I hate that the general consensus to the solution of “themes” has been exclusively dark/ light.

Not only does this make it future un-proof in case “light blue” becomes a common style choice, but it already fucks up TODAY when considering high contrast themes!

Who made this shaky system the agreed standard!?

Wrote my first u it tests for c++. Considering how hard everything else is, I was sort of afraid. But turns out it’s not as bad as I was expecting.

Them: You have 6 days to build this frontend page for our wordpress site.
Me: Ok...
*proceeds to spend 4 days trying to arse my way towards a semi reasonable bootstrapped website based on the existing website's styling.*
Me: *Presents website*, so... uh... yeah, I don't usually do frontend stuff, I'm more of a backend dev, but here's what I could do.
Them: This looks like absolute horseshit.
Me: So what do you not like about it?
Them: All of it. It doesn't look anything like the wireframe that I gave you.
Me: Ok... So let me get this straight, you want it to look exactly like how you designed it in your wireframe? *wireframe looks like a child drew it*
Them: Yes! Is that so hard?
Me: I mean, it's a little hard. I'm not exactly a front end developer. Aside from that, I think this design is not very user-friendly.
Them: we don't care about your opinions, OP. Get back in there and make it look exactly like the wireframe.
Me: Ok.
*proceeds to go to fiverr, and contract someone else to do it for me while I get to do fun stuff in the back end.* 😂

----

We'll see what they think of the project when it gets back to me. Wish me luck guys.

Buying a motherboard variant without WiFi to save 100€ is the worst financial decision ever...

Here I am, after spending over 300€ in USB adapters first, then PCIe boards, buying another one because it broke again...
The alternative is to buy a new motherboard (gen 4 in 2023?!) or change the whole system... two even worse financial options.

The worst feeling is when you are really proud of your work, you managed to realize your vision in a perfect way and you're really happy about the result, so much that you are presenting it to the client with pure joy, but the client doesn't appreciate it, doesn't understand your vision and consider it worse than the previous version.

It's incredible how easy It is to move from happines to sadness and depression in a few seconds.

My work had made my day, but the client ruined it.

fml

My wife is a pretty decent artist and we were talking about AI and what affect it can have on folks in the graphic artists industry.
I fire up Microsoft's Designer, enter a prompt and this is what it generated.
She said "Oh good. We're gonna be OK."

My favorite famous dev/tech person + why?

Scott Hanselman.

He always takes the human approach to technology. Its easy to forget we're supposed to write software for people.

Worst coding procrastination story?

Not necessarily coding, but anything that has to do with writing support reports for an application/feature. Good news is we have a dedicated dept for maintaining reports now, but there was a time developers were required to write and maintain reports (Crystal Reports). Starts out as data in grid, but de-evolves into ..
U: "This value here...can you make that red if its a Thursday before a promotion release on Friday and I forget to update the promotional percent?"
<month later>
U: "Why is this value red?"
<explain why it's red>
U: "That is so stupid, I wouldn't ask for such as feature. I never forget."
<month later>
U: "OMG! I FORGOT TO UPDATE THE PERCENT AND WE LOST OVER $100,000!! THE REPORT WAS SUPPOSED TO FLAG THOSE VALUES IN RED!!! I HAVE THE REQUIREMENT DOCUMENT!! ITS ALL YOUR FAULT!!!"

Not to mention the hours...HOURS worth of meetings filled with "Can you move the value a little to the left, a little more..NO! Too far! Now, make it bold...bolder..uggh...I said bolder, I thought you guys knew a lot about computers."

I eventually ignored the report feature with "I'll work on it later". 'Later' never showed up. Users eventually exported the data to Excel to write their own reports and now exporting data to Excel is a standard feature of our apps.

I've decided to, as an educational exercise, implement DEFLATE compression / decompression and zip file format, and eventually tackling Excel format (which is just a .zip) so I can generate true excel spreadsheets (instead of .csv files) client-side using JavaScript.

Are there already libraries that do this? Yes, but then I don't get to try to implement these interesting algorithms. Is it currently 1 AM? Yes. Do I have work tomorrow? Also yes.

