Details
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AboutFull stack, constantly vacillating between loving my career and hating it
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SkillsJavaScript, SQL, PHP, C#, Python, Visual Basic/ASP (yuck though)
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LocationHell
Joined devRant on 12/2/2016
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Got one right now, no idea if it’s the “most” unrealistic, because I’ve been doing this for a while now.
Until recently, I was rewriting a very old, very brittle legacy codebase - we’re talking garbage code from two generations of complete dumbfucks, and hands down the most awful codebase I’ve ever seen. The code itself is quite difficult to describe without seeing it for yourself, but it was written over a period of about a decade by a certifiably insane person, and then maintained and arguably made much worse by a try-hard moron whose only success was making things exponentially harder for his successor to comprehend and maintain. No documentation whatsoever either. One small example of just how fucking stupid these guys were - every function is wrapped in a try catch with an empty catch, variables are declared and redeclared ten times, but never used. Hard coded credentials, hard coded widths and sizes, weird shit like the entire application 500ing if you move a button to another part of the page, or change its width by a pixel, unsanitized inputs, you name it, if it’s a textbook fuck up, it’s in there, and then some.
Because the code is so damn old as well (MySQL 8.0, C#4, and ASP.NET 3), and utterly eschews the vaguest tenets of structured, organized programming - I decided after a month of a disproportionate effort:success ratio, to just extract the SQL queries, sanitize them, and create a new back end and front end that would jointly get things where they need to be, and most importantly, make the application secure, stable, and maintainable. I’m the only developer, but one of the senior employees wrote most of the SQL queries, so I asked for his help in extracting them, to save time. He basically refused, and then told me to make my peace with God if I missed that deadline. Very helpful.
I was making really good time on it too, nearly complete after 60 days of working on it, along with supporting and maintaining the dumpster fire that is the legacy application. Suddenly my phone rings, and I’m told that management wants me to implement a payment processing feature on the site, and because I’ve been so effective at fixing problems thus far, they want to see it inside of a week. I am surprised, because I’ve been regularly communicating my progress and immediate focus to management, so I explain that I might be able to ship the feature by end of Q1, because rather than shoehorn the processor onto the decrepit piece of shit legacy app, it would be far better to just include it in the replacement. I add that PCI compliance is another matter that we must account for, and so there’s not a great chance of shipping this in a week. They tell me that I have a month to do it…and then the Marketing person asks to see my progress and ends up bitching about everything, despite the front end being a pixel perfect reproduction. Despite my making everything mobile responsive, iframe free, secure and encrypted, fast, and void of unpredictable behaviors. I tell her that this is what I was asked to do, and that there should have been no surprises at all, especially since I’ve been sending out weekly updates via email. I guess it needed more suck? But either way, fuck me and my two months of hard work. I mean really, no ego, I made a true enterprise grade app for them.
Short version, I stopped working on the rebuild, and I’m nearly done writing the payment processor as a microservice that I’ll just embed as an iframe, since the legacy build is full of those anyway, and I’m being asked to make bricks without straw. I’m probably glossing over a lot of finer points here too, just because it’s been such an epic of disappointment. The deadline is coming up, and I’m definitely going to make it, now that I have accordingly reduced the scope of work, but this whole thing has just totally pissed me off, and left a bad taste about the organization.10 -
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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Being a developer in my country is great. We have Sam Adams fountains instead of water fountains everywhere, triple - double bacon and duck fat fried cheeseburgers with Twinkie buns, massive desktops that burn coal and dump pure toxicity into the atmosphere. We sit on chairs made from the carcasses of soon to be extinct animals, and instead of rubber ducks, we have majestic bald eagles screeching their encouragement as we pound out our buggy ass code. But we have the best bugs, don’t we folks?2
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Spec meeting with my client: "Accessibility is very, very important to us. We want to be sure that we meet AA guidelines, at a minimum."
Client delivers front end mockups, can do nothing. Not one single element on it is compliant - have to send it back for revisions.
The fact that they were aware of the WCAG and the AA tier guidelines, and still handed me these shitty designs is pretty impressively stupid.2 -
Know what really grinds my gears? The fact that at many companies, PM's and QA people aren't required or expected to have even a basic level of knowledge, making communication pretty unpleasant. Even having a grasp of relevant vocabulary would make things so much easier.
