boss: please look into tools that do X.

fullstackchris: Ah, here's a solution we can use!

boss: I don't want to use it because it is too complicated.

fullstackchris: ok, that's fine with me...

[one week later] boss: oh I found this nice site that does X, can we do X?

fullstackchris: YES, THAT'S EXACTLY THE SOLUTION I ALREADY FOUND, *AFTER* YOU ASKED ME TO LOOK FOR A SOLUTION, AND IN THE END YOU DIDN'T WANT TO DO IT. OH HAVE YOU CHANGED YOUR MIND?!?!

F*@#! *%*#

This is a true story
I am a freelance developer, i recently had this conversation with my client:
Client: Add multi language option to my website
Me: Ok, I need for it 3-5 days
Client: Why?
Me: I need to create multi language system, this
website is built from scratch without using any
framework
Client: No need to built it, Just enabled it i need it fast
Me: Sir there is no such thing to enable features that
does not exit
Client: Listen me, I need this feature today, enable it
and we are done.

Me: Thats not how it works..
Client: I know how it works, i have hacking certificate

"Welcome to everybody's favorite show: Did It Break!?!"

"Here's our first contestant, Alex Brooklyn!"

* Audience claps *

''Tell us Alex, what command did you use?!"

ls -la

"And did it break production?!"

Not yet..., the website is still up, even checked without cache and on a different network, I haven't had any calls in half an hour and Sentry reports nothing

"Great to hear! On to round 2!"

First internship (ranted about it before).

- Had to google translate their entire internal crm.
- pointed out major security flaws and got a speech saying that "I shouldn't think so high of myself and I didn't have the fucking right to criticize their products"
- every time the boss came to the office after a failed sales presentation, we (interns) got called the most nasty stuff. Yes. We didn't have anything to do with that at all.
- I had "hygiene issues": window to the south with 35-40 degrees (Celsius) feeling temperature and no airco. Deo didn't really make a difference but wasn't allowed to use it there anyways. Details: I have a transpiration issue so I sweat shitloads more than other people, that didn't help at all.
- nearly got fired because I had to to to the doctor in company time for a serious health issue.
- was (no kidding) REQUIRES to use internet explorer and we were monitored constantly.

Self esteem dropped through the fucking ground there.

Yep. I worked at a place where my director and manager were true mysogynists. One day the director walks behind one of my subordinates and knees her in the back of the knees to make her fall back so that he can catch her. He does this in front the whole office. I told her that I had her back if she chose to complain. We went to our CO and laid everything out, and he was forced to take action. I was pulled aside and told that I would ruin my career if I went durn this path. I told them that it was more important to me to do the right thing. The director was forced to resign, the manager was reassigned to another location, and yes, my career suffered, especially in the area of promotion. But you know what? I'd do it again, because it was the right thing to do.

Testivus On Test Coverage

Early one morning, a programmer asked the great master:

“I am ready to write some unit tests. What code coverage should I aim for?”

The great master replied:

“Don’t worry about coverage, just write some good tests.”

The programmer smiled, bowed, and left.

...

Later that day, a second programmer asked the same question.

The great master pointed at a pot of boiling water and said:

“How many grains of rice should I put in that pot?”

The programmer, looking puzzled, replied:

“How can I possibly tell you? It depends on how many people you need to feed, how hungry they are, what other food you are serving, how much rice you have available, and so on.”

“Exactly,” said the great master.

The second programmer smiled, bowed, and left.

...

Toward the end of the day, a third programmer came and asked the same question about code coverage.

“Eighty percent and no less!” Replied the master in a stern voice, pounding his fist on the table.

The third programmer smiled, bowed, and left.

...

After this last reply, a young apprentice approached the great master:

“Great master, today I overheard you answer the same question about code coverage with three different answers. Why?”

The great master stood up from his chair:

“Come get some fresh tea with me and let’s talk about it.”

After they filled their cups with smoking hot green tea, the great master began to answer:

“The first programmer is new and just getting started with testing. Right now he has a lot of code and no tests. He has a long way to go; focusing on code coverage at this time would be depressing and quite useless. He’s better off just getting used to writing and running some tests. He can worry about coverage later.”

“The second programmer, on the other hand, is quite experience both at programming and testing. When I replied by asking her how many grains of rice I should put in a pot, I helped her realize that the amount of testing necessary depends on a number of factors, and she knows those factors better than I do – it’s her code after all. There is no single, simple, answer, and she’s smart enough to handle the truth and work with that.”

