!rant

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

If programming languages where weapons...

1. C is an M1 Garand standard issue rifle, old but reliable.

2. C++ is a set of nunchuks, powerful and impressive when wielded but takes many years of pain to master and often you probably wish you were using something else.

3. Perl is a molotov cocktail, it was probably useful once, but few people use it

4. Java is a belt fed 240G automatic weapon where sometimes the belt has rounds, sometimes it doesn’t, and when it doesn’t during firing you get an NullPointerException, the gun explodes and you die.

5. Scala is a variant of the 240G Java, except the training manual is written in an incomprehensible dialect which many suspect is just gibberish.

6. JavaScript is a sword without a hilt.

7. Go is the custom made “if err != nil” starter pistol and after each shot you must check to make sure it actually shot. Also it shoots tabs instead of blanks.

8. Rust is a 3d printed gun. It may work some day.

9. bash is a cursed hammer, when wielded everything looks like a nail, especially your thumb.

10. Python is the “v2/v3” double barrel shotgun, only one barrel will shoot at a time, and you never end up shooting the recommended one. Also I probably should have used a line tool to draw that.

11. Ruby is a ruby encrusted sword, it is usually only used because of how shiny it is.

12. PHP is a hose, you usually plug one end into a car exhaust, and the other you stick in through a window and then you sit in the car and turn the engine on.

13. Mathematica is a low earth orbit projectile cannon, it could probably do amazing things if only anyone could actually afford one.

14. C# is a powerful laser rifle strapped to a donkey, when taken off the donkey the laser doesn’t seem to work as well.

15. Prolog is an AI weapon, you tell it what to do, which it does but then it also builds some terminators to go back in time and kill your mom

All credits go to Vicky from damnet.com

Jus the other day I was sitting next to my classmate while he was coding. Let's call him 'curls'. Another classmate proceeded to talk to us about the laptop of my classmate who was coding. Let's call him 'shorts'.

We eventually talked about warranties and all that stuff until I saw a few ants on his laptop. I informed shorts about the situation and he told us it was normal....... We then asked what he meant by that.

Turns out ants started living in his laptop since who knows when and when shorts brought up his cellphone's flashlight to curls's exhaust fan we were horrified to see tons of ants and white stuff!

Curls laughed it off and said when he puts food beside the laptop while working the ants come out to get the food.... i dunno what to say anymore

I don't understand why people tend to shit on certain languages.
I`ve seen my fair share of shit software written in a plethora of languages, and the problem was usually that the devs used the language/framework completely wrong.
Languages and frameworks are designed to solve problems, if you don`t use them in the correct way then you are to blame.

It is like sticking your dick in the exhaust pipe of a Volvo, and then writing a Medium post complaining about your charred dick and how all Volvo's suck. Yeah I'm talking about you PHP haters, all of you that shit on Java on a daily basis and you morons saying "python is slow"

Don't get me wrong, I send PHP shitposts/memes all day to my friends working with it. But if my code doesn't work, it is my fault and I own up to it.

With that said, I will blow my brains out before writing a single line more of PHP

Rant over

There is this service that I want to use (wont name it for privacy/legal reasons) and I have created a trial account which gives me a limited access to their apis. However the usage is where things are interesting.
The api access is restricted to some 1000 calls per trial account. But also they have a explorer option which lets to have the functionality as a web app like a dashboard and the explorer usage has unlimited access.

Now since I didnt want to exhaust my api limit, I let my service call the explorer apis instead. Is this ethically wrong or it is the fault of the service providers that they have such a big gaping hole in their licensing?

Today is sprint demo day. As usual I'm only half paying attention since being a Platform Engineer, my work is always technically being "demoed" (shit's running ain't it? There you go, enjoy the EC2 instances.)

One team presents a new thing they built. I'm still half paying attention, half playing Rocket League on another monitor.

Then someone says

"We're storing in prod-db-3"

They have my curiosity.

"Storing x amount of data at y rate"

They now have my attention. I speak up "Do you have a plan to drop data after a certain period of time?"

They don't. I reply "Okay, then your new feature only has about 2 months to live before you exhaust the disk on prod-db-3 and we need to add more storage"

I am asked if we can add more storage preemptively.

"Sure, I say." I then direct my attention to the VP "{VP} I'll make the change request to approve the spend for additional volume on prod-db-3"

VP immediately balks and asks why this wasn't considered before. I calmly reply "I'm not sure. This is the first time I'm learning of this new feature even coming to life. Had anyone consulted with the Platform team we'd have made sure the storage availability was there."

VP asks product guy what happened.

"We didn't think we'd need platform resources for this so we never reached out for anything".