Combine this with the bedside manner of a barn-raised sociopath, an ignorance of human and technical capabilities in general, and we have several good reasons to stay at home "sick". What the hell do I keep getting myself into?2 -
Pretty much all of them now, thanks to the unfettered access to everyone's data on the one hand, and the crazy PC ass-kissing "censorship" ban hammer that gets dropped for absolutely any arbitrary reason on the other.
They make strange bedfellows don't they?2 -
Shower thoughts:
Golf may be the perfect Dev sport.
Arguments for:
- Takes a relative degree of either skill or patience, usually both
- most people suck at it
- you need to practice
- alcohol
- haters gon hate
Arguments against:
- Takes a relative degree of either skill or patience, usually both
- most people suck at it
- you need to practice
- alcohol
- haters gon hate
- you have to be outside
Also applies to musicianship, I guess.9 -
As someone who works with front end stuff regularly, know what I love about safari? Specifically mobile safari?
Not a god damn fucking thing. If safari was a band, it'd be Nickelback, featuring Kenny G and Michael Bolton.3 -
Oh my God I'm a failure. Been working on this booking system backend for two weeks, refactored some code, and now it doesn't work at all.
I've gone back through the entire thing, and I can't find the problem.
Open up indeed, start browsing for low-skill jobs. Maybe the carnies will have me back!
*Re-reads error message, adds missing underscore to function call.1 -
Had an interview the other day for a fullstack role. They told me I'd have to whiteboard stuff, of course. No big deal.
They had me whiteboard css though. Totally off guard. Pretty sure I got it, but WTF. Is this normal?5 -
Next idiot who starts talking about all the "freetards" who use open source software, how "terrible" FOSS "obviously" is - is going to die a humiliating death as I bludgeon them with a steel box full of Linux distro thumb drives.
Don't bother bailing me out either. I'll do it again and again.17 -
Browsing job postings, and some of these requirements are just crazy, and/or wtf. Here's an example:
Front End developer wanted, junior to mid-level. An ideal candidate will be an expert in PHP, C#, and Java. Minimum experience of 10 years. Estimated compensation 30,000 per year.
Entry level full stack developer. Must be an expert in SQL. 5 years experience, BS in computer science required.
Web Developer intern - must have 3 years of experience. Must be an expert in x, y, z. This position is unpaid.
Sheeit.6 -
Sins? I don't want to keep you up all night, so here are some highlights.
Fucking with clients and employers who fuck with me first, or waste my time.
Occasionally not documenting my code (I'm actually pretty good about this), then bitching about poorly documented code.
Honestly wishing other people in the office would *actually* explode, or die engulfed in flames.
Working drunk and/or stoned.
Getting pissed off when I have to do something in a stupid way, or use a workflow that I don't like.
Seriously fucking up out of either arrogance or stupidity, then blaming it on something else.
Zoning out, skipping work, or sleeping in and billing for it (see sin #1).
But my greatest sin? That honor's got to go to becoming a developer in the first place.
I wasn't always a professional asshole, but I fucking am now.1 -
Got a call from a recruiter today
Recruiter: I'm trying to fill a full stack position in Charlotte.
Me: not interested
R: why
M: I hate NC
R: what can I do to make you reconsider
M: I want 120k
R: Ok, well please pass this opportunity along if you know someone who is looking
I *actually* just moved from there.
Guess someone didn't read my job history.
Convo was seriously less than a minute.9 -
I had a pretty good day today. Things are coming together at the new job, and I'm a little less afflicted with impostor syndrome.
Hope everyone else had a pretty good one too. -
Trying to use docker for the first time, and getting nowhere. I think I'm actually unlearning how to use a computer.1
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Hey @dfox, @trogus, the birds on the shoulder are super pimp, but would you be interested in making a parrot? You know, to go along with a Hawaiian shirt, an eye patch, and a pirate hat?
That'd be metal af \m/\m/11 -
Gave my two weeks, two weeks ago. Today was my last day. The designer finally asked to see how I go about doing my job, and was blown away at how "hard" it is. Smug satisfaction +1.
I leave the office at 5, go home, get packed, and start driving to my new city/state. An hour into the trip, my phone rings. My boss, on vacation out of the country acts surprised that I'm not going to be there Monday. I personally gave her my resignation. Exactly two weeks ago. "Are you going to be at the meeting Monday? We still have some stuff up in the air."
WHAT FUCKING PLANET DID I JUST LEAVE?17 -
Interviewing other devs (for job placement) totally sucks. I never realized what a shitty process hiring people can be.
