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The first time I realized I wasn't as good as I thought I was when I met the smartest dev I've ever known (to this day).
I was hired to manage his team but was just immediately floored by the sheer knowledge and skills this guy displayed.
I started to wonder why they hired outside of the team instead of promoting him when I found that he just didn't mesh well with others.
He was very blunt about everything he says. Especially when it comes to code reviews. Man, he did /not/ mince words. And, of course, everyone took this as him just being an asshole.
But being an expert asshole myself, I could tell he wasn't really trying to be one and he was just quirky. He was really good and I really liked hanging out with him. I learned A LOT of things.
Can you imagine coming into a lead position, with years of experience in the role backing your confidence and then be told that your code is bad and then, systematically, very precisely, and very clearly be told why? That shit is humbling.
But it was the good kind of humbling, you know? I really liked that I had someone who could actually teach me new things.
So we hung out a lot and later on I got to meet his daughter and wife who told me that he had slight autism which is why he talked the way he did. He simply doesn't know how to talk any other way.
I explained it to the rest of the team (after getting permission) and once they understood that they started to take his criticism more seriously. He also started to learn to be less harsh with his words.
We developed some really nice friendships and our team was becoming a little family.
Year and a half later I had to leave the company for personal reasons. But before I did I convinced our boss to get him to replace me. The team was behind him now and he easily handled it like a pro.
That was 5 years ago. I moved out of the city, moved back, and got a job at another company.
Four months ago, he called me up and said he had three reasons for us to meet up.
1. He was making me god father of his new baby boy
2. That they created a new position for him at the company; VP of Engineering
and
3. He wanted to hang out
So we did and turns out he had a 4th reason; He had a nice job offer for me.
I'm telling this story now because I wanted to remind everyone of the lesson that every mainstream anime tells us:
Never underestimate the power of friendship.21 -
A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.
-Douglas Adams1 -
Been reading devrant posts for a month or so, this is my first actual post. I'm hoping it will be therapeutic. ☺️ I need something to keep me from killing my boss when I see him again tomorrow..
Some backstory: Currently working in HR for the last 7 or so years with complete shit for brains boss, even worse when it comes to anything related to technology. For almost two years I've been working to get another bachelor's degree. This time in computer sciences, to make a career switch to systems and software engineer. Last week I roughly had the following wonderful conversation:
Boss: we've needed new Recruitment software for a while now. Can't you make us one as a school project?
Me: 'Make us one?' It's not really that simple.. I'm barely halfway through my education, maybe I could do it, but it would take me quite a long time even if I could work on it fulltime.. Combining a halftime job with a fulltime education is taking up enough of my time as it is and I have more than enough school projects btw..
Boss: it would be a win-win. Work a little harder in your spare time and when you graduate you have a real-life project on your resume.
Me: I'm sorry, i'm failing to see the 'win' for me here.. I work 10 hours a day, 7 days a week on average, trying to combine work and studies. I'm pretty much maxed out..
Boss: Your coworker(also extreme dumbass) told me you wrote some quick code the other day that helped him out. Don't underestimate yourself, I'm sure you can do this.
Me(in complete disbelief by now): I wrote him an Excel-macro! They don't even teach me that at school. It's a very very very long way from actual software development! I'm sorry, it just can't be done.
Boss: Thats too bad. I expected you to welcome an opportunity like this and be more motivated towards this company..
Me: ***more disbelief and silence, just staring at him***
I'm sorry you feel that way.
***walked away***
WTF, I work my ass off for 7 years for this fucking shithead.. Even before I started this bachelors degree I had at least some understanding of the work developers put in their software. It blows my mind, no, it fucking angers me how people think making software is so simple.. Why do you think it's a 3-year education you fucking cunt?
Please, someone tell me how I can keep myself from ramming his fucking head through a wall tomorrow...6 -
Product manager: build us a recently viewed and bookmark feature!
Younger-Me: But every browser already has a bookmark feature and a recently viewed (history) feature and its much better implemented with much less overhead.
Product manager: I don't care. Give me this feature, you are supposed to do as i say and bow.
Younger-Me: I'll take it as a challenge.
--- two weeks after feature is deployed ---
Product Manager: 😁 See! Many users are using the feature we built *shows me messages from subscribed customers*
Me: 😨 I'll never underestimate user's stupidity again.3 -
Never underestimate the power of a decent chair!
Was staying at friend's for a couple weeks with a horrible chair - my back just spasmed so hard that I am physically unable to get up from bed. Thank god for devRant to keep me occupied throughout the night.