I calmly mute myself, turn my camera back off and go back to Rocket League as the VP goes off about planning and collaboration.

"CT we'll reach out to you next week about getting this all done"

*unmute, camera stays off* "Sounds good" *clears ball*

It's always fun to compare webdesign to car sales.

Client: We want a car with 2 doors.

We: Here is you car with 2 doors.

Client: Why does the car only have 2 doors? This is very limiting and i think 4 doors work way better.

We: Okay fine, here is a car with 4 doors.

Client: Could you please check on the brakes, i think there is something wrong but i don't know what.

We: Ok we checked the brakes and they are working ok. So here is you car with working brakes and 4 doors.

Client: Why didn't you check on the exhaust? The car is generating big black clouds now...

It's never enough

Programming Languages are Like Cars:

Assembler: A formula I race car. Very fast but difficult to drive and maintain.

FORTRAN II: A Model T Ford. Once it was the king of the road.

FORTRAN IV: A Model A Ford.

FORTRAN 77: a six-cylinder Ford Fairlane with standard transmission and no seat belts.

COBOL: A delivery van. It's bulky and ugly but it does the work.

BASIC: A second-hand Rambler with a rebuilt engine and patched upholstery. Your dad bought it for you to learn to drive. You'll ditch it as soon as you can afford a new one.

PL/I: A Cadillac convertible with automatic transmission, a two-tone paint job, white-wall tires, chrome exhaust pipes, and fuzzy dice hanging in the windshield.

C++: A black Firebird, the all macho car. Comes with optional seatbelt (lint) and optional fuzz buster (escape to assembler).

ALGOL 60: An Austin Mini. Boy that's a small car.

ALGOL 68: An Aston Martin. An impressive car but not just anyone can drive it.

Pascal: A Volkswagon Beetle. It's small but sturdy. Was once popular with intellectual types.

liSP: An electric car. It's simple but slow. Seat belts are not available.

PROLOG/LUCID: Prototype concept cars.

FORTH: A go-cart.

LOGO: A kiddie's replica of a Rolls Royce. Comes with a real engine and a working horn.

APL: A double-decker bus. It takes rows and columns of passengers to the same place all at the same time but it drives only in reverse and is instrumented in Greek.
Ada: An army-green Mercedes-Benz staff car. Power steering, power brakes, and automatic transmission are standard. No other colors or options are available. If it's good enough for generals, it's good enough for you.

Java: All-terrain very slow vehicle.

If you have not tried Google then I don't know what kind of developer you are... Exhaust all resources then Google.

When you exhaust yourself because you worked all night on that one feature that gets you really excited, and then you end up putting toothpaste in your armpit instead of deodorant.

Anybody's a father here? My 10 months kid is giving me hard times waking at 2am and not going to sleep till 4am (it is 4 now, here). That's a really repeating problem. I'm loosing my focus at work, tired after few hours of coding, couldnt mange to learn after hours. Makes me frustrated. My PM understands situation (actually he have 5 kids!), tries to help. But can't figure it out how to overcome this. Any ideas fellow dads in code? To make it clear - I really love my son, but if I'll fail to keep my level at job I could loose it one day, don't feel like beeing able to find new decent job with current exhaust level. Also I'm the only one who makes money in our lil family, loosing job for too long means loosing the roof under the head for all three of us. My wife is barely living after beeing there for son whole day, so please dont point at her. Our kid is really demanding on attention and love, and thats like a sweet poison. Love kills.

One of those days when i feel like complete shit and wish i hadn’t woken up.
I heard back from an interview i did last week (one of the faang type) and the recruiter started with “You didn’t impress any of your interviewers”. Man that hurt. I can’t unhear that. He went ahead to say they all recommended a mid-level role for me (they apparently said i had potential and could easily grow into a senior eng) instead of the senior lead i applied for. This is also subject to getting approval to hire mid-level engineers because the team needs more people but they only got approval to hire senior engineers. This cunt also added “dont worry about it. Just go about your usual business and i’ll call you next week if we have gotten the approval”. Ass! All i can do is worry because that is what i do best.
I think i am more sad and disappointed in myself because i thought the interviews went well. Wrote decent code and came up with good solutions on time. Had a good conversation with interviewers. Apparently for a senior, you cannot make mistakes which i did but once the interviewer gave me a clue, i got back on track.
Anyway, i slept with this anxiety, then woke up with tummy ache. On the drive out this morning to go to the bank, i drove my car into a pole and broke off my side mirror. Then my fucking power generator stopped working. And on my way to go and get my fixed mirror from the mechanic, my exhaust pipe broke in half due to a possible pothole i drove into.

