I went to Paris for my first interview (that was 1989) for a job of Unix kernel developer. All dressed up. I step out of the elevator and see a young punk with scruffy hair and different colour shoes. I reckon he must be the pizza delivery guy. I ask him "dude, can you please point me to the CEO's office for interview". He said "sure, follow me man, I'll show you". We arrive at a desk, he sat down in the big chair and looks at me with a big smile and says "Ok dude, here we are. I am the CEO. Now let's see how good you are!"
I got the job. And 26 years latet, last week, amazing coincidence: I met him again at a trade show in Paris ... with the same coloured shoes. How cool is that!!!

I put an Easter egg into a product, that if you enter the string "final countdown" into the stock code search field, it plays a YouTube vid of Europe's "The Final Countdown", in a hidden div. It's an in-joke for a few people in the company.

A well meaning maintainer with no sense of humour or judgement takes over and goes on the warpath against any hardcoded strings. The secret code gets moved into a config file.

A third developer changes the deployment script so that it clears any configs that aren't explicitly set in the deployment settings.

So the secret code is now "".

Literally every PC in the stock buying department is now blaring out "The Final Countdown" at top volume.

...Except none of them have speakers, so it remains this way for over a year and two more changes of maintainer.

I just noticed this afternoon and quietly re-hardcoded the string. The buying dept.'s PCs will silently sing no more.

Easyyy !!♥

Just wanted to say a 'thank you' to all people who bear with my privacy stuffs! I know quite some people who installed messaging apps, signed up to privacy services and so on, solely because --> I <-- want to communicate in private and I realise (I've always realized that though) that that can be tough sometimes.

Also a thank you to those people for not requiring me to get data fed into the big companies :).

Thanks!

(Sorry for the "screenshot", I'm using gentoo and too lazy to compile some screenshot software just for one picture on devRant)

Today,
First day of new dev class...
Teacher, "As you know Tablets, Smartphones, Smartwatches etc... Are not allowed in class, except Laptops."
Me,
"Is a Surface allowed?"
Teacher,
"Is it a Laptop?"
Me,
"Yes, but also a Tablet.."
Teacher,
*Furious*
"NO TABLETS"
Me,
"Bu.."
Teacher
*Still furious*
"YOU ARE HERE TO LEARN HOW TO BE A GOOD RELIABLE DEV, SO LISTEN"
Me,
*Proceeds to Lift up surface from Keyboard*
Teacher,
*Rips surface out of hand and goes to secretary*
"You can have it after school"
Me,
*Sitting there speechless with nothing to develop with*
10 Minutes later
*rector comes in and gives me surface back*
Me,
Thank you
*Proceeds to use surface*
...

The Teacher hates me...

IT guys

Apple: Born to be fruit

Linux/Unix: Born to be root

Windows: Born to re boot

Mom : why were you late?
Me : Got lot of bugs in office.
Mom : Is everyone alright? Did you kill them?
Me : No mom we fix them.
Mom : I thought we kill them.
How humane are you guys.

So you poor devs... you have to be strong now, hr has a new tool to torture you: Skype has a new coding interview function.
What do you think about that? Good or even more abuse?

YES YES YES YES I HAVE MY FIRST INTERVIEW NEXT WEEK (SERVER MANAGEMENT/SUPPORT POSITION)

*JUMPS AROUND* (NOT LITERALLY BECAUSE AT A TRAIN STATION)

Ever wondered where did ಠ_ಠ come from? It's from my native language called Kannada. ಠ is pronounced as Ta

May I introduce you to my coworkers git repo

Uninstalled allo...

>me on stackoverflow
>a nice question
>i provide a 3 line code with explanation
>comment: 'doesnt work, throws exception'
>i run the code and provide a screenshot that it works
>'doesnt work for me'
>19 line code gets accepted

10/10, would answer again

#¤%@ kid!!! My 5yo son has obviously been playing with his mom's mobile phone. At first, I thought it was a little cute, when I received incoherent texts about Roblox, one of his favourite games.

But then, I suddenly heard from my sister who was really upset and worried. She was wondering if my gf really wants to see her dead, after receiving a facebook pm in English, saying "oh die :-)".

No need for auntie to take it personally though; turned out she was not the only one getting the same message :-O

A little boy is facing a mobile ban for a very long time...

*Wants to learn a programming language*
*visits Udemy*
*It's costly af*
*Visits youtube*
*Plays learn complete java in 30 min*
*Completed*
*Visits hacker earth*
*Started solving a problem*
-- eternity later--
*Still on same problem*
*Cries in corner*

THE END

!rant

After over 20 years as a Software Engineer, Architect, and Manager, I want to pass along some unsolicited advice to junior developers either because I grew through it, or I've had to deal with developers who behaved poorly:

1) Your ego will hurt you FAR more than your junior coding skills. Nobody expects you to be the best early in your career, so don't act like you are.