“I see,” said the young apprentice, “but if there is no single simple answer, then why did you answer the third programmer ‘Eighty percent and no less’?”

The great master laughed so hard and loud that his belly, evidence that he drank more than just green tea, flopped up and down.

“The third programmer wants only simple answers – even when there are no simple answers … and then does not follow them anyway.”

The young apprentice and the grizzled great master finished drinking their tea in contemplative silence.

Found on stack overflow https://stackoverflow.com/questions...

Story time!

This is “Güero” (Blondie), the only cat I know who can use a computer.

I was at university. I couldn’t take my laptop to class because it was too huge, so I had to use remote connection.

One day, I connected to my laptop from the library, and everything was ok except that I couldn’t move the mouse! 😱 It was like somebody on the other side was using the mousepad. There was nobody in my house, just Blondie.

My solution? I called to my house. The cat heard the ring and left my laptop. It sounds stupid but, believe it or not, it worked! 😂

Blondie, the informatic cat.

Client: I know other developers who would do the same and much more for much less.

Me: I am glad you chose to work with me instead.

Client: I mean I like the site but I still feel that the development process has taken longer than it should have.

Me: Well, it is within the time frame I had said I would be able to have the first version of the site running. I have also implemented quite a number of new features that we had not earlier agreed on.

Client: I think I'll pay (quotes less than 20% of the total cost ).

Me: That is less than the amount that you were to pay as the first instalment ages ago!!

Client: I mean I like the site, but I think it still lacks the X factor. I want ...*goes on to mention other features*

Me: While I take pride in making my clients happy, I believe this process should be mutually beneficial. You are constantly making requests for new features but are making no attempts to meet your end of the agreement.

Client: FYI, there are people begging me for this job.

Me: *Takes down the site.* I wish you all the best, I hope the other developers are up to your standards.

Client: *Literally ignoring the fact that I just quit*. I want (makes more requests).

I am simply going to ignore this one!!!!

The spam denier
_____

An old phone conversation with a client:

Me : Hello

Client : My website and server are suspended? why is that?

Me : Your server sends spam messages.

Client : We do not send spam messages, we are on vacation, there is none in the office.

Me : Yes, but it is not necessarily you, according to our logs, your server sent spam messages in Chinese and Russian, so someone from Russia or China....etc.

Client : I do not believe you, we do not speak russian or chinese, how could we then write spam messages in those languages?

Me : I told you, maybe someone exploited some vulnerability in your website or server firewall. And if you want to activate your services, please check with your webmaster and sysadmin to secure your ....

Client: I tell you my son, because I am old and I have more life experience than you ... I am 60 years old and I tell you, spam does not exist, and YOU suspended my website and server, and created issues to sell me more of your solutions and services.

I won't check my server, I won't hire a webmaster or a sysadmin, AND YOU WILL ACTIVATE MY SERVER NOW !

(I suddenly realized that I am talking to a wall, so I switched to a robotic tone).

Me : Please resolve the issue to activate your services..

Client : YOU WILL ACTIVATE MY S...

Me : Please resolve the issue to activate your services...

Client : WHAT IS THIS SPAM STORY ANYWAY, I DO NOT BELIEVE YOU ...

Me : Please google that word and you will understand what is spam is...

Client : YOU ARE F**ING LIARS, SPAM DOES NOT EXIST... ACTIVATE MY WEBSITE N.... Beeeep !

I hang up.

Well, I thought about configuring an automatic response for this client, or a for-loop.

His voice was really unpleasant, as if he is a heavy smoker.

"Oh no this platform is serverless"

I hate this "serverless" term.

How does a cloud platform run serverless?

HOW?!

"yeah but like we don't have to run updates and manage the underlying stuff and can thus deploy stuff serverless"

NO.

THERE ARE ACTUAL SERVERS RUNNING IN ORDER TO RUN THIS PLATFORM.

YOU CANT RUN THIS FUCKING PLATFORM WITHOUT ACTUAL SERVERS.

HOW WOULD IT RUN THEN, ON FUCKING STARDUST?!

IT. IS. NOT. SERVERLESS. AS. LONG. AS. SERVERS. ARE. INVOLVED. AT. SOME. LEVEL.

Customer: IT is completely useless! I’m getting PORN ADS on my work computer!? This is ridiculous!!!

Friend: Oh that’s not good, perhaps your computer has a virus of some sort let me take a look!

Friend takes a look and sees that the porn ads were all provided by google ad service, they weren’t related to a virus.