Those fucking days where all that could go wrong goes wrong. My head is fucking pounding i can barely move my head without wincing. I am running out of money fast (i support my entire family) and i am worried about not getting a job. This blow to my confidence makes me feel worthless like i am not good for anything. Recruiter suggested i do another senior engineer interview for a different team which i passed the test for but i know the outcome would most likely be the same and i wanted the first team really bad. I just want to lie in bed and cry all day but this fucking headache won’t let me.

Should I be excited or concerned?

Newbie dev(babydev) who just learned string vs int and the word "boolean", is SUPER into data parsing, extrapolation and recursion... without knowing what any of those terms.

2 ½ hrs later. still nothing... assuming he was confused, I set up a 'quick' call...near 3 hrs later I think he got that it was only meant so I could see if/where he didnt understand... not dive into building extensive data arch... hopefully.

So, we need some basic af PHP forms for some public-provided input into a mySQL db. I figured I'd have him look up mySQL variables/fields, teach him a bit about proper db/field setup and give him something to practice on his currently untouched linux container I just set up so he could have a static ipv4 and cli on our new block (yea... he's spoiled, but has no clue).

I asked him to list some traits of X that he thinks could be relevant. Then to essentially briefly explain the logic to deciding/returning the values/how to store in the db... essentially basic conditionals and for loops... which is also quite new to him.

I love databases; I know I'm not in the majority... I assumed he'd get a couple traits in his mind and exhaust himself breaking them down. I was wrong. He was/likely is in his sleep now, over complicating something that was just meant as a basic af.

Fyi, the company is currently weighted towards more autistics (him and myself included) than neurotypicals.

I know I was(still am) extremely abnormal, especially when it comes to things like data.

So, should I be concerned/have him focus elsewhere for a bit?... I dont want to have him burnout before he even gets to installing mySQL

I over did it! 😫 My eyes!

If nothing new is posted here I go to Facebook. If I exhaust the feed there I come here. Such has been my life for the past one hour 😶

Added googly eyes before realizing the grate is an exhaust. Here’s hoping this isn’t the way I die. 😅

Hitting a really deep, deep low in the manic-depressive roller-coaster of the development cycle:

There comes the crunch time. No meeting goes by hearing the odious: "We don't have time for that." - One critical component needs to be finished for Big Sur and instead of addressing the real issues we keep changing design and goal. One main dev already gave up fighting the PO and team lead(!) - and now I'm next. So that dev build this really clean and minimal library as the core part. But now it's just like, yeah, take that nice Porsche engine put it on the old rusty bicycle from the shed,.. but maybe because that's so shitty we need that specially formed exhaust pipe to tune it. Yeah, very 'agile' - Only thinking about it makes me shudder in disbelief and anger. I shouldn't take that shit so serious, be emotional about shit code, I know, but I can't. Let them drive some rounds around the block, if it runs at all,.. because until now we still didn't make it run on the fuckin' street. It's all so insane. Will make some nice fireball, when it goes up in flames.

Well, I have been part of quite some shitty projects. Real suicide commandos set out to fail, and somehow stood them through or made it even "work" though it should never have. But what enrages me here is, that it needn't to be that way. We had plenty of time. Our team was often rowing along in good rhythm. And now I just feel drowned in resignation and sarcasm.

The rate with which I say “It’s what it is”, I’m afraid I am going exhaust it and my mind will throw an IndexOutOfBoundsException.

I think my exhaust needs some refactoring too...

Okay but

Webextensions api can go fuck itself with an exhaust pipe

Ive been debugging for a fucking day because apparently a script that i embed in a site doesnt have the same csp as the fucking site

I don’t have a driving license, but I WANT to race. So far, I only raced karts, but it was phenomenal.

There was one specific moment when I realized racing was for me: I’m entering a smooth left turn after a long straight that I passed flooring it. I put my feet off the gas while entering the turn, and one second after, I feel the BOOM! in my exhaust. Just like in those racing games I played as a kid.

This. This was the moment.

After that, I was almost injured in the very next lap. My kart went spinning after someone hit me, and it almost turned over. Apparently, twelve tipsy to drunk people driving powerful karts on a small track is how karting was in Russia. Next time I race, I’ll race with a driving teacher.

When you’re frustrated and think you need another developers help, exhaust all of your resources before you ask. Google it, look for similar functionality in the app to mimic, ruminate for a hour. We are all working through challenges.

code = coffee + overnight + debugging + exhaust

I honestly think I should attempt finding a job that's around my interests, since I want to get a laptop and I just can't really do much without money in general.
Don't know what I would really be able to do in terms of jobs, but I guess I'll go exhaust my resources.

When you’re frustrated and think you need another developers help, exhaust all your resources before you ask. Google it, look for similar functionality in the app to mimic, ruminate for an hour.

