Me: I have been working for you for almost 12 years now, and I feel that my current pay is not comparable to the work I currently produce. Therefore, in order to secure my future as your employee, I must request an immediate raise in pay to a level that is acceptable.

Boss: I can't afford it. If you want more money, you need to bring in more clients, plain and simple.

Me: I'm serious. If I don't get a raise, I will qui---

Girlfriend: Babe, stop talking to yourself and come to bed...

Me: Okay... [looks in mirror] This isn't finished...

FUCK YOU SHITTY FUCKING DICK HEAD!!!.. I'M FUCKING TIRED OF YOUR FUCKING BULLSHIT ABOUT "YOU'RE A PROGRAMMER... YOU MUST KNOW HOW TO USE PHOTOSHOP!"... OR "SUCH A SHITTY PROGRAMMER YOU ARE... DON'T YOU KNOW HOW TO FIX MY COMPUTER"... OR "CAN YOU MAKE ME AN APP?... IT'S LIKE OTHER APP BUT BETTER, I CAN'T GIVE YOU MORE DETAILS BECAUSE IT'S CONFIDENCIAL, SO YOU GOT TO DO IT WHIT OUT KNOWING WHAT THE FUCK YOU HAVE TO DO"... GO TO FUCK YOURSELF WITH A TRUCK FULL OF DONKEYS FUCKING IDIOT!!!... STOP TALKING BULLSHIT AND GET AND FUCKING LIFE YOU ASSHOLE!!!... sorry about my english for those who read

I absolutely HATE "web developers" who call you in to fix their FooBar'd mess, yet can't stop themselves from dictating what you should and shouldn't do, especially when they have no idea what they're doing.

So I get called in to a job improving the performance of a Magento site (and let's just say I have no love for Magento for a number of reasons) because this "developer" enabled Redis and expected everything to be lightning fast. Maybe he thought "Redis" was the name of a magical sorcerer living in the server. A master conjurer capable of weaving mystical time-altering spells to inexplicably improve the performance. Who knows?

This guy claims he spent "months" trying to figure out why the website couldn't load faster than 7 seconds at best, and his employer is demanding a resolution so he stops losing conversions. I usually try to avoid Magento because of all the headaches that come with it, but I figured "sure, why not?" I mean, he built the website less than a year ago, so how bad can it really be? Well...let's see how fast you all can facepalm:

1.) The website was built brand new on Magento 1.9.2.4...what? I mean, if this were built a few years back, that would be a different story, but building a fresh Magento website in 2017 in 1.x? I asked him why he did that...his answer absolutely floored me: "because PHP 5.5 was the best choice at the time for speed and performance..." What?!

2.) The ONLY optimization done on the website was Redis cache being enabled. No merged CSS/JS, no use of a CDN, no image optimization, no gzip, no expires rules. Just Redis...

3.) Now to say the website was poorly coded was an understatement. This wasn't the worst coding I've seen, but it was far from acceptable. There was no organization whatsoever. Templates and skin assets are being called from across 12 different locations on the server, making tracking down and finding a snippet to fix downright annoying.

But not only that, the home page itself had 83 custom database queries to load the products on the page. He said this was so he could load products from several different categories and custom tables to show on the page. I asked him why he didn't just call a few join queries, and he had no idea what I was talking about.

4.) Almost every image on the website was a .PNG file, 2000x2000 px and lossless. The home page alone was 22MB just from images.

There were several other issues, but those 4 should be enough to paint a good picture. The client wanted this all done in a week for less than $500. We laughed. But we agreed on the price only because of a long relationship and because they have some referrals they got us in the door with. But we told them it would get done on our time, not theirs. So I copied the website to our server as a test bed and got to work.

After numerous hours of bug fixes, recoding queries, disabling Redis and opting for higher innodb cache (more on that later), image optimization, js/css/html combining, render-unblocking and minification, lazyloading images tweaking Magento to work with PHP7, installing OpCache and setting up basic htaccess optimizations, we smash the loading time down to 1.2 seconds total, and most of that time was for external JavaScript plugins deemed "necessary". Time to First Byte went from a staggering 2.2 seconds to about 45ms. Needless to say, we kicked its ass.

So I show their developer the changes and he's stunned. He says he'll tell the hosting provider create a new server set up to migrate the optimized site over and cut over to, because taking the live website down for maintenance for even an hour or two in the middle of the night is "unacceptable".

So trying to be cool about it, I tell him I'd be happy to configure the server to the exact specifications needed. He says "we can't do that". I look at him confused. "What do you mean we 'can't'?" He tells me that even though this is a dedicated server, the provider doesn't allow any access other than a jailed shell account and cPanel access. What?! This is a company averaging 3 million+ per year in revenue. Why don't they have an IT manager overseeing everything? Apparently for them, they're too cheap for that, so they went with a "managed dedicated server", "managed" apparently meaning "you only get to use it like a shared host".

So after countless phone calls arguing with the hosting provider, they agree to make our changes. Then the client's developer starts getting nasty out of nowhere. He says my optimizations are not acceptable because I'm not using Redis cache, and now the client is threatening to walk away without paying us.

So I guess the overall message from this rant is not so much about the situation, but the developer and countless others like him that are clueless, but try to speak from a position of authority.

If we as developers don't stop challenging each other in a measuring contest and learn to let go when we need help, we can get a lot more done and prevent losing clients. </rant>

Lamer rant

For a really long time I said to myself that this is too basic to rant about but lately it became so frequent and extreme that here is my rant about completely clueless users that ask me IT related questions.

Disclaimer: Said users are people that I generally can't avoid. Distant family members, neighbors and etc.

Case 0:
U: I don't know what's happening!! The computer doesn't work!!
M: What do you mean?
U: There's no Facebook! And everything is stuck and no messenger!!!
M: The WiFi on your laptop was off. I turned it on. Still, this doesn't mean that the pc wasn't working.
U: I don't understand this shit!!!

Case 1:
U: I hate this computer!!! It never works!!! Help meeee!!!
M: What now?
U: Where did the internet disappear?!
M: (assuming it's wifi or browser related)
Actually user moved the Chrome window to bottom-right corner and lost it.