Friend: so, you don’t have a virus, but so that you know google gathers metrics on the sites you visit so that it can target ads at you better. Looks like that’s what’s happening here.

Customer: .............

EDIT: devRant April Fools joke (2019)
-------------------------
Hey everyone!

Today, @trogus and I are very happy to announce a devRant feature that we’ve been working on for many months. After extensive time and money investment, it’s finally here! Introducing, pixelated avatars!

@trogus came up with this awesome idea about a year ago, but we couldn’t get it just right so we had to tons of work/research to make those pixelated avatars give the full sense of retro and ULTIMATE pixelation. We think everyone will appreciate how this effort turned out.

Anyway, let us know what you think, and we hope you enjoy!

p.s. here is @trogus’s avatar - the model we used to make sure the feature is perfect!

Pro tip: If you are a junior, or senior but new at the company, don't start your conversations with:

"We're doing X wrong. At my previous company we did / at school I learned /in this book I read / according to this talk I watched, the right way to do X is ..."

Instead try:

"I'm curious why were doing X this way. I'm used to doing it differently."

I love flat-hierarchy teams, and people who think about flaws in procedures and proactively try to improve the tools we use are awesome, but the next kid walking up to me yelling we use git flow "wrong" will be smacked in the face with a keyboard.

If you come to me with curiosity and an open mind, I'll explain, and even return the favor by behaving the same way when I'm baffled by your seemingly retarded implementations.

Maybe we can learn from each other, maybe discover that "how I learned it" is sometimes good, sometimes bad.

But let's start with some social skills, not kicking off into every debate with a stretched leg and a red face.

A super creepy webcrawler I built with a friend in Haskell. It uses social media, various reverse image searches from images and strategically picked video/gif frames, image EXIF data, user names, location data, etc to cross reference everything there is to know about someone. It builds weighted graphs in a database over time, trying to verify information through multiple pathways — although most searches are completed in seconds.

I originally built it for two reasons: Manager walks into the office for a meeting, and during the meeting I could ask him how his ski holiday with his wife and kids was, or casually mention how much I would like to learn his favorite hobby.

The other reason was porn of course.

I put further development in the freezer because it's already too creepy. I'd run it on some porn gif, and after a long search it had built a graph pointing to a residence in rural Russia with pictures of a local volleyball club.

To imagine that intelligence agencies probably have much better gathering tools is so insane to think about.

I was looking for about a month for a laptop. Then on this one magical day I open kijiji and see a Toshiba Thinkpad T450s with 20gb of ram, 138 ssd and an i5-6300U cpu going fo 500$ (value 2000+).

My first thought was. Okay. Scam alert. But you know. What if?

So I call up this person. And its a girl who got a pc from her bf, but really she wanted a mac so she is selling it.

This straight up blew my mind. I decided, fuck it. Got 500. Ran to her. Ran a systems check on the laptop. Checked for any attempts at opening it up. Checked the harddrive. Checked the ram. Everything is solid.

Long story short. Thank god for apple fangirls!

!rant

Customer: What's the difference between an antivirus and an antimalware?

Me: *thinks for a second* So an antimalware program is like if you're on a beach with a metal detector. You're looking around for metal that's already buried in the sand. An antivirus is like actively watching people for if they drop metal on the ground.

Customer: That's an interesting analogy.

Coworker: *quietly* That's a actually a really good analogy...

Me: so, ifconfig, what is my gateway?

ifconfig: [ip address]

Me: nmap, what is this IP address?

nmap: it's a network switch with an open telnet port.

Me: what happens if I connect to it?

switch: WHAT IS THE PASSWORD?!?!

Me: is it blank?

switch: correct. what do you want to do?

Me: can I look at all the IP and MAC addresses on the network?

switch: WHAT IS THE ADMIN PASSWORD?!?!

Me: is it... admin?

switch: correct. Here's everyone that's connected to the network: [400+ IPs and MACs]

Me: ok python, would you filter through these and tell me what manufacturer each one belongs to?

python: sure.
[~50 manufacturer lookups later]
python: there's a bunch of apple product, a bunch of miscellaneous laptop and printer manufacturers, and some raspberry pis.

Me: raspberry pis?

python: yep. about 20 of them.

Me: What happens if I connect to one?

rpi: WHAT IS THE PASSWORD?!?!

Me: raspberry?

rpi: correct. what do you want to do?

Me: can I make you do my bidding in the background when you aren't being used?

rpi: sure, sounds fine.

I love ignorant sysadmins.

Hey, i want to make a game and i need some help, so I'm looking for a team.