More than half of the applicants are totally unqualified (good fucking job TekSystems), and those who are seem to be only *just* qualified enough, or have really bizarre portfolios and personalities. I'm glad I'm not in HR.1 -
Finally got a new job! Outta here!
Just got out of a meeting that I drove half an hour for (that could easily have been a damn phone call), for hand off stuff with the agency my company has hired to replace me.
I've talked to their senior dev a few times in the past, and he always struck me as an arrogant asshole. I assumed this meant that he had some level of competence to justify this attitude, but evidently not. Turns out he and his employees are a bunch of fucking idiots who don't even know how to use the command line, or anything but a cms with stock themes.
I'm taking all of the specific public stuff I've done for my employer off my resume as soon as I get back, because these dudes are going to fuck it up worse than a soup sandwich. -
Say what you want about imposter syndrome - I just realized why I'm cut out for this line of work.
My intelligence is artificial. -
Know what really grinds my gears?
People who refer to "ajax" as though it's a separate programming language, instead of what it is, which is an old shitty method in an old shitty library. What I do enjoy is people thinking it's dish soap. That will *never* not be funny to me.
Examples:
1. *generic job description*...5 years experience. Desired skills: HTML, Foundation, PHP, Ajax, Fortran, Assembly, Tagalog, smoke signals.
2. Someone in "marketing": "Do you know Ajax?"
3. Jackass in a coffee shop who uses moustache wax: "I'm an ajax programmer. Yeah I've heard of [any recent band], like twenty years ago. They suck."
Go die, and take ajax with you.2 -
Backstory: A few months ago, I wrote an inventory management web app for internal use by the sales team, logistics, and whoever else might need to use it.
Earlier this week: A few minutes before I usually leave, my phone rings. It's some dude I've never heard of. No idea what his function at the company is, still don't, probably never will, don't care. He's never used the app before, and says he's having problems. His cube's on my way out, so I swing by.
I'm not making this next part up. This dude is probably 60 years old, and he's using a very old looking gateway desktop (with the cow print logo thing on the chassis), running Windows XP (not a typo), using IE7.
I don't know what to say, so I just stare at the desktop, look at dude, laugh, and eventually explain that he's never going to be able to use the system via the web app until his rig is replaced.
What the fucking fuck is this. How could this have happened. How do our it people still fucking have jobs. Better question, how did this thing survive the y2k bug?rant this isn't a museum edge case ffffffuuuuuuuuuuuucccccckkkkk evil sorcery 1999 wants its shit back9 -
Pretty much right now. I'm seething, just thinking about going to work in a few short hours.
I work for a company that doesn't respect me. A fucking simpleton designer who can do no wrong has changed everything about a project that I'm responsible for, hundreds of times. She gets out a ruler (yes, really), measures stuff against her little mockups (that are also prone to changing without notice), and screams when things don't precisely match her "designs" on every single device she can get her goddamned hands on. She's changed everything except the deadline. I have gotten none of the recognition and all of the blame, and I'm completely over it. This is nothing new. In addition to being a dev team of one, I also found out that I'm the third such person in my company's employ in the last two years, and I've worked here for one.
The final straw was when I was given a schedule for the next project, which I had not been consulted on. It was a printout of an email. Copied in the email was the designer, my boss, and an intern. A FUCKING GOD DAMNED HOURLY INTERN.
Fast forward one week.
I'm in third stage interviews with half a dozen companies right now, second stage interviews with at least that many. When I do get another job, I was originally going to give notice, but I think now I'll just give my boss a printout of an email to the interns and walk out.
Shove the internet up your ass, you fucking fucks2 -
It's not necessarily code related, but ever since I was a kid in grade school, I've wanted a lab where I could solder and build and mix chemicals and build rockets and brew beer and blow stuff up and do all kinds of science that would ruin my carpet and/or otherwise go horribly wrong if done in my living area. One day soon (I hope), I'll have enough space to have a proper lab, just not today.
I daydream about that shit.1 -
!!rant
Working on a new project for my employer. Just like every project I've done for them, they ask for something incredibly specific, then look at me like I'm crazy when I build it. They ask for something completely different at every meeting, then ask if I can do it in two weeks.
Man, I have no idea what to do about these people.2 -
I'm usually a complete moron, but I've smoked a series of technical interviews this week. Hell yeah osmosis learning2
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My biggest obstacle? Stupidity, laziness, willfull ignorance, procrastination.
Sometimes my teammates are the ones guilty of these things too. That, and impossible timetables, but that's par for the course for pretty much all of us.4