amsterdam is pretty cool. We make it extra cool and make sure you're never hungry or thirsty.

Hope to see you there!
And I need to see devRanters there to share the best stories!

❤️️ on behalf of the Amsterdam organizers.

Java Life Rap Video

https://m.youtube.com/watch/...

SPOKEN:
In the cubicles representin’ for my JAVA homies…
In by nine, out when the deadlines are met, check it.

CHORUS:
We code hard in these cubicles
My style’s nerd-chic, I’m a programmin’ freak
We code hard in these cubicles
Only two hours to your deadline? Don’t sweat my technique.
Sippin’ morning coffee with that JAVA swirl.
Born to code; my first words were “Hello World”
Since 95, been JAVA codin’ stayin’ proud
Started on floppy disks, now we take it to the cloud.
On my desktop, JAVA’s what’s bobbin’ and weavin’
We got another winning app before I get to OddEven.
Blazin’ code like a forest fire, climbin’ a tree
Setting standards like I Triple E….
Boot it on up, I use the force like Luke,
Got so much love for my homeboy Duke.
GNU Public Licensed, it’s open source,
Stop by my desk when you need a crash course
Written once and my script runs anywhere,
Straight thuggin’, mean muggin’ in my Aeron chair.
All the best lines of code, you know I wrote ‘em
I’ll run you out of town on your dial-up modem.

CHORUS:
‘Cause…
We code hard in these cubicles
Me and my crew code hyphy hardcore
We code hard in these cubicles
It’s been more than 10 years since I’ve seen the 404.
Inheriting a project can make me go beeee-serk
Ain’t got four hours to transfer their Framework.
The cleaners killed the lights, Man, that ain’t nice,
Gonna knock this program out, just like Kimbo Slice
I program all night, just like a champ,
Look alive under this IKEA lamp.
I code HARDER in the midnight hour,
E7 on the vending machine fuels my power.
Ps3 to Smartphones, our code use never ends,
JAVA’s there when I beat you in “Words with Friends”.
My developing skills are so fresh please discuss,
You better step your game up on that C++.
We know better than to use Dot N-E-T,
Even Dan Brown can’t code as hard as me.
You know JAVA’s gettin’ bigger, that’s a promise not a threat,
Let me code it on your brain

WHISPERED:
so you’ll never forget.

CHORUS:
We code hard in these cubicles,
it’s the core component…of what we implement.
We code hard in these cubicles,
Straight to your JAVA Runtime Environment.
We code hard in these cubicles,
Keep the syntax light and the algorithm tight.
We code hard in these cubicles,
Gotta use JAVA if it’s gonna run right.
We code hard in these cubicles
JAVA keeps adapting, you know it’s built to last.
We code hard in these cubicles,
Robust and secure, so our swag’s on blast
CODE HARD

UNOFFICIAL DEVRANT CLONE JAM - VOTING WITH CRICKETS - DAY 2

I see that nobody is leaving any comments on hackathon entries. It is troubling, because there is no telling if you approve the app behind the post or not - even if I were to collect all upvotes through myself.

Please give the feedback to our contestants in their respective rants! What it takes to make a "devRant clone" or there should be something else entirely? How do these clones look to you, which gets the most points?

Yesterday, @ostream has left the competition by removing account from devRant, but, hopefully, we'll see him again on the next hackathon. Now, it's only @retoor and @SidTheITGuy. They will clash for the right to get a cool animation of their devRant self. You vote can affect this.

Finnegan (by @retoor): https://devrant.com/rants/9946268
ragedev (by @SidTheITGuy): https://devrant.com/rants/9946238

Leave your comments in respective rants. Read the rules and vote for as many as you like!