What i need is:
2 programmers
3 graphics artists
2 level designers
1 music composer
2 dialog writers
1 web designer for page and forums
5 testers

What i will do, you ask? Well, I've got some really good ideas. I think the game should be like Final Fantasy, but bigger and better. I worked with RPG Maker for two months, but I'm best with ideas. I think my ideas would make some incred...

GO SHOVE YOUR IDEAS INTO YOUR ASS! The idea means nothing. I got an idea for the best game ever, right this morning while i was taking a SHIT!

Hobby teams need people who create content. And people who can do stuff will more likely work with someone who does stuff as well and has proven that he is able to get things done.

So I just got one of those pop ups saying YOUR COMPUTER HAS BEEN HACKED.

I decided to call the number, while firing up a Linux virtual machine, running Linux Mint. I customized the home button to look like the Windows start menu logo, and proceeded to let that scammer connect to it.

He was so confused, considering the script he was reading off of was meant for windows. He opened up terminal, and started typing in "tree" and told me that's how many viruses I have.

😂😂😂

This shit is real.

Guy comes to my desk.
Guy: Do you know Python?
Me: Yes
Guy: I want a program that reads a CSV containing IP addresses and tells which of them are valid.
Me: Sure thing. Show me the CSV file.
Guy: (Shows the file)
Me: (Writes a small function for checking whether the IP is valid)
Me: Done Here you go.
Guy: You should be using regex.
Me: Why? This is perfect. No need for regex.
Guy: My manager wants a solution using regex only.
Me: Why so?
Guy: I don't know. Can you do it using regex?
Me: Only if you say so. (Stackoverflow. Writes a humongous regex). Done!
Me: Just for curiosity, what is your application?
Guy: I will port it in Java. You see, regex is easy to debug.
Me: Ohhh Yes. I forgot that. Good luck with your regex.

Biggest hurdle? Probably other people telling me no.

- My parents wouldn't let me go to college to study CS because 'this computer thing is just a fad and you won't be able to make a living off it'. Instead they pulled me out of school early and made me go study automotive so I could be a mechanic like my dad.

- At 22, my boss at my first tech company job heard I was taking Java classes in the evenings. Told me to stop wasting my money because I'd never be a programmer.

- Got a job at a game development company as a document writer. I could code by then. When I was done with my work I'd look for bugs and send the solutions to the programmers so they could submit them. Tech lead found out and flipped out. Said I wasn't allowed to look at the code because I 'hadn't been hired as a programmer'.

Today I'm a senior developer and pretty happy with my career.

When people tell you that you can't do something, that should be all the motivation you need to work your ass off to prove them wrong.

School time, programming class:
Girl: Hey, Can you help me?
Me: Sure, what's up?
G: I have an error but I don't know why
M: *looks at error stack trace* You're missing a semicolon in line 133 *puts comma, run... 27 more errors* Well, you have more issues up there, why don't you try to fix them?
G: Oh, Ok, thanks
-- 1 hour later --
G: Hey, can you come? I already fixed the other issues but I still have one I can't fix
M: *checks code, same mistake I fixed, missing semicolon, same line* Why did you erase the semicolon?
G: Oh, because if I erase it, I only have 1 error, but if I leave it, I have 27 so....
M: *turn around, walk away*

So I accidentally published my AWS keys to GitHub, stupid me. I realize this the next day.

$ git reset
$ git push
Reset keys in AWS

I was too late. Bot already stole the keys and started up 53 EC2 instances. Racked up $4000+ of compute time (probably Bitcoin mining, I'd assume)

4 weeks later, I finally have this shit disputed and settled.

Don't test with hardcoded keys. You WILL forget about them. Env vars always. That is all.

A few days ago while browsing devRant, my girlfriend stopped me at this one post and asked why does this person have a rubber duck. I went on to explain her about Rubber Duck Debugging. She was totally amazed by the concept (she's not a techie). Today suddenly a package arrived at my door step from her.

Well now I have an entire family of rubber ducks to code with :D

We were doing some temp work, and a girl we were working with had gone out to talk to her boyfriend on the phone.

1. Flip screen orientation 180 degress
2. Take screenshot
3. Set that as wallpaper and flip back
4. Hide icons, hide taskbar, move taskbar to far right edge
5. Invert mouse movement
6. Invert mouse buttons
7. Flip back 180 degrees, everything looks normal.

Sit back, relax and watch the show.

P.S. she gave up, we had to fix it.