Every time I try to show the user how I resolve the issue the user yells that there are too many steps, that they are complicated and that I'm a bad teacher and doing it too fast.

Case 2:
U: My computer is so slow! It barely can load google translate! And I can't listen to music on youtube!! Shitty laptop! It's you! Your computers in the apartment drain everything!!!
M: You have no idea what you are talking about.
U: My husband told me that your computers are heavy and drain everything!
M: What exactly did he tell you that my devices drain?
U: I don't know! All the energy! I believe him! He knows!
M: My computers drain less electricity than your vacuum and I have a separate internet connection. Not only we share nothing but also I drain nothing.
U: Since you appeared all the computers are slow!!!!

Fkk...

Case 3:
U: I don't understand, where is my whatsapp?
M: You can't locate the app on your phone?
U: Yes! F*ck, help me! I'm so angry and I really need this NOW!!!
M: Shut up. I'm already here and helping.
(I open users phone and whatsapp is the active app...)
U: I can' t find my whatsapp with Clara!

F*ck you! F*ck you! Ghckjfshij!!!

Case 4:
(crazy hitting on my door)
U: I don't have THE internet!!!
It's you again! You took all of THE internet!!!
M: No, it doesn't work like that. Your provider is bad, your package is cheap and your cables are of low quality.
U: I need THE internet immediately!!! Stop playing with your typing and fix the facebook or I'll cut the power cables to the house!!

I can go on, just don't think that recalling all those events is healthy for me.

For people who think/find that open source solutions are always better than commercial/paid/proprietary ones, you are not going to like this rant.

I'm starting to get really fucking fed up with people always, whenever I see someone (including myself) mentioning that an open source solution which is an alternative to a closed source one, saying that it's shit.
I've had countless encounters on here (also irl) where someone mentions that an open source solution (GIMP or Libre Office for example) is shit by default while they've maybe (or probably?) not even used it themselves.
Also people going "you can't even compare those two as for what they can do/features/functions". I'm definitely not saying that those open solutions are perfect. But to call them worthless or shit and/or to say that you literally 'cannot compare them' or that the open solution just doesn't work as a *FACT* is fucking bullshit.

Let's take GIMP for example, the use case of a friend of mine:

- He works both with macOS and Linux Mint, he *needs* a design/photo editing tool which is cross platform. (or at least one which works on macOS+Linux)
- He does not mind paying for software but he prefers to use software which is free as in freedom because he also likes to tinker with the software (a lot of people find this argument bullshit, I noticed on here. Why is that? It's a valid reason. Maybe not for you but we're not talking about you right now).
- He likes Photoshop but due to Linux incompatibility and the fact that he can't tinker around with the code, it's not an option for him.
- He'd gladly go for paid software but GIMP fills all his design/photo editing needs (also the more advanced ones but don't ask them to me because I have no fucking clue how that shit works)
- GIMP *just works* for him, he never has trouble with it.

Let's take Libre Office, my own use case:

- It *NEEDS* to work on Linux, which Libre does.
- It *HAS* to be open source, ethic/moral thingy; Libre Office is open source.
- It doesn't need to work complete magic but it needs proper basic document and 'excel' sheet functionalities which is the case with Libre and it works *for me*.
- I don't mind paying for it, will probably donate in the future (seeding the macOS+windows+linux versions fulltime at the moment)

See, for our use cases, it works very well. So why go into "it's no match for proprietary alternatives" mode right away? It actually is, as you see in the examples above.

Please stop saying that those solutions *don't work* or *are shit* because they do work and are useful for me and loads of people around the world.
Do they have *ALL* the features which their proprietary alternatives have? Maybe, maybe not, maybe they're missing some and maybe they even have some features which the proprietary alternatives don't have, I haven't checked out every feature.

I'm not saying that it works for you, for the record, I'm just saying that just because for you it is a fact that they're bad/shit/hardly working, doesn't mean they are for others.

I spent about 5 hours today coding and I was totally in the zone. I'm talking things were working properly, tests were passing, bugs were being squashed all over the place. It was completely amazing, I felt like a god ruling over my code kingdom.

After about 5 straight hours I realized that I needed food so I got up, stretched my legs and had some dinner. Well I sat back down about an hour ago and I am SO far out of the zone. Everything is breaking, I can't focus and I have no idea why. My kingdom was overrun with a plague of bugs in just the short time I paused to eat.

Moral of the story: when you get in the zone don't stop for anything even if it seems like basic human necessity. After all we aren't human when we're in the zone, we are coding gods.

So today my middle company put a meeting with the new HR.

Meeting subject: you can't poach inside the company.

Context: I resigned, and I'll be taking with me 3 profiles.

HR: If you do take them, we'll take you to court.

Me: Why?

HR: It's poaching and by contract, you can't.

Me: You can show which clause?

HR: That's not the problem.

Me: Also in France, you need to notify the employee as you are denying his right to get a job. And pay him for that.

HR: What? That's none sense! Stop talking and listen.

Me: Ok

HR: We'll sue you and crush you. You'll have so much legal problem that you...

Me: I'll just start recording on my phone, so you say that you accept it and continue your intimidation rant.

HR: What? No!! Stop that.

Me: *stop it* Would you rather have my lawyer with us? Because we'll need to reschedule the meeting.

HR: If you continue that way, we'll tarnish your name and no company will hire you.

Me: You really aren't familiar with IT, right? Because I could delete ALL production. No system work. The BCP will kick in. You will lose one or two days. Then make an article of it, showing what kind of process or security should have been implemented. And I will still get a high pay job!!

HR: You know what? Get out! If you want to go to war, your problem.

Me: Ok, so you'll be getting news from my lawyer by mail.

HR: what?

Me: Yeah, that harassment. And my lawyer will get in touch. And I might also post on LinkedIn. And talk about it in the next events I'm invited.

HR: that's, that's...

Me: freedom of speech. Don't worry I'll write it so it's only viewed as my opinion. Have a nice day.

Two hours later my friend, lawyer, send them a mail and email.

Three hours later the COO calls me. Saying that HR was out of line and that it'll no occur again. It was an error and I should be forgiving.

So now all discussion with HR must be held with my attorney :). And middle company pay for it.