Stay safe kids3 -
A quick advice to new developers. Never and I mean NEVER do a "quick edit" or "beautification" extremely close to a deadline. You should not underestimate the power of bugs.3
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Story #1: So I took a month of parental leave. And was planning to extend it a little longer to deal with my final exams. I was planning to spend lots of quality time with my wife and newborn son. Little did I know... It turns out that out of 5 OoO weeks I was looking forward I actually had 3 at most. The rest I've spent working remotely as I was insisted to deploy a brand new and poorly tested feature to PROD 2 days before my paternity leave. So I spent 2 weeks debugging things in PROD. Remotely. Needless to say that did suck.
Story #2: After story #1 I've learnt my lesson. This summer I took 3 weeks annual leave to renovate my apartment. I asked to not to be disturbed unless there's an emergency. And an emergency it was. One of our app users had a planned hi-load batch job lasting for 2-3 months. Hundreds of thousands of items had to be created and processed. It turns out the _processing_ algo had some flaws and was acting out. I was called out and asked to assist. I knew this sort of debugging is going to take a lot of my time so this time I put my conditions on the table: I will assist but I'll extend my leave by 1.5 the time I spend working now. They took the deal. Instead of 3 weeks I had 5 weeks of vacation!
I don't care that much about my salary. I prefer to exchange it for my time off hence I didn't ask for compensations.
Bottom line: NEVER EVER underestimate or undersell your time and effort. You are a valuable asset and if the team/client needs you on your day off -- make it count. Your time off is YOUR time. Never forget it.3 -
Never underestimate the power of developers on stackoverflow.
If you forget a single restriction they will find solutions that perfectly match your question but not your problem.3 -
People/companies talking about ooh we want gender diversity we want more female software developers, IT professionals etc
You talk the talk, do you know how to walk the walk?? Do you know how to deal with female engineers?
I am a hardcore engineer worked and studied majorly with men for years. I lead, managed teams had my own company worked as a consultant for years.
Then I got into the IT industry as developer later. I was completely against the idea of being female would make any difference or you would be treated differently.
Finally I had my own enlightenment and stopped resisting that idea.
Some treatments made me think what are these guys doing? Don’t treat me like your sister. I am not your sister. Don’t see the femininity or looks. I am not a Merrilyn Monroe to say oooh you are great you know soo much. I am not paid for that act, I do my job! It’s same as yours mate.
Don’t underestimate me or try to preach me as if I am a cute little girl. Don’t show off and boost your ego next to other guys.
Now I regretfully I agree the ladies ranting about male dominance and getting different treatment in IT.
I am literally trying to avoid red nail polishes or red lipstick god forbid. Maybe I should put some fake beard and a belly, loose jeans with an energy drink in hand. Here comes the expert IT professional, already ticking a box.
Honestly you are not taken seriously most of the time. If you are a guy then they are all ears..And those guys talk about they want gender diversity blah blah
You feel like a ghost when you express your opinion. You are not taken into account even when you have a comment or suggestion.
Even humiliated by a guy giving me a speech about how to be a good developer next to a manager. Look buddy I am not a yesterday’s child. I am at your age. I haven’t come to this position by jumping around picking flowers in a field. If I was a man, would you dare saying those to me? There could be a street fight coming.
LinkedIn selfie takers with body show offs putting ooh I am an IT recruiter as a female I got into IT. You can do it too. (don’t get me wrong I respect that achievement that’s good) but those girls get thousands of likes and applauses, you are working in IT for years people say they are seeking for. Your technical post doesn’t even get 20 likes. Your encouraging comment on a guy’s post isn’t even acknowledged. You are not even taken into account. Am I a ghost or something?
Honestly I don’t understand.
What do you mean by gender diversity? What do you want here?
Leave this gender bullshit. Look at the knowledge you don’t even know what equality means. It’s not having even numbers of genders. It is respecting knowledge and hard work regardless. Listening and acknowledging without judgement. Looking beyond male, female or others
Companies that say we want to have more females, you don’t come and knock on my door either. You are already stating a difference there. Attract with indifference don’t come and tell me you are a female we want more females here.
I’m telling you this sector is not getting proper gender equality for 25 years. Talk is there but mentality is not yet there.
I am super pissed off and discouraged today. I don’t even get discouraged that easily. Now I understand some women in IT talking about insecurities. I am on the edge of having one, such a shame.
Don’t come at me now I would bite!
This is my generalisation yes. Exceptions apply and how good it would have been if those exceptions were dominant.33 -
I feel all of us here could use this brilliant quote by Douglas Adams.