Just saw a recruitment post for a female speaker to join a female panel at a "women in tech" event. And it's by an organisation called "codelikeagirl". 😒

As a female developer, it gives me the upmost cringe to hear about any #women or #girlpower events. Do you really need to validate your ability and support because of your gender? Men don't go to #menInTech events, so why do you need to go #womenInTech events?

On the surface it seems all friendly and gender equality fluff. But if you segregate yourselves into an all exclusive group, isn't that the opposite of what your trying to "achieve"?

Hey everyone! As many of you have already seen, @trogus and I are happy to announce the release of devRant++, also know as the devRant supporter program!

devRant++ is a monthly subscription ($1.99 USD) that gives you some cool extra features while also contributing to covering some of our ever-increasing server costs.

Subscribers get:
- a badge that shows up on all of their rants and comments
- ability to edit rants and comments for up to 30 minutes (instead of the usual 5)
- ability to post unlimited collabs for free (so keep an eye out for new collabs, hopefully!)
- a reserved spot on the devRant++ supporter list (you can only move up higher or stay in the same position through the life of your subscription)
- more benefits coming soon!

Why did devRant++ come to be? Basically, we have the most awesome community members and we kept getting extremely generous requests from members asking how they could help devRant stay afloat. Instead of taking donations and not giving anything directly in return, we wanted to give supporters a little extra something to hopefully make the program kind of special.

We greatly appreciate everyone who has joined the supporter program so far. We also realize not everyone has the money to spend or wants to spend, and that's perfectly fine. We also greatly appreciate everyone here who posts great rants and comments, helps spread the word about devRant, votes on stuff, or is just a valuable member of the community in general. @trogus and I value all contributions and we want to make that clear!

Another reason we decided to go ahead with the program is, as I mentioned towards the beginning, our server/technology costs are increasing and we're kind of at a point where we can't afford all of the upgrades we'd like to make. At the same time while we need more hardware, we're trying to get the app to a place where we're not losing money every month, hopefully to the point where we can break even soon.

Anyway, thank you to everyone again for the amazing support and early interest in devRant++. We would love to hear feedback and stuff you would like to see added to supporter benefits, so just let us know!

/*
* First anniversary of devRant unofficial for Windows 10 (UWP)!
*
* Let's celebrate by giving me 500 ++'s 😁
*/

Exactly 1 year ago, on 18 May 2016, I released the first public version (v0.9.2.0 BETA) of my client for Windows 10 users.
I found this wonderful community a few days before, on 12 May 2016, thanks to an article on TNW.
The only flaw was the missing Windows 10 Mobile client for my Lumia 950, so I decided to create a simple one on my own that initially allowed you only to see the list of rants, without the ability interact with them.
A few days later, after spamming the app on twitter, I was reached by @dfox, a very kind person, who gave me all necessary tools and help to bring all official features to Windows 10 users.

A project that I created initially just for fun and necessity became the main project I'm working at in a very short time.

I received a lot of positive reviews from users that motivated me to improve and continue it.
It's true, Windows 10/Windows 10 Mobile users are few, but they appreciate your work as no other and with a lot of feedbacks and suggestions help you to improve it making it very satisfying.

I would like to thank @dfox who made this possible, my friend @thmnmlst who helped me a lot with precious advices and created the presentation below, and of course the whole Windows 10 community! 😉

Good Ranting!

P.S.
If you haven't tried it yet: https://microsoft.com/store/apps/...
For all updates follow me on twitter: https://twitter.com/JakubSOfficial

The v2 is coming... sorry for the delay, below a little preview (alpha) to be forgiven. 😋

Google is full of assholes!

Just paid $25 dollars to list my app on google play store. Within 15 minutes of submitting the app, it got de-listed.

Reason:
Impersonation

Who am I impersonating?
The logo is impersonating the logo shown on MY OWN website!!!

How dafuq can you impersonate your own intellectual property?????

Contacted them back using their form. Didn't even call them "cunts". Asked to have it reviewed.
After waiting 7 business days, started sending them 1 email a day. On day 11 I sent 100 identical email asking them to review it.
Today (day 12), they cleared the app. I got this reply back.

"We found that your app was not in violation of our policies"
-Google

Her: Hey, just heard what John did to you.

Me: Yea. I can't believe he screwed me over like that. I thought he was my friend.

Her: Don't worry. Forget about the bustard. You know #FFF

Me: 🙁 #FFF? What does white got to do with all this.

Her: What???

Me: #FFF. This is white.

Her: Nooooo. It means Fuck Fake Friends. As in the G. Eazy song.

Me: Ohhh😐