I am so bad at Smalltalk.. really, I feel like an idiot every time, and every time I end up in silence. Just talk to me something it-related, I can't stop talking. Does this happens to you too?

I can't believe this company.

They want to stop using Certificates because it bothers the customer.

I had to use https because we were using service workers for a PWA.

I tried explaining we need them for the product to work, and also it's a basic security measure.

They were removing the certificates without my knowledge.

I found out because a colleague wanted a way to disable the service worker and asked me for help.

The manager said your not the boss of the company, it's not your company to make decisions.

Just do what they say, he tried to justify the decision from above, I said ok when was the last time you installed a certificate? he said never.
Ok, then what the fuck are you talking about, its 10 minutes to get a certificate letscrypt HELLO.

This company is very hierarchical 1900 style, I'm the person who does innovation in the organization, that's the most fucked up part, they say no to everything.
OMG, I'm going to quit.

There just asking to get hacked, this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Is this common or are they morons?

Fuck code.org. Fuck code. Not code code, but "code" (the word "code"). I hate it. At least for teaching. Devs can use it as much as they want, they know what it means and know you can't hack facebook with 10 seconds of furiously typing "code" into a terminal. What the fuck are you thinking when you want me to hack facebook? No, when I program, it's not opening terminal, changing to green text and typing "hack <insert website name here, if none is given, this will result to facebook.com>" Can you just shut the fuck up about how you think that because you can change the font in google fucking docs you have the right to tell me what code can and can't do? No, fuck you. Now to my main point, fuck "code" (the string). It's an overused word, and it's nothing but a buzzword (to non devs, you guys know what you're talking about. how many times have you seen someone think they are a genius when they here the word "code"?) People who don't know shit don't call themselves programmers or devs, they call themselves coders. Why? It fucking sounds cool, and I won't deny that, but the way it's talked about in movies, by people, (fucking) code.org, etc, just makes people too much of a bitch for me to handle. I want everyone reading this rant who has friends who respect the fact that YOU know code (I truly believe everyone on devRant does), how it works, and it's/your limitations, AND that it takes hard work and effort, to thank god right now. If you're stuck with some people like me, I feel you. Never say "code" near them again. Say "program." I really hate people who think they know what an HTML tag is and go around calling themselves coders. Now onto my main point, code.org. FUCK IT. CAN YOU STOP RUINING MY FUCKING AP CS CLASS. NO CODE.ORG, I DON'T NEED TO WATCH YOUR TEN GODDAMN VIDEOS ON HOW TECHNOLOGY IS IMPORTANT, <sarcasm>I'VE BEEN LIVING UNDER A ROCK FOR THIRTY YEARS</sarcasm>. DO I REALLY NEED ANOTHER COPY OF SCRATCH? WAIT, NO, SCRATCH WAS BETTER. YOU HAD FUCKING MICROSOFT, GOOGLE, AND OTHER TECHNOLOGICAL GIANTS AND YOU FUCKED UP SO BAD YOU MADE IT WORSE THAT SCRATCH. JUST LETMECODE (yes I said that) AND STOP TALKING ABOUT HOW SOME IRRELEVANT ROBOT ARM DEVELOPED BY MIT IS USING AI AND MACHINE LEARNING TO MAKE SOME ROBOT EVOLVE?! IF YOU SPEND ONE MORE SECOND SAYING "INNOVATION" I'LL SHOVE THAT PRINT STATEMENT YOU HAVE A SYNTAX ERROR UP YOUR ASS. DON'T GET ME FUCKING STARTED ON HOW ITS IMPOSSIBLE TO DO ANYTHING FOR YOURSELF WHEN YOUR GETTING ALL THE ANSWERS WITHOUT DOING ANY WORK AND THE FACT THAT JAVASCRIPT IS YOUR FUCKING LANGUAGE. <sarcasm>GREAT IDEA, LETS GET THESE NEW PROGRAMMERS INTO A PROFESSIONAL ENVOIRMENT BY ADDING A DRAG AND DROP CODE (obviously we can say it) EDITOR</sarcasm> MAYBE IF YOU GOT THIS SHIT UP YOUR ASS AND TO YOUR BRAIN YOU'D ACTUALLY GET TO PRPGRAMMING IN YOUR ADVANCED AP COURSE. ITS CALLED FUCKING CODE.ORG FOR A REASON

10 years of repeating cycles of the following:

#interview
them: yeah, this is a gamedev position, c#, unity, prototyping, maybe some hololens r&d

me: cool! exactly what i was looking for, as i said a few times, i can't do php anymore, it literally causes me literal deppression.

them: don't worry, we have people for thaz, but we have nobody for c# and unity, with some art skills feel as well as you do.

me: great, glad we're on the same page. i'm taking the job! <3

them: great! oh btw, there's this enterprise intranet app in php that needs some additions, can you please do them?

me: ... what did we talk about during my interview?

them: yeah, but it's just gonna be a short thing, don't worry.

me: ...well...ok, i think i can do that.

*3 to 6 months still on the same, or the next, php enterprise bullshit app. i'm totally exhausted in all ways possible, stressed literally permanently, dreading every day, every new ticket, every meeting every contact with everyone, not able to give a shit about what i do anymore, thinking about suicide*

them: you lazy incompetent fuckup, you're fired!

* i stop communicating and coming out of my room for anything else than toilet, and shopping. stop communicating with my friends, with anyone, anxiety and exhaustion caused by even the thought of talking to anyone about anything, or doing anything, is usually unbearable. i spend 3 to 8 months like this, just sleeping, drinking, watching youtube, sometimes playing games but even that "activity", or rather even the thought of that "activity" is often exhausting. after that time, i kind of recuperate emotionally and mentally, start looking for another unity+c# gamedev job, find it, apply,
goto #interview

Very long story ahead!