A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.1 -
Never underestimate users disability to follow guidance .
Showed me a screenshot where he started the script immediately and entered another command afterwards. Was kinda confused, since the script runs in an endless loop.
Then he showed me his version of the file...
3 -
TL;DR: a dude thinks good graphics make a game good.
so every day when the school ends, me, a dude and another girl walk home. as expected we have lots of time to talk about anything. I wanted that day to tell that dude about what I am going to buy on steam summer sales with just 15$.
me: I am going for this summer to play lots of games so I saved some money for this summer sale. do you want to hear what awesome games I am about to buy with just 15$?
dude: yeah, sure thing.
he wasn't expecting much
M: this summer I am going to buy 5 games and maybe keep more for some others. they are so awesome!
D: ok, let's hear those 'awesome' games!
M: the first game is devil daggers, maybe you don't kno...
D: of course I do. is that game
M: I want to get that game just to improve my aim, but maybe I will have some fun.
D: yeah yeah, I know that game
M: *poker face*
I KNEW he doesn't know this game and anything about pc games because of the followings...
M: ok then... I also want to get Half-Life 2 : Episode 1 & 2. they have pretty rich story and I already have both Half-Lives.
D: holy shit but the graphics... ok, one more 'awesome' game of yours.
M: there are 2 episodes, 2 separate games. I really don't care about the graphics, I love the story.
D: continue with your 'awesom' games...
that dude didn't even knew about half-life and said that game is bad.
M: another game I want to get is Battlefront 2, the one from 2005 and...
D: 2005!?
M: yeah, the new one sucks, and the gameplay in the original is way better and...
D: *starts laughing* 2005!? I thought you were getting the new one. I imagine the graphics being like this car. *points to a fucking car, yeah that kind of comparasion, I know*
after this I was so fucking pissed off. he doesn't even know about some cult classics that are meant to be played. he doesn't even have a pc nor console and he is stating his opinion on fine air for fucks sake!
M: ok, what about getting the facts and then make an opinon.
D: yeah yeah *making fun of me at that point*
I didn't tell him that I wanted to buy the binding of isaac, cause it was enough for me. I told him to watch some reviews on these games and blog posts about them and I am sure tomorrow he will say that he 'wathced' the reviews and that those games are garbage. it's his style to underestimate things. I fucking hate him, not becuase of the games, but because he underestimates everything that is not on his list of 'good games'. that list consists of new games with great graphics(3D only).
sorry if I exaggerate saying that those games are cult classics but I really look forward into buying them.
if you have another indie game to run on this potato machine(2gb ram, pentium dual-core 2.1ghz, gtx 525m) that I should or at least try comment, I am open to suggestions!9 -
BIRD OWNERS. If you live near ANYWHERE with fireworks, few or many, just a friendly yearly reminder that the smoke from those fireworks will destroy your bird's respiratory system. KEEP YOUR WINDOWS CLOSED. Do not underestimate how dangerous that smoke is for them.
Happy new years everyone!11 -
Sometimes I feel people underestimate us.
During all my life, people has asked me if I can fix their *any device* because it goes slowly/something doesn't work.
But, of course, for free. Because they think the only thing we do is pushing 3 buttons and everything is done. They think everything solves itself easily.
Then is the fact that we should be able to fix everything always. Even if the hardware is broken. Even if there isn't any way to solve the problem.
I think we deserve a little bit more from society. I don't expect people to understand what we do but at least something better than the guy who formats your computer when it starts to go slow.
(Maybe I'm the only one who feels that way or it's just where I live, idk)2 -
I gave my project manager a prototype of the ocr app we're developing to play with, just for fun. The next morning, I enter the office to see this along with a well structure spreadsheet with some 40 columns.
Never underestimate the seriousness of a project manager.
2 -
I read somewhere at the start of the global pandemic: when it comes to work from home life, you should never underestimate the benefits of a power nap.
My gods, that person was right! I only wish I had taken advantage of it more over the last year.1 -
I love to program — I discovered that about myself a few years ago. Beforehand, I only KNEW how to program. But then I discovered the power programming gives you to create things, and even help your surroundings. So now, I can surely say, that I love programming. Heck, I am even dating a very talented programmer.
But despite all the pleasure I derive from it, I feel lonely sometimes. True, there are millions of programmers all over the world. I also know I am not the only one who prefers coding over going to the movies, taking a walk, eating or sleeping.
Why do I feel this way?
My loneliness is a gendered loneliness, as there are not many women in my field. For sure, there are women who study computer science in high school or at the university, and some even work as programmers. But they are very, very few!