If I don't just fall flat on my face, I'll post updates!

I'm so tired yo... I'm on 2 startups, one is mine the other some dude I'm working with. Both sites built in PHP. Another side gig slack bot thing in Node JS. And then 2 day time jobs in which I'm deciding which one to quit out of... 🫠😵💀

I closed my work laptop yesterday around noon and dumped water on it. I was just so fed up.

Some spilled off onto my desk, though, so i gently moved (read: threw) the offending piece of plastic frustration onto the floor and carefully dried my desk.

On my way to the trash can, i stepped on the laptop. I stepped on it again on the way back, and later, on my way out the door.

I came in to get something half an hour later, and stepped on it again. It remained a stepping stone for the rest of the day, and accrued considerable foot traffic.

I spent the day drinking peach whiskey and playing with my children instead of working on reports. It was a good day.

Don't worry: my laptop still worked this morning, though I declined to.

Fav. thing I've worked on recently?

Blazor and creating our framework around authentication/authorization.

Ahh i love it. Got myself some stickers and a stressball :).

The best IDE in the world is becoming even better.
It's strange no one ever thought about this feature before. Simple yet so useful.

#VisualStudio 2022 v17.6

Fuck this day in particular.
Also it's probably my fault.
Oh well...

I'm about to quit without a backup plan.

It's been almost 4 years since I started working as fullstack dev in my current company, also those are the same years of experience I have working in general. Right now I feel burnt out.

I feel I haven't progressed professionally at least in the last 2 and a half years... I feel stuck. Right now I don't feel like a dev, I feel like a dude that knows how to use a framework and only makes CRUDs.

I've lost the apetite for learning, also I feel very discouraged about the industry in general, watching media full of those tech-influencers and the apperently fakeness of the culture that companies show off only helps my disappointment and discourage about the industry in general. Also the unconscious action of comparing myself with others (and impostor syndrome) makes me feel less about myself.

I didn't go to college. During my last year of school I went to a Bootcamp and started learning by myself, I felt I choosed the correct path for me, I don't regret it, but makes me feel I entered at a young age (18) and unprepared to an industry I felt I knew at least a bit (I did two interships at 16).

Right now I can only think in taking a time for me and disconnect myself from everything, finish all the books I bought, continue doing excercise and therapy and stay connected with nature.

I know that most probably what I say about the industry is wrong but what I **feel** about it right now is not.

I know is better to search for better options and places to work than just quit, but I really feel it's gonna be the same, I know it's an unfounded fear and I'm a bit blinded about it.

> Find cool repo on GitHub
> Works very well
> Respectable weekly downloads
> …Hasn’t been updated in a year
> …Owner from Shanghai, China
> …Hasn’t pushed to any repo in over a year
> Last profile update: Feeling sick 🤒
> …
>😔
> Rest in peace friend, thanks kindly for the time you’ve saved me.

Week 278: Most rage-inducing work experience — I’ve got a list saved! At least from the current circle of hell. I might post a few more under this tag later…

TicketA: Do this in locations a-e.
TicketB: Do this in locations e-h.
TicketC: Do this in locations i-k.
Root: There’s actually a-x, but okay. They’re all done.
Product: You didn’t address location e in ticket B! We can’t trust you to do your tickets right. Did you even test this?
Root: Did you check TicketA? It’s in TicketA.
Product guy: It was called out in TicketB! How did you miss it?!
Product guy: (Refuses to respond or speak to me, quite literally ever again.)
Product guy to everyone in private: Don’t trust Root. Don’t give her any tickets.
Product manager to boss: Root doesn’t complete her tickets! We can’t trust her. Don’t give her our tickets.
Product manager to TC: We can’t trust Root. Don’t give her our tickets.
TC: Nobody can trust you! Not even the execs! You need to rebuild your reputation.

Root: Asks coworker a simple question.
Root: Asks again.
Root: nudges them.
Root: Asks again.
Coworker: I’ll respond before tomorrow. (And doesn’t.)
Root: Asks again.
Root: Fine. I’ll figure it out in my own.
TC: Stop making it sound like you don’t have any support from the team!