Yesterday in the evening a friend of mine (calling him F from now on) became the target of something new to me...
Apparently one can fake his phone number through some fishy ways and call people with that number. Someone (we think we might know who it was, the why is at the end) did this yesterday to F.
Here's the whole story:
We were just talking together on a TeamSpeak Server (a program to talk to others on the internet) when suddenly another friend said: "F, why did you just call me three times in a row?" That was the first thing that was a bit suspicious. After that, F got calls from random numbers (even Afghanistan, we are German), and they said something like "Have fun with the police coming to your house". Then there was silence. 10 minutes later his phone rang and there were a ton of pizza delivery services in his town that apparently got pizza orders from him. Then there was silence, again. Suddenly someone with a hidden number called him, a woman's voice said they were the police and if F doesn't stop calling the police there will be consequences. F then told her what was going on but I think she didn't really care. She then wanted to know where F lives, but I told him not to say that, because if it is the police they can find it out by themself and if it's not, they don't need to know that.
Now, a short break: There is some fake information going around about where F lives. I can't remember when we found out but the attacker thought he would actually live there. No idea what happened at that location...
Now back to the story:
Time went by, nothing really happened. Suddenly F shouted: "There are blue lights outside! The police is here!" He muted his microphone and (the following is what he told us what happened) went down to the door (remember, he is 16) and there were two police men. They were asking about why he called the police. F explained what we knew until then, about number spoofing and stuff... They sent a more technical person to him, he understood what F was trying to explain. The police men drove away and he came back to tell us what happened. (Now we get back to what I heared myself.) The mom came in, screamed something that I couldn't understand, and F went offline. We searched who the attacker could have been. And we are pretty sure we found him. That guy connected to our Minecraft server (that's where I know F from) with his real IP, and his main account, which made it easy to search. He also got a static IP which means it doesn't change. We also got some information that in the recent days this guy was talking about VoIP spoofing and such stuff. Another friend of mine, a bit older, found some proofs and I think he will go to the police.

That's it. Thanks for reading.

STOP SHITTING ON PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES.
Now, I'm not talking to the people that don't take it too serious, but rather to people that think their language is superior and others inferior. Why shit on PHP? A lot of stuff is build with this, including devRant. For me, I'd love to learn any languages that has a proper use for me. (With this sentence I'm excluding all exoteric languages, because they are useless) If anyone says, Python is awesome as fuck, yeah, I FUCKING AGREE. Anyone telling me anything is crap, I disagree. If it's that terrible, how do you know about it? If it was never used ever in a project, how can you know its terrible? You can't. Unless you coded that thing yourself.

Next time don't waste your time on shit like that. I AM ALSO LOOKING AT THE HOLY WAR APPLE VS MICROSOFT VS LINUX

STOP WASTING YOUR TIME WITH SHIT LIKE THIS.

rant, but not an IT kind... okay, maybe not even a rant, more like depressive rambling:

in 3 days, I'll turn 29.
i'm living with my mom, in the apartment where I was born, in the room i've been living since I was born (with the exception of 2 attempts to move out which together lasted 9 months).

my theoretical monthly income should/could be around 4000€, based on my skills and experience.

but I'm a (manic)-depressive, chronically lonely idiot loser (and the manic phases come more and more rarely in recent years), so
my practical average monthly income fluctuates from 0 to about 200.

i am unable to keep a job for more than 4 months, so after being fired from about 20 or so of them since I was 18, it takes immense amounts of mental and emotional energy to even start looking for one now... so I usually don't.

i've been about 12000€ in debt for the past 8 or so years, half of which is just debt collector fees.
it's kinda funny, for years, i've been unable to solve a debt which theoretically amounts to 3 months of my theoretical achievable salary.

my father, who just left without a word of explanation when I was 18, has decided this is not viable anymore, so I'm supposed to move out by 10th of next month, "either to some cheap rooming house, or under the bridge, I don't care", as he put it.

I can't remember how it feels to exist a single hour without feeling existential dread and dreading each next day, not knowing what to do or if i'll even be able to try and do something, because this feeling is so strong that it often blocks me from being able to do anything. i just shiver most of the time that i'm awake, feeling like you feel few minutes before puking and crying at the same time. and that feeling is my "how are you?", "you know... normal".

i can't remember what it feels to feel any other way and can't even imagine it, and can't imagine that I'll ever achieve any less shit feeling.

literally all of my social contact consists of going out once to twice a month with the only 2 friends and 2 aquaintances I have who have the time and will to spend it with me.
oh, and hiding in my room, avoiding talking to my mom, because each time we talk she just reminds me what a piece of shit failure I am, and tells me how it's not that hard to change it, I just have to stop being lazy and start working for it.

she's... kind and caring about it, which somehow maybe makes it even worse.

i have about 10 almost complete game designs, each of them at least 50% more original and interesting (at least to me) than the things that are coming out for the past 10 years, being lauded as "the most original and unique".

I have been trying to make them, ANY of them, since I was 18, but I always lose all the drive and resolve and energy in like 4 months, because it's like trying to build a city on my own on a deserted island. too big for one person, but there was never anyone to help me. closest I ever got was one of my friends telling me "i've been thinking many times that i'd love to work on some project with you, if I had the time".
and second time, when I actually found an artist I was going to pay, and he was awesome, and after two weeks of me telling him how awesome what he does is and how it fits the project and my ideas perfectly, he backed out saying "i'm afraid I can't do the quality you require from me".

never ever in my life did I get actual help with something I actually wanted or tried to do.

i have no idea how it feels to have someone working with me on something I actually consider interesting and meaningful, on any of the things which I wanted to make, which made me learn programming.

I've learned graphics and animation and everything going into game making pipeline on my own because I realized nobody will ever help me, so I'll have to do all of it on my own.

I've tried to make a kickstarter once, but I started crying hysterically in the middle of writing it, because I felt like a begging piece of failure shit, even more than usual, so I deleted it.

most of people treat me like shit failure unworthy and undeserving of living, precisely as I myself know I deserve to be treated, because that's what I am, but when I ask for permission to kill myself, since I see no other solution to stop being a burden, they get angry at me that I'm just emotionally blackmailing them. when I afterwards ask them "so help me in any way to do any of the projects i want/need to do", they respond they've got no time for that.

when I talk about all of this, I get told to stop whining.

happy 29th birthday, me, a piece of shit who should've never survived this long, who should've never been born in the first place.
yay.

also, I know this is not the kind of crap that's supposed to be posted here, but i've got nowhere else. sorry.

Was explaining a technical concept at a "family" dinner. Suddenly stepmother wanted my help for something technical.