2) Working independently is a must. It's okay to ask questions, but ask sparingly. Remember, mid and senior level guys need to focus just as much as you do, so before interrupting them, exhaust your resources (Google, Stack Overflow, books, etc..)

3) Working code != good code. You are an author. Write your code so that it can be read. Accept criticism that may seem trivial such as renaming a variable or method. If someone is suggesting it, it's because they didn't know what it did without further investigation.

4) Ask for peer reviews and LISTEN to the critique. Even after 20+ years, I send my code to more junior developers and often get good corrections sent back. (remember the ego thing from tip #1?) Even if they have no critiques for me, sometimes they will see a technique I used and learn from that. Peer reviews are win-win-win.

5) When in doubt, do NOT BS your way out. Refer to someone who knows, or offer to get back to them. Often times, persons other than engineers will take what you said as gospel. If that later turns out to be wrong, a bunch of people will have to get involved to clean up the expectations.

6) Slow down in order to speed up. Always start a task by thinking about the very high level use cases, then slowly work through your logic to achieve that. Rushing to complete, even for senior engineers, usually means less-than-ideal code that somebody will have to maintain.

7) Write documentation, always! Even if your company doesn't take documentation seriously, other engineers will remember how well documented your code is, and they will appreciate you for it/think of you next time that sweet job opens up.

8) Good code is important, but good impressions are better. I have code that is the most embarrassing crap ever still in production to this day. People don't think of me as "that shitty developer who wrote that ugly ass code that one time a decade ago," They think of me as "that developer who was fun to work with and busted his ass." Because of that, I've never been unemployed for more than a day. It's critical to have a good network and good references.

9) Don't shy away from the unknown. It's easy to hope somebody else picks up that task that you don't understand, but you wont learn it if they do. The daunting, unknown tasks are the most rewarding to complete (and trust me, other devs will notice.)

10) Learning is up to you. I can't tell you the number of engineers I passed on hiring because their answer to what they know about PHP7 was: "Nothing. I haven't learned it yet because my current company is still using PHP5." This is YOUR craft. It's not up to your employer to keep you relevant in the job market, it's up to YOU. You don't always need to be a pro at the latest and greatest, but at least read the changelog. Stay abreast of current technology, security threats, etc...

These are just a few quick tips from my experience. Others may chime in with theirs, and some may dispute mine. I wish you all fruitful careers!

A young guy I work with burst into tears today, I had no idea what happened so I tried to comfort him and ask what was up.

It appears his main client had gone nuts with him because they wanted him to make an internet toolbar (think Ask.com) and he politely informed them toolbars doesn't really exist anymore and it wouldn't work on things like modern browsers or mobile devices.

Being given a polite but honest opinion was obviously something the client wasn't used to and knowing the guy was a young and fairly inexperienced, they started throwing very personal insults and asking him exactly what he knows about things (a lot more than them).

So being the big, bold, handsome senior developer I am, I immediately phoned the client back and told them to either come speak to me face-to-face and apologise to him in person or we'd terminate there contract with immediate effect. They're coming down tomorrow...

So part my rant, part a rant on behalf of a young developer who did nothing wrong and was treated like shit, I think we've all been there.

We'll see how this goes! Who the hell wants a toolbar anyway?!

*SSH's into VPS*
*Starts doing some general maintainance (updating, checking the logs etc)*
*runs the who command for fun*
*NOTICES THAT THERE"S ANOTHER ACTIVE SESSION*
*FURIOUSLY STARTS TO TRY AND LOOK HOW THAT USER MIGHT HAVE GOTTEN IN (root)*

*Goes one terminal to the left after a few minutes to see if I can use that one as well*
*notices an active and forgotten SSH session to that VPS*

I am stupid.

Finally did it. Quit my job.

The full story:
Just came back from vacation to find out that pretty much all the work I put at place has been either destroyed by "temporary fixes" or wiped clean in favour of buggy older versions. The reason, and this is a direct quote "Ari left the code riddled with bugs prior to leaving".

Oh no. Oh no I did not you fucker.

Some background:

My boss wrote a piece of major software with another coder (over the course of month and a balf). This software was very fragile as its intention was to demo specific features we want to adopt for a version 2 of it.

I was then handed over this software (which was vanilajs with angular) and was told to "clean it up" introduce a typing system, introduce a build system, add webpack for better module and dependency management, learn cordova (because its essential and I had no idea of how it works). As well as fix the billion of issues with data storage in the software. Add a webgui and setup multiple databses for data exports from the app. Ensure that transmission of the data is clean and valid.

What else. This software had ZERO documentation. And I had to sit my boss for a solid 3hrs plus some occasional questions as I was developing to get a clear idea of whats going on.

Took a bit over 3 weeks. But I had the damn thing ported over. Cleaned up. And partially documented.

During this period, I was suppose to work with another 2 other coders "my team". But they were always pulled into other things by my Boss.

During this period, I kept asking for code reviews (as I was handling a very large code base on my own).