Root: Asks four people about <feature> they all built.
Everyone: idk
Root: Okay, I’ll figure it out on my own.
TC: Stop making it sound like you don’t have any support from the team!

Root: Mentions multiple meetings to discuss ticket with <Person>.
TC: You called <Person> stupid and useless in front of the whole team! Go apologize!

Root: Tells TC something. Asks a simple question.
Root: Tells TC the same thing. Asks again.
TC: (No response for days.)
TC: Tells me the exact same thing publicly like it’s a revelation and I’m stupid for not knowing.
TC: You don’t communicate well!

Root: Asks who the end user of my ticket is.
Root: Asks Boss.
Root: Asks TC.
Root: Fine, I’ll build it for both.
Root: Asks again in PR.
TC: Derides; doesn’t answer.
Root: Asks again, clearly, with explanation.
TC: Copypastes the derision, still doesn’t answer.
Root: Asks boss.
Boss: Doesn’t answer.
Boss: You need to work on your communication skills.

Root: Mentions asking question about blocker to <Person> and not hearing back. Mentions following up later.
<Person>: Gets offended. Refuses to respond for weeks thereafter.

Root: Hey boss, there’s a ticket for a minor prod issue. Is that higher priority than my current ticket?
Root: Hey, should I switch tickets?
Root: Hey?
Root: … Okay, I’ll just keep on my current one.
Boss: You need to work on your priorities.

Everyone: (Endless circlejerking and drama and tattling)

As we currently see a lot of codeless software platform, in the next 10 years there is gonna be high demand for people to extend these shitty apps into something proper, just like it happened with wordpress. There is a key missunderstanding that writing code and developing an application are the same thing; they are not.
Once you can write code you sure ass aren't a developer, thats a grueling journey until then, and being able to create an application without code exaggerates the problem even further.

!dev

lol I keep getting in trouble over people taking secondhand-offense, and managers keep bringing up the same instances like I’m somehow at fault.

Look, if Alice says something to Bob, and Carol hears it and gets offended on Bob’s behalf, but Bob doesn’t? Carol should jump off a bridge.

Check out this amazing project that won the 2022 Summer CodeDay challenge.

It's a different take on whack-a-mole that's multiplayer using SSH

https://github.com/pranavnt/whack

I hate Wednesdays. Networking has the Antimalware service run a full/deep scan every Wednesday and my machine is basically unusable until it finishes.

Devs: "Can we have the scheduled task not run during the day, maybe even on the weekend?"
Gary: "Security is our #1 priority and without proper security methods in place, we'll be open to outside threats. Security begins with you, and ..blah blah blah"

Bite me Gary. I got something for ya.

Get-ScheduledTask | ? TaskName -eq 'Windows Defender Scheduled Scan' | Stop-ScheduledTask

Bad dev habit I'm trying to fix?

Code addiction.

We receive an email from Splunk when errors go above a certain threshold, and a particular service has been especially problematic this week (throwing hundreds of exceptions). Email response from the team mgr responsible for the service.

"We are working to address these errors. We don’t currently have a way to prevent a user who’s account is locked from logging into the service and performing work."

The exception? NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

The code? (paraphrasing)

var user = GetUser(request.Login);
if (user.CanPerformWork) ...

<facepalm>

I'm doing my best not to reply .."Really? No way? You do realize we can read code, right?"

Worst fight I've had with a co-worker?

Had my share of 'disagreements', but one that seemed like it could have gone to blows was a developer, 'T', that tried to man-splain me how ADO.Net worked with SQLServer.

<T walks into our work area>
T: "Your solution is going to cause a lot of problems in SQLServer"
Me: "No, its not, your solution is worse. For performance, its better to use ADO.Net connection pooling."
T: "NO! Every single transaction is atomic! SQLServer will prioritize the operation thread, making the whole transaction faster than what you're trying to do."
<T goes on and on about threads, made up nonsense about priority queues, on and on>
Me: "No it won't, unless you change something in the connection string, ADO.Net will utilize connection pooling and use the same SPID, even if you explicitly call Close() on the connection. You are just wasting code thinking that works."