Stepmother: Say Awlex, could you help me install some software I recently bought?

Me: (Not this shit again) I even don't know what software you're talking about. How is the software called, what does it do?
Sm: it's calles digital... *long pause*
Me: (I don't like where this is going)
Sm: software... *another long pause*
Me: (fuck me harder than that lightly clothed woman outside)
Sm: something... *long pause*
Me: (alright brain, which way out of here doesn't involves me creating a bullet hole in either one of us?)
Sm: And you can use it to sell something...
Me: (tf do you event sell?!)
Sm: but not like ebay
Me: (what is it then? A platform for selling services? I don't even know what kind of software you'd have to install, given that most of these platforms are be web applications, whcih makes sense for selling stuff on the internet)
Sm: Anyway, could you help me install it? It would take me hours to get into it.
Me: (You think just installing would solve it? As soon as I install it, you probably expect me to be your walking manual as well, don't you?) Look, I'm gonna be honest with you, since I started working I don't have nearly as much free time as I used to have (Not everybody works when they feel like it, you know that?) I get home at around almost 7pm (most of the time) and don't really wanna work afterwards. Most of the time there's a support service from the people who made this software and they would be glad to help you. (Sorry support team, for pushing this bundle of incompetence onto you, but I guess she didn't even listen to my advice).

After that she didn't back down and still wanted my help. Then my grandmother derailed the conversation and got me out of this. When I thanked her later she yold me that she saw I saw uncomfortable and wanted to help. I love my grandmother.

So I am not going to be your "family" tech support. You b(r)ought this onto yourself. Are more than twice my age and still can't use your brain to solve problems like these on your own and you can even less reason abiut your motives and desires when asking for help. I am sick of you and shutty opinions about people, just because I work as a software engineer doesn't mean I'm exist solely for satisfying your unreasonable desires.

Stop offending me and my profession and get yourself some common sense.
Protip #0: Give me one fucking reason to help you, because you're not family enough and your personality really doesn't bring forth any emotion but annoyance

If nobody hates you, you're doing something wrong ~ House MD

Tl;Dr : I'm pissing the right people off and my God I like it

That's what I've known and have confirmed doing my current side project with my gf, we are working on a ratemyprofessors clone with extra spicy features, one in particular is so spicy some teachers will be put in a position in which they would rather grind hot peppers with their butt cheeks.

Don't get me wrong, there are good teachers (some of which actually showed support) but some are not good teachers and some aren't good people either; I've decided it's time to stop complaining and take action.

We recently released an alpha and I presented it to a teacher I had this semester (one of the "not so great" kind) as a DB proyect cuz fuck it I'm not doing 2 projects.

This teacher is your run of the mill "I'm lazy and I don't care" teacher and she ran the classroom like a shitty kindergarten, so much so, one of the teams was presenting a buggy admin site as their project and she started talking on the phone! Right up on their faces!!

My turn, I go up and handle her a 30 page printed thesis of my project and said that unlike my mates, I was going to start presenting the idea and then the actual software...why is it printed?, She said; Because I won't be projecting the PDF ma'am, I actually made a professional presentation and that way you can read more technical details while I give a broad overview...

I started talking about the huge issues students face and my research about it, undisciplined teachers, no class structure ~ abrupt interruption ~ "yeah I know like, you are giving so much statistics and numbahs but where is the database?"

I got pissed off because the whole purpose of printing and giving her the docs was for her to ask specific questions AT THE END! So I told her I was getting there and to ask questions at the end...I start showing off the system's sweetest features... everyone got quiet...a girl on the front row kept looking at the teacher and then back to the board with her eyes wide open, the teacher was visibly upset.

I asked someone to please help me by using the site being projected for everyone to see, he searched the teacher's name and it obviously popped up cuz I scrapped the whole teacher index site... some people gasp and others start murmuring.

She freaked and started arguing saying that frontend can't be just HTML and CSS, where did you mentioned x and y feature? admit it's just teacher evaluations! where did you get the teacher names? I want the scripts!....it went on even 10 minutes after class and the next class with a police like interrogation.

So yeah, something tells me I'm not getting an A, but I'm happy after all because that's the kind of reaction I want from those types of professors.

Worth it 😎

Holy shit why can't you just work. Stop talking about your kids from 9 am to 5pm with the orther person sitting next to you who clearly wants to get some work done.

Also, good on you for baking a cake and your kid saying this is the best cake. Every kid says that to your parent.

FFS, shut up and work, and let people around you work.

P.S. I need good headphones, preferably in ear wireless buds. I'm waiting for Pixel Buda 2.

Goddamn, why is Android SDK setup such a stupendous pain in the ass?

"Wah wah, can't find JDK!"

Wtf are you talking about you stupid fuck, JDK is right there, all IDEs find it, environment vars are set, it is the right version and is used on this machine for a billion development purposes! Stop being a useless cunt!

And this is everytime. Had to setup up Android SDK four or five times by now on different machines and it has NEVER gone smoothly. There is always a plethora of different issues and you end up wasting all day going through fucking dependency hell!

Read a book on ergonomics, you colossal android fucks. Just because you got JetBrains behind your IDE and they actually know what they are doing, doesn't make your setup process any less of a braindead nightmare.

Fucking hell.

10 year anniversary 'celebration' for a couple of employees (one dev, one a DBA) and the VP of the department was saying kind words about them, talking about the 'good old days'.

VP to the DBA: "I apologize, when you started, you walked into my database architecture. I didn't know that much back then and never thought about the architecture much beyond a few years. Its amazing my design has lasted over 20 years and triple digit business growth..blah blah blah"

Inner voice: "Mother F-er!...My database was designed IN SPITE of your meddling and demanding to create 1,500 field tables. Shut the F up you egotistical bastard!"

I can't even count how many times I had to stop him from, for example, adding a 'ProductID' field to a Customer table.

Me: "Why did you add a product id field?"
VP: "How else will we know what product the customer wants to buy?"
Me: "You mean like a wish list? What if the customer wants more than one product?"
VP: "Oh, that’s easy, we'll create more fields when that happens. ProductID2. Microsoft made it really easy to add fields."
Me: "We already have a wish list table schema. Customer can have as many wish lists and as many products as they want."
VP: "I don't understand. All I want is a field for me to store the product I'm buying. I don't know why you make this so hard, its just one more field."