During this period, I was asking for help from my boss to make sure that the visual aspect of the software meets the requirements (there are LOTS of windows, screens, panels etc, which I just could not possibly get to checking on my own).

At the end of this period. I went on vacation (booked by my brothers for my bday <3 ).

I come back. My work is null. The Boss only looked at it on the friday night leading up to my return. And decided to go back to v1 and fix whatever he didnt like there.

So this guy calls me. Calls me on a friggin SUNDAY. I like just got off the plane. Was heading to dinner with my family.
He and another coder have basically nuked my work. And in an extremely hacky way tied some things together to sort of work. Moreever, the webguis that I setup for the database viewing. They were EDITED ON THE PRODUCTION SERVER without git tracking!!

So monday. I get bombarded with over 20 emails. Claiming that I left things in an usuable state with no documentation. As well as I get yelled at by my boss for introducing "unnecessary complicated shit".

For fuck sakes. I was the one to bring the word documentation into the vocabulary of this company. There are literally ZERO documentated projects here. While all of mine are at least partially documented (due to lack of time).

For fuck sakes, during my time here I have been basically begging to pull the coder who made the admin views for our software and clean up some of the views so that no one will ever have to touch any database directly.

To say this story is the only reason I am done is so not true.

I dedicated over a year to this company. During this time I saw aspects of this behaviour attacking other coders as well as me. But never to this level.

I am so friggin happy that I quit. Never gonna look back.

So, since I hear from a lot of people (on here and irl) that Linux has a 'very high learning curve', let me share my experiences with the first time my dad touched Linux (Elementary OS) without me interfering at all! (keep in mind that he is very a-technical)

*le me boots the system* (I already did setup a user account for him and gave him the password).

Dad: *enters password and presses enter*
Me: "Hmm that went faster than expected."
Dad: "Uhm I know how to login son, it's not that hard and pretty obvious".
Me: "Alright, why don't you try to open up the default word documents editor on here! I'll be right back!"
Me: *Goes away and returns after a minute*.
Dad: *already a few test sentences typed in LibreOffice writer* it's going pretty well :)!
Me: "Oo how did you find that?!"
Dad: "Well, there's a thingy that says 'applications' so I clicked in and found it in the "Office" section, do you think I am blind or something?!"
Me: 😐. uhm no but I just didn't think you'd find it that quickly. Now try to install Chromium browser! *thinking: he'll fail this one for sure* I'll be right back :).
Me: *returns again after a minute or so*
Dad: *already searching for stuff through Chromium*
Me: "wait, how the hell did you do that so quickly, it's not the easiest thingy for most people".
Dad: "Jesus, it's not that hard! I went to the application browsing thingy, typed 'software' and then a sorta software store icon showed up so I clicked it and it opened a windows with a search bar saying something like 'search for applications/software'. clicked in it, typed 'chromium', saw it coming up, there was a very clear 'install' button, it asked for my password, I put it in and after a little it gave a notification that it was installed. Then I went to that application browsing thingy again and typed Chromium. Then I hit enter because it selected an icon called chromium...."
Me: O.o. Okay this is going very good, now open an email client and login to your email address!
Dad: *goes to application browsing thingy, types 'email', evolution icon shows up, dad clicks it, email address setup steps show up and dad follows them quickly. After about a minute, everything is setup.

I expected this to be a hard process for someone who dealt with Windows his entire life but damn, I underestimated it.
Asked him if he found it easy/what he liked about it:
"Well, it's very clear where I can find everything, default browser/email/word document editor programs are easy to find and that's about all I need so yeah, great system!"

I am proud of you, dad!

I promise (for myself) I'll comment my code from now on...

Found this book in my coworker's desk. Amateurs, still at the learning phase :P

My biggest hurdle is learning to code all by myself. I never knew anyone that I could ask for help or discuss problems with, because there weren't any programmers in my family, and my friends were too busy playing video games.

Gradle. Fucking gradle.

Website A = Website B
Script to import CSV file on Website A = works
Script to import CSV file on Website B = !works
Clock = 4am
Me = null

the oscillation between the urge to do nothing and the urge to do everything

All respect to android (love the system (no, that doesn't mean that I love google)) and also to awesome custom roms (hell even some vendors make quite good ones imo!).

BUT WHO THE FUCKING HELL THOUGHT IT WOULD BE A GOOD IDEA TO LIMIT THE AMOUNT OF ALARMS YOU CAN HAVE TO 15 OR EVEN LIMIT IT AT ALL?!?
I HAVE TO GET UP AT 3:30 FOR WORK EACH NIGHT AND THIS IS *NOT* HELPING.

THE PERSON WHO THOUGHT THIS WAS A GOOD IDEA CAN TAKE A PHONE, OPEN THAT DEFAULT CLOCK APP AND SHOVE IT UP HIS FUCKING ASS.

I just cached myself adding a Semikolon after a sentence;