I often underestimate my abilities and feel intimated for no apparent reason
#random thoughts6 -
I'm not here to underestimate the design of a government app on Android.
I hope the developer considered the UI itself as user-friendly and not the default button from android studio. he just simply copies the contents(text & images) from the government web page and paste it to its application.
He/she got paid well to make that app. well, although the information is correct for the users.
It's not much that users are even enthusiastic of the design. they simply read the guidelines inside the app and no more fancy animation.1 -
If there was an anime Based on developers.
==Start===
Dev : here comes my favorite browser.
Mouse : No, not until I'm here.
Hand : whattttt? What's happening??
Mind : oh NO!! I why's Internet Explorer is loading?!?
Faster Mind : it's mouse, he's behind all this. Only he's powerful enough to pull off something like this.
Time : Developer-san SAVE me!!
IE : it's too late now, if you do anything it will just slow everything down!!! Hahahah
Dev : No it won't, don't ever underestimate a true developer. It's not over yet!!
*Some keyboard key combination
Time : *screams* developerrr-saaaan!!
Hand : wait, I know it, it's happening. We can still save Time-chan.
IE : WHAT!! No, it can't be!!
Dev : here comes Ctrl+Alt+Del. Be gone....
IE : Nooooooooooooo, this isn't happening, Aaaaaa *dead*
Hand : we did it!!!10 -
Dear bluetooth headset,
I know your battery is low, thanks for the notice. I have 1 hour work left, after that you will get your charge. I also know you underestimate your own power and can do more than an hour on reserve.
So suck it up and stop being a whiny bitch blaring your damn "battery low"-beeps into my ears. It's way too loud and beeping every 10 seconds will only strain your power reserves and my nerves.
Yours sincerely,
dev134 -
If you have some troubles with some errors/bugs:
Never underestimate the power that a short break from coding can give you1 -
Suppossing that you're a very capable professional my advice is to NOT UNDERESTIMATE YOU. There are a lot of crappy programmers that feels like an expert because they did a hello world.
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Don't refractor for fun!
An anecdote from my previous company. A developer had written a shitty java console app for fetching stock prices. About 3000 LOC. just one java GOD class. So, when me and my friend looked at it, we were amazed how that code works with all that if conditions spanning 100LOC. so. My dear friend underestimated the complexity. Since it just fetches stock price and puts in database right. I can write it in few days and much better one. So, he started writing code in an OO way. Three days later I see he still working on it. Having a glimpse at code. The app is now Object oriented shitty and ugly.
Guess what new code never goes in prod too.
Learning
Don't underestimate complexity of app.
Be empathic about fellow developer. Don't think he has written a shitty code. Think why he had to do so.
Don't work on refractors if there is no one to guide you.3 -
Friend : Have you take a look at this part? We will discuss it this Friday.
What I want to say :
"Don't underestimate my ability to procrastinate, sleep on my problem, run away from my responsibilities, and don't give a sh*t about everything."
What I actually said:
"Of course but I will look at it again thoroughly."
_______________________
Maybe my frustration and depression are not showing enough on my face.
: /1 -
People who don't smoke/drink often underestimate the power of smoke breaks that people take in the office.
To others it might seem like something colleagues do outside for 5-10 mins but it literally is not the case.
In 2018 at an office job I worked at, the HR, marketing head and a dev colleague all separately used to drag me out in the balcony at different times. They didn't wanna smoke with each other, just alone with me.
I knew everything about them starting from where they studied, their work history, their salaries, routines, their married lives, how they feel in and out of the office, what they are depressed about. More than anything I needed to know about them..
It didn't result in personal gains or anything but it wouldn't have happened if I was then a non smoker.
Remember that episode in Friends where Rachel had to forcefully take up smoking to socialize with her colleagues? It's completely true11 -
The more I work on the backend forms validation side of my .NET Core project the more I understand how to fuck up web forms in general... 😈
Never underestimate the necessity of a backend validation other then the frontend one. 👿
4 -
As a following to my previous rant
https://devrant.com/rants/3180332/...
I ended up staying because because the outsourced company(where I’m hired) got called out by the company we’re providing devices for letting me leave and underpaying me
As it it was not enough they also threatened them to stop outsourcing with their company.
At the end I got a 2x salary rise, way better benefits and the promise(still to see) of getting hired directly on the company I’m working in.
So yeah, don’t underestimate your value.3 -
Proof i typically underestimate my own self: I just remembered building a browser In Visual Basic in middle school, in a day at my friends house…. How the hell did I do that?? I recognize some of the syntax, but i don’t remember Visual Basic… but THATS how I know it looks like C… AND I DONT KNOW C! so wtf!21
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QOTD: "We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run."