Now the VP is bragging all the success was due to his expertise?! Gaaaaahhhh!

I quelled my rage with ample quantities of donuts, juice, and chocolate milk.

Dear customers just fucking stop and do the following:

1. Explain yourself in complete sentences.

2. Read the email you just wrote.

3. Regardless of the content delete the email.

4. Go about your day and leave me alone.

Fucking emails like this, I can't even:

Customer Person A: Hey this thing doesn't work when I change X!

Me: Uh where did you change X? There's 3 places that can be changed.

Customer Person A: No, Customer Person B is responding to the wrong ticket.

- Customer B has never responded to the ticket and isn't on the email chain we're talking about...-

-ticket closed, communication impossible reason "Kiteo, his eyes closed"-

Sequel or S Q L?

I find myself dipping between the two recently depending on who I'm talking to. It's driving my insane and I can't stop myself -_-

These ignorant comments about arch are starting to get on my nerves.

You ranted or asked help about something exclusive to windows and someone pointed out they don't have that problem in arch and now you're annoyed?

Well maybe it's for good.

Next comes a very rough analogy, but imagine if someone posts "hey guys, I did a kg of coke and feeling bad, how do I detox?"

It takes one honest asshole to be like "well what if you didn't do coke?".

Replace the coke with windows.
Windows is a (mostly) closed source operating system owned by a for profit company with a very shady legal and ethical history.

What on earth could possibly go wrong?

Oh you get bsod's?
The system takes hours to update whenever the hell it wants, forces reboot and you can't stop it?
oh you got hacked because it has thousands of vulnerabilities?
wannacry on outdated windows versions paralyzed the uk health system?

oh no one can truly scrutinize it because it's closed source?

yet you wonder why people are assholes when you mention it? This thing is fucking cancer, it's hundreds of steps backwards in terms of human progress.

and one of the causes for its widespread usage are the savage marketing tactics they practiced early on. just google that shit up.

but no, linux users are assholes out to get you.

and how do people react to these honest comments? "let's make a meme out of it. let's deligitimize linux, linux users and devs are a bunch of neckbeards, end of story, watch this video of rms eating skin off his foot on a live conference"

short minded idiots.

I'm not gonna deny the challenges or limitations linux represents for the end user.

It does take time to learn how to use it properly.
Nvidia sometimes works like shit.
Tweaking is almost universally required.
A huge amount of games, or Adobe/Office/X products are not compatible.
The docs can be very obscure sometimes (I for one hate a couple of manpages)

But you get a system that:
* Boots way faster
* Is way more stable
* Is way way way more secure.
* Is accountable, as in, no chance to being forced to get exploited by some evil marketing shit.

In other words, you're fucking free.
You can even create your own version of the system, with total control of it, even profit with it.

I'm not sure the average end user cares about this, but this is a developer forum, so I think in all honesty every developer owes open source OS' (linux, freebsd, etc) major respect for being free and not being corporate horseshit.

Doctors have a hippocratic oath? Well maybe devs should have some form of oath too, some sworn commitment that they will try to improve society.

I do have some sympathy for the people that are forced to use windows, even though they know ideally isn't the ideal moral choice.
As in, their job forces it, or they don't have time or energy to learn an alternative.

At the very least, if you don't know what you're talking about, just stfu and read.

But I don't have one bit of sympathy for the rest.

I didn't even talk about arch itself.
Holy fucking shit, these people that think arch is too complicated.

What in the actual fuck.

I know what the problem is, the arch install instructions aren't copy paste commands.
Or they medium tutorial they found is outdated.

So yeah, the majority of the dev community is either too dumb or has very strong ADD to CAREFULLY and PATIENTLY read through the instructions.

I'll be honest, I wouldn't expect a freshman to follow the arch install guide and not get confused several times.
But this is an intermediate level (not megaexpert like some retards out there imply).

Yet arch is just too much. That's like saying "omg building a small airplane is sooooo complicated". Yeah well it's a fucking aerial vehicle. It's going to be a bit tough. But it's nowhere near as difficult as building a 747.

So because some devs are too dumb and talk shit, they just set the bar too low.

Or "if you try to learn how to build a plane you'll grow an aviator neckbeard". I'll grow a fucking beard if I want too.

I'm so thankful for arch because it has a great compromise between control and ease of install and use.

When I have a fresh install I only get *just* what I fucking need, no extra bullshit, no extra programs I know nothing about or need running on boot time, and that's how I boot way faster that ubuntu (which is way faster than windows already).

Configuring nvidia optimus was a major pain in the ass? Sure was, but I got it work the way I wanted to after some time.

Upgrading is also easy as pie, so really scratching my brain here trying to understand the real difficult of using arch.

So just babbling my shit down here.

(Tldr : i am a crazy guy who followed my half slept brain, went onto a stage , gave some kind of motivating , stammering talk to a large group of professional strangers, enjoyed that day with a red embarrassed face and just got my first pic of me speaking on stage and that is so awesome !)

Last Saturday i went to a gdg meetup and i embarrassed the hell out of me.

I went there with just 2 hours of sleep from the previous night.
After a few talks there comes a guy who is taking some time to install is setup and the host calls for lightning round session ( ie he asks if anyone from the audience would like to share something about their product or something).

I am a fucking nutt guy. I can explain something to you nicely in a hacky way as long as i have done enough work on that and you speak my native language.

But giving a talk on English stage, hell no! I stammer, mix hindi with English and start speaking werd shit.. And that's what happened.

I don't know what went into me but as some guy went to the stage and talked for 2 mins, i was like yeah i want to do that too. So in next turn when he asked for a show of hands, i raised mine and fucking went to stage!

I forgot that if you go on stage you should have something to talk to . But the moment i was on stage, i was like... "Nope, we will do this differently".
I had been working on a video ads module from the last week which could be easily explained in 2 mins. But i felt like giving a non techy talk instead.

It went something like this: i introduced myself with my experience details ( who gives experience details on stage !?!) Then host said to speak loudly and i went like "Bharat mata ki jai!"( Victory to mother india (wtf!?😆) .

