Snap Store can't update Snap Store because Snap Store is running—a foreseeable dilemma.

I just installed a new CMS plugin and followed the link "this plugin needs to be configured". On the top of the page, a notifications asks for a recommendation: "do you find this plugin useful? please support our work and leave us a reply!"

Wouldn't you mind letting me actually use it first?

Monday morning. Updated my IDE. Updated my browser. Ran npm upgrade. Encountered new bugs. Why can't our industry focus on releasing stable software and shipping updates that reduce bugs without introducing new ones? I thought everyone except for me must be doing 100% test-driven development by now, especially the corporate devs?

git push # via a slow network

> ssh: connect to host github.com port 22:
> Connection timed out
> fatal: Could not read from remote repository.
>
> Please make sure you have the correct access rights
> and the repository exists.

yes, if I have to wait for your server to time out, I can waste more time checking my permissions and that the repo still exists - as if ...

If it ain't broke, don't fix it!

Telling a web developer to use Divi, WP Bakery, or any similar WordPress page builder is like forcing a plumber to use your little kid's kindergarten toy tools to rebuild your bathroom.

Those tools don't even work! Divi: "your save has failed". Bakery: saving an element's styles will randomly mess up the whole WYSIWYG page preview. Gutenberg: you can write HTML, but I won't accept it. Let's attempt block recovery so I can destroy it completely.

It feels like trying to use PowerPoint to develop a website. Who's the target audience of this kind of crapware and how are they supposed to use it?

I pride myself on not being a nerd. I can communicate with customers and I don't dismiss aesthetics, marketing, delivery dates, and legal considerations as completely inconsistent and arbitrary.

But still, when clients complain about my predecessors, I start to feel for them and imagine when past developers
- preferred to rewrite the legacy system
- were reluctant to use Microsoft software
- needed much more time than estimated
- and failed to understand implicit requirements.

I know that there are a lot of developers in the world, but you need a decent or good one who is available and willing to work on your project.

As (web) developers, we should behave more like craftspeople, stay calm, and ignore entitled clients' and managers' moods and micro-management attempts unless there's really a critical issue.

Developer vs. user experience: it's 2024, tech is used by the masses, and still, every day, I see messages that something "failed", an "error occurred" or that I did something wrong trying to use something supposedly simple like entering a phone number or a bank account IBAN into a web form.

Worse, I remember being part of teams coding and releasing antipatterns like that, spending time in hour-long best practice discussions and still failing to deal with user "errors" in the end.

AI, the deus ex machina supposed to obsolete developers, does the exact opposite of development: fail and err, but always find some positive and polite words to gaslight its users and make them feel happy.

AI will replace developers just because it's better in being nice.

90% of work as a developer is not development,
it's guesswork and communication, trying to make sense of requirements and third-party software documentation or filling in the blanks if both are missing.

Incoming phone call from an unknown number. I am busy coding, the number is not in my contacts, and there is no caller ID. Callers could leave a message on my voice box, but most don't. Callers could send me an email or a short message, but most don't. When I google their number, there is either no entry at all, or one of those generic reverse phone book sites called something like "look who's calling" telling me that it's a German number of an unknown ower. I don't get it.
If making outbound cold calls is your profession, why won't you use any of those free trust-building options? Are those people getting paid just for typing numbers into their keyboard and listening to the ring tone?

Matomo, the free web analytics tool formerly known as Piwik, does not display referring search keywords (anymore?) without purchasing an add-on, which makes it less valuable than the good old webalizer. I should grab my old backups from 2001 and find a Perl script that crawls Apache server logs. Why must digital progress always mean Verschlimmbesserung?

> Use Search Keywords Performance to see all keywords behind 'keyword not defined'. All keywords searched by your users on Google, Bing and other search engines will be listed

Dev: linters can help us by keeping us focused on important problems.
Linter:

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50 problems (50 errors, 0 warnings)