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Never underestimate the power of a misplaced static in your Java to totally fuck you over.
I was busy with my computer science project for the semester where we have to implement a Sudoku solver without backtracking by using graph theory.
So there I was writing my data structure for the grid when for some reason all the cells were initialized with the value 8.
After a whole night of debugging I was about to start over when I realized I had made my array static.
And boom, it works. WTF!!!!!!!3 -
A classmate I haven't seen in 2 years popped up in my Linkedin.
I looked up her profile and it seems like she now works at SWE in okayish company after an internship in a prestigious company.
This throws me a little bit (I am jealous obviously). We've worked in the same uni project before, she's okay when it comes to theoretical courses but a bit behind when it comes to anything related to computer. I would never think of her working as SWE as she did better in traditional engineering (think Civil Eng, Mechanical Eng etc, Aerospace Eng.).
And yet I heard a lot of people online complaining about difficulty of finding graduate/junior position. If a person like her can find something, surely someone with pure CS background should find something easier. But then again, job hunting is 50% pure luck. I have concern on the quality of work that she will produce, but maybe I underestimate her a lot? 🤔6 -
I want to rant here but I have a lot of backlog. They’re all pretty deep for refinement. So I want to put them all in one sprint. Because I don’t want a marathon of ranting.
But I do realise in IT sprints never end, and eventually turn out to be a marathon of sprints. I came to a point to deliver over 100 story points in one sprint. Maybe I shall write a book instead of exploding this app.
I could have never imagined the dark side of this occupation.
However I love coding so much I’ll brush the backlog under the carpet😏
But you know there are always saviour heros wanted for refactoring. This honour goes to:
The arrogant guys who think they’re a genius when their code compiles.
The insecure guys who want to overpower the next available when their code doesn’t compile.
The egoists who like to underestimate and show of, where their faulty biased googles display a little girl instead of a developer.
The aggressives when they are invited to the reality and kindly offered to sit back on their place.
I hope this rant wouldn’t ouch anyone. If it does, not sorry, the message is delivered.
If there’s an offence or reaction to this refactoring job, the 4th one would be offered to clean the mess.2 -
Productivity hack - For me, it’s mostly a single word - planning. I wasn’t always good at it, definitely not yet a “master” of it, but breaking that proverbial elephant up into smaller pieces, and organizing a plan of action for dealing with them is the #1 productivity “hack” for me. Sorry that it’s not an actual shortcut, or anything…I personally don’t believe in those anymore. Complementary habits to this are thoroughly commenting code, having descriptive commit messages, file names, and variable names, maintaining documentation. Use that Readme.md. This is true of any project, even if I’m the only developer - never underestimate your own ability to totally forget shit.1
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Don't underestimate the powers of adding comments here and there. Your future self (or other devs) will be thankful.
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I either underestimate or overestimate my deadlines...There hasn't been a single time when I have stated deadline in a standup for a feature and finished it on that day...It's either days before deadline or mostly few days or even weeks past it😓4
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It's something that comes with practice, but in general it's much better to overestimate than underestimate.
- Always take your time. Don't be rushed into plucking a number out of thin air.
- Break the task down into really small, atomic chunks.
- Each of those chunks will take at least twice as long as you think it does - nothing goes to plan 100% the first time!
- Make sure you add contingency at the end. -
Got an offer from some company, they seem nice and all and the stack is something I’m used to. But my issue is diversity, I went to their office once and I didn’t see any diversity whatsoever in the team, at all.
People underestimate the importance of diversity in a workplace, it’s surprising to see that even in 202114 -
Back to work from a week on holiday. Find out that both mine and my girlfriends companies have announced redundancies on the same day (completely unrelated companies in different fields). We've both made it through the first round ok (which is more than some so massively grateful) but we are still at risk of loosing our jobs. We have some savings to fall back on but that will only cover rent for so long. Never underestimate how quickly things can go to shit.
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I hate it when I'm knee deep in projects that need to be done before the new CI strategy starts two avoid a three week long full test every two weeks and then my dear boss comes up with having me do the planning for the next testphase while my coworker is scrolling through 9gag. I mean, sorry old man but either I automate this monstrosity of thirty million layers of 'naturally grown', ill documented, identifier lackimg piece of shit or I can do the fucking schedule. My mother isn't an octopus, i've got only two arms...
Tl;dr: Why do non programmers always heavily underestimate the time shit needs to get done?
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