Then started talking about how the developers feel disheartened when searching on internet where the resources are scattered . And the solution i told them was :"don't be disheartened. You will eventually find it (like wow dude wtf, as if they didn't knew that) . Look on the youtube and other resources " and then went full on explaining/marketing about some online tutor who gives advice/consultancy via a subscription based payment ( tbf that guy really helped solve a lot of my doubts, he has written books on Android dev and is the top so answerer for Android).

Then i went on sharing my thoughts live on that fuckin stage ! ( Live because i usually post my thoughts here on devrant before discussing them out with real people, you guys are my safe space) but there i discussed my thoughts on libraries!

I have this believe that Android devs these days are having lesser knowledge of the system because we have all the libraries and templates available to us. But when we have to customize stuff, we need to go deep into docs and source classes and find ourselves in trouble there. So i kind of said this out loud and that we should try to read more the code and implement stuff ourselves instead of using the library 😅🙈)

I was feeling so fucking embarrassing after that all stuff! It was so full of stammering , broken English and worst attempt at motivation. At that time i was regretting this and about to burst cry and run away, but somehow i gathered my self, got my mood back to the event games and talks, later went to the organizers and apologized(and they were very nice and didn't cared about it), and overall enjoyed my weirdest day!

When i came home, my mom gave me a little more confidence about it. Now i think i shouldn't be that much instinctive. Next day i went hack to work and everything got normal.

But Yesterday i found a link to the public repository of the photos. Ohh fuck, someone had took my image! and that was too in full hd!!! 🙈🙈🙈😅😆😆 Oh mann I can't stop looking at that cool stage speaker image, i love it ! I, the shy-est and the most uncool awkward person , present on the stage with a mike, oof , i think i lived my dream !

I hope i could get enough confidence and speaking skills to take a real stage talk next time ( and maybe enough interesting talks and confidence to talk with girls of our office, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )

So I started working at a large, multi billion dollar healthcare company here in the US, time for round 2,(previously I wasn't a dev or in IT at all). We have the shittiest codebase I have ever laid eyes on, and its all recent! It's like all these contractors only know the basics of programming(i'm talking intro to programming college level). You would think that they would start using test driven development by now, since every deployment they fix 1 thing and break 30 more. Then we have to wait 3 months for a new fix, and repeat the cycle, when the code is being used to process and pay healthcare claims.

Then some of my coworkers seem to have decided to treat me like I'm stupid, just because I can't understand a single fucking word what they're saying. I have hearing loss, and your mumbling and quiet tone on top of your think accent while you stop annunciated your words is quite fucking hard to understand. Now I know english isn't your first language and its difficult, I know, mine is Spanish. But for the love of god learn to speak the fuck up, and also learn to write actual SQL scripts and not be a fucking script kiddie you fucking amateur. The business is telling you your data is wrong because you're trying to find data that exists is complex and your simple select * from table where you='amateur with "10years" experience in SQL' ain't going to fucking cut it. Learn to solve problems and think analytically instead of copy fucking pasta.

Meetings.

Too many meetings.

"Why do you explain...." 10kv electrical shock.

Explanation so everyone has the same knowledge.

"But CD ES process of LCE..." Water. From the emergency hose. In the face.

For fucks sake, we are using speech in a meeting so stop using motherfucking abbreviations you shit hole.

"We had bugs". Taking an hot iron and shoving it somewhere nice.

Explain - what the fuck are you talking about? What bugs? Tickets? Documentation? Implications of the bugs? Hate. Much hate.

Um. I don't know. Maybe. But if.

Thumb wrenches.

Please, stop wasting time, if it's non important, a " No " doesn't hurt....

Let me show you. (4k Monitor, 10 px font, bright neon colors, IDE looks like LSD trip in bad).

Crucification.

If you present stuff, good - but for christs sake, shove your motherfucking shitty IDE setting in your own arse and turn on presentation mode with neutral colors - bright or dark mode, I don't care, but readable without danger of seizure.

I can't stream my monitor right now because of "bla" "blabla" (some private shit that has ZERO to do with work).

I'll need some oxy if this goes on.

Damn he still hasn't spoken to me, must be over a week now, normally he can't stop talking to me. I must have really pissed him off telling him it is company policy to not give juniors global admin access on all our servers. He's going to have a hard time in life if he keep that attitude up.

!rant
I need tips to survive working with a /r/iamverysmart coworker

!dev
I hate being a dick as much as the next guy, but damnit I hate spam even more!

And I can't think of a worse kind of spam than religious propaganda sent by your own family members when they already know you ain't religious, heck they even tried to kick me out of the house when I lived with them.

"...send this to 8 more people you wish a day full of blessings"
"YouTube - 10 ways to meditate with Jesus"
"How Stephen Hawkins proves God"

I've had enough, WhatsApp isn't for people to evangelize or send 3000+ characters of copy pasted, mass produced, soul-less "good wishes"; that's why from now on I'm bringing the fight to them, for every spammy text/video/image I get I'll double down and send 10 opposing spam videos or messages.

I just replied a "The most beautiful thoughts, talking to God" video with the monologue of George Carlin on religion and God.

Am I being a dick? kinda
Could I just ask them to stop? I find this more amusing and spares me the "you don't want me to 'talk' to you" shit

A little story which happened my SECOND day on the floor after getting hired to do customer-facing phone support for my current job (can't mention the name, NDA). Customer from Detroit calls in:
Me: "Thank you for calling (company), my name is Guru, how can I assist you?"
C: "Uhhh, yeah. I need to get back into my ID. I can't backup my tablet or phone, and y'all are kinda holding my data host-" <Loud gunshots>
C: "oh! Shit!" <sound of running feet>
Me: "Everything OK sir?"
C: "Fuck! Naw! Hang on!" <more running, jumps a fence, skids to a stop>
C: "Ok, I'm safe, I'm safe... So what I gotta do to get y'all to let me back into my shit?"
*MUTE* Me: "First of all, what the fuck are you doing on the phone with me when you should be either A) calling the cops because, I dunno, just maybe some trouser stain is attempting to kill you, or, B) FIRING BACK, MOTHERFUCKER!!"
*REAL* Me: "OK, first you gotta… (outlines step 1,2,3... etc)
C: "OK, that sounds easy enough. I'll try it when I get to the office, I'm on my way there now- shit. Hold on again..."
(talking to someone on the street): "what, him? That dude? Over there? That dude... In the shirt?What the fuck!? Are you sure? Hold on, sir! I'ma call you back..."
Last thing I hear before the line lets go is a large BOOM!