T walks over, stands over me (he's about 6.5", 300+ pounds), maybe 6 inches away

T: "I've been doing .net development for over 10 years. I know what I'm doing!"

I turn my chair to face him, look up, cross my arms.

Me: "I know I'm kinda new to this, but let me show you something ..."

<I threw together a C# console app, simple connect, get some data, close the connection>

Me: "I'll fire up SQLProfiler and we can see the actual connection SPID and when sql server closes the SPID....see....the connection to SQLServer is still has an active SPID after I called Close. When I exit the application, SQLServer will drop the SPD....tada...see?"
T: "Wha...what is that...SQLProfiler? Is that some kind of hacking tool? DBAs should know about that!"
Me: "It's part of the SQLServer client tools, its on everyone's machine, including yours."
T: "Doesn't prove a damn thing! I'm going to do my own experiment and prove my solution works."
Me: "Look forward to seeing what you come up with ... and you haven't been doing .net for 10 years. I was part of the team that reviewed your resume when you were hired. You're going to have to try that on someone else."

About 10 seconds later I hear him from across the room slam his keyboard on his desk.

100% sure he would have kicked my ass, but that day I let him know his bully tactics worked on some, but wouldn't work on me.

Useless feature I've built?

Too many to mention. Here's #25.

Modified an existing "Are you sure..?" dialog pop-up (Yes/No buttons) to Yes/No/Cancel. Why? Managers claimed users were "accidentally" clicking 'Yes' when they should have clicked 'No' and causing all kinds of chaos, costing the company money, etc. Managers believed giving the user two chances instead of one would make it easier to avoid the problems they caused.

The meeting:
Me: "Users can click 'No', hit the 'Esc' key, or click the close 'X' button on the window, how will an extra button make it more foolproof?"
Mgr1: "It just will. Andy accidentally deleted inventory and when I asked him if an extra button would have saved them a days worth of re-counts, he said yes."
Mgr2: "Barb accidentally credited a customer $1,500. She promised me she clicked 'No', but the system credited the account anyway. An extra button would have saved us thousands of dollars!"
Me: "Um...these sound like training issues, not an extra button issue."
MyMgr: "PaperTrail, how hard is it to add an extra button?"
Dev1: "Oh yea, adding buttons is easy."
Dev2: "I can do it 5 minutes"
Dev3: "We'll save the company thousands and thousands of dollars!"
<lots of head-knodding and smiles>
MyMgr: "That settles it. PaperTrail, add the extra button!"

Users still screwed things up, but at least they couldn't blame it on not having an extra button.

Fuck me...
Literally spent all day trying to figure why I'm getting a 500.30 error on my application. The damn fucker won't let me get THROUGH. I know it's possible to do because I did it with another application, but this one is being a little shit.

I feel like the very definition of insane right now because I've been doing little incremental changes but getting the same results.

I just want to rip the entire thing apart.

micromanager: "Quick and easy win! Please have this done in 2-3 days to start repairing your reputation"

ticket: "Scrap this gem, and implement your own external service wrapper using the new and vastly different Slack API!"

slack: "New API? Give me bearer tokens! Don't use that legacy url crap, wth"

prev dev: "Yeah idk what a bearer token is. Have the same url instead, and try writing it down so you don't forget it?"

Slack admin: "I can't give you access to the slack integration test app, even though it's for exactly this and three others have access already, including your (micro)manager."

Slack: "You can also <a>create a new slack app</a>!" -- link logs me into slack chat instead. After searching and finding a link elsewhere: doesn't let me.

Slack admin: "You want a new test slack app instead? Sure, build it the same as before so it isn't abuseable. No? Okay, plan a presentation for it and bring security along for a meeting on Friday and I'll think about it. I'm in some planning meetings until then."

asdfjkagel.

This job is endless delays, plus getting yelled at over the endless delays.

At least I can start on the code while I wait. Can't test anything for at least a week, though. =/

Weekly Group Rant suggestion: What anti-pattern exists that still keeps being propagated or infecting other areas of your code base (like a virus)?