Sometimes it's best to just sit back and sip your coffee...

My job is decent, but now I've got one developer who's been there a few months longer than me who pushes back on stuff that's considered standard, good practice.

We have a domain with lots of business rules. He's opposed to any sort of domain-centric architecture that puts business logic in one place. He doesn't give any coherent reasons. He can't describe his alternative clearly. He just wants to put stuff all over the place.

If I don't cite any references he says it's just my opinion. If I do, I'm talking down to him.

Then he decided that the database shouldn't have concurrency checks. His reasoning is that as the application grows we'll have more and more concurrent updates, and they all have to succeed.

What if that corrupts our data? He mentions "eventual consistency." which has nothing to do with what we're talking about.

The idea that our code should carefully ensure that our data is correct is "extreme." What are we going to tell people when bugs happen? That expecting the application to work correctly is extreme?

He's not a terrible developer. He's an advanced Expert Beginner. He's convinced himself that whatever he doesn't already know isn't worth knowing. That's fine if he wants to stop learning, but this affects the whole team. He makes such a fuss that it everyone gets stressed out and eventually I have to back off.

The problem is that someone with a reasonable degree of competence can pass off his experience as superior to all knowledge from outside sources.

I've been doing this as long as him. I don't claim to be a rock star genius, but I do keep learning. I don't tell myself that I've reached the pinnacle. But all of that learning goes to waste if I can't use it.

!dev

I was at a family event, and you know that one aunt who won't stop talking and asking you questions? Yeah she was basically harassing me, and since family and all I can't really ignore her even though I really want to.

In comes my 3 year old niece, who just walks towards us like a badass, pats that aunt's leg and goes "no one likes to talk to you!"

I need my niece as my personal bodyguard and human filter.

Everybody's talking about the 50/50 for some reason, so here's my 2 cents. I've been trying to hire another senior front-end engineer for my team for over two months, and not one half-competent candidate passed our tests yet*. The first one to pass, and I don't care whether it's a male candidate, a female one, or a type of asexual sentient mushroom spore, will get the job.

We do prefer a female candidate because our team is all male at the moment. But that's not going to stop us from hiring a male one if we find anyone.

Also, out of 40ish candidates I've interviewed so far, I believe only 3 were female. Might be a fourth one I can't recall at the moment.

My favourite bug fix was actually IT based and it was the first time my Eastern European, critical of my skills, family not only praised me but claimed that I was smarter than them.

My grandfather had changed from a telecom to a VOIP device for his landline. For some reason after installation, he could hear the other person on the line but they couldn't hear him. Me and my mother were away during this time so they called in the other family IT guy. This guy is no joke, he's one of the top in his company and makes a sweet six figures and lives in a mansion.

So he started looking things up, googling forum, etc. Couldn't find anything. Started calling the tech support and tried to deduce what it was and their tech support had never heard of such a problem. He takes his lunch breaks to help out my gramps. Keeps escalating, escalating and nothing. His conclusion is that they need to send him a new VoIP stick and they're not giving it to him. At this point, he's so frustrated that he screams at my grandfather to go back to paying 60 bucks a month for landline and to stop bothering him.

At this time me and my mother return and they have concluded that they need a new stick. My mom is great at intimidating people into free stuff so she and I go over to do so. At this point everyone is convinced of the problem and even I don't think I could fix it. But I decide to check if that's the case because I don't want my gramps to get a new stick and it still doesn't work.

I go through the typical forum hunting and there's Nada on the problem. I look at the stick and all the lights seem to be working, no error lights. And I wonder maybe the problem is not the stick, because usually you can't do anything at all if the hardware is broken. So I start thinking, maybe my gramps accidentally muted his handset while talking or something dumb like that. That wasn't it.

Then I decided to see if the problem was recreated on the other handsets. I tried one out and my mom could hear me but I couldn't hear her. What?! That's different! It was the opposite with the other phone. I conclude that it's working and there's something up with the handsets. So I go and do a reset on all of the handsets to make sure.

Lo and behold, the problem is fixed. It took me 25 minutes to solve. That guy gave up after a week of trying. My mom who assumed my IT skills were on par with other kids and nothing special had finally seen me up against an opponent, and not any opponent, a six figure high ranking IT specialist. And I didn't even use any secret, complex software knowledge that wasn't accessible to her or any other normal user.

That's when she finally said that I was smarter than her, that I just used my common sense. She would've needed some kind of prompting, hint or direction to solve the issue but I did it without any.

It was a very satisfying bug to fix.

I have joined a new company recently and I'm worried.
Really have worry because of my people skills and little doubt on the manager. I mean what do I know I just joined but still overthinking it.

There are people who speak confidently and I feel intimidated because in the casual conversations I don't feel like I can contribute at this point at least, it's been a week only. Other thing is as I do not know much about the work, I can't speak in the meetings. I know that I'm expecting a lot from myself here as I just joined but I have a history of being silent in the meetings and in my previous organisation I could deal with it as I got comfortable finally.
How can I be more interactive with people, given that some are cold?

About my manager, he is young. He definitely has a good IQ that's why he is a manager now.
The thing is, he talks a lot. Conversations are not 2 way, and he kept on saying things without even understanding that I'm overwhelmed. I have previously told him that I am overwhelmed, he listened, took 2 minutes and continued with his all work related talks.

I don't like the way he's stating his expectations from the time I didn't even join. He told me everything about the organization, on first day, he gave me a 2 months rough expectations of me. I don't agree with all the points he makes but it doesn't seem plausible for me to interrupt and say my thing. For example when he stated his expectations, I should have stopped him and politely tell that it's too soon we can discuss these things in upcoming weeks. But just because he continues rambling, I can't say it. It seems a small thing but I know it's not proper conversation and will create issues for me. As I have had similar kind of manager before, who used to ramble and didn't stop talking. But couldn't understand my problems etc.