Code samples/screen-shots required.

#3 Worst thing I've seen a co-worker do?

A 20-something dev, 'A', back in the early days of twitter+facebook would post all his extracurricular activities (drinking, partying, normal young-buck stuff). The dev mgr, 'J', at the time took offense because he felt 'A' was making the company look bad, so 'A' had a target on his back. Nothing 'A' did was good enough and, for example, 'J' had the source control czars review 'A's code to 'review' (aka = find anything wrong). Not sorting the 'using' statements, and extra line after the closing }, petty things like that. For those curious, orders followed+carried out by+led by 'T' in my previous rant.

As time went on and 'T' finding more and more 'wrong' with A's code, 'J' put A on disciplinary probation. 'A' had 90 days to turn himself around, or else.

A bright spot was 'A' was working on a Delphi -> C# conversion, so a lot of the code would be green-field development and by simply following the "standards", 'A' would be fine...so he thought.

About 2 weeks into the probation, 'A' was called into the J's office and berated because the conversion project was behind schedule, and if he didn't get the project back on track, 'A' wouldn't make it 30 days. I sat behind 'A' and he unloaded on me.
<'A' slams his phone on his desk>
Me: "Whoa...whats up?"
A: "Dude, I fucking hate this place, did you hear what they did?"
<I said no, then I think we spent an hour talking about it>
Me: "That all sucks. Don't worry about the code. Nobody cares what T thinks. Its not even your fault the project is behind, the DBAs are tasked with upgrades and it's not like anyone is waiting on you. It'll get done when it's done. Sounds like a witch hunt, what did you do? Be honest."
A: "Well, um...I kinda called out J, T, and those other assholes on facebook. I was drunk, pissed, and ...well...here we are."
Me: "Geez, what a bunch of whiney snowflakes. Keep your head down and you'll get thru it, or don't. Its not like you couldn't find another job tomorrow."
A: "This is my first job out of college and I don't want to disappoint my dad by quitting. I don't even know what I'm supposed to be doing. All J told me was to get better. What the fuk does that even mean?"
Me: "He didn't give you any goals? Crap, for someone who is a stickler for the rules, that's low, even for J."

Fast forward 2 weeks, I was attending MS TechEd and I was with another dev mgr, R.

R: "Did you hear? We had to let 'A' go today."
Me: "What the hell? Why?"
R: "He couldn't cut it, so we had to let him go."
Me: "Cut what? What did he do, specifically?"
R: "I don't know, 'A' was on probation, I guess he didn't meet the goals."
Me: "You guess? We fire a developer working on a major upgrade and you guess? What were these so-called goals?"
R: "Whoa...you're getting a little fire up. I don't know, maybe not adhering to coding standards, not meeting deadlines?"
Me: "OMG...we fire people for not forming code? Are you serious!?"
R: "Oh...yea...that does sound odd when you put it that way. I wish I'd talk to you before we left on this trip"
Me: "What?! You knew they were firing him *before* we left? How long did you know this was happening?"
R: "Honestly, for a while. 'A' really wasn't a team player."
Me: "That's dirty, the whole thing is dirty. We've done some shitty things to people, but this is low, even for J. The probation process is meant to improve, not be used as a witch hunt. I don't like that you stood around and let it happen. You know better."
R: "Yea, you're right, but doesn't change anything. J wanted to do it while most of us were at the conference in case 'A' caused a scene."
Me: "THAT MAKES IT WORSE! 'A' was blindsided and you knew it. He had no one there that could defend him or anything."
R: "Crap, crap, crap...oh crap...jeez...J had this planned all along...crap....there is nothing I can do no...its too late."
Me: "Yes there is. If 'A' comes to you for a letter of recommendation, you write one. If someone calls for reference, you give him a good one."
R: "Yea..yea...crap...I feel like shit...I need to go back to the room and lie down."

As the sun sets, it rises again. Within a couple of weeks, 'A' had another job at a local university. Within a year, he was the department manager, and now he is a vice president (last time I checked) of a college in Kansas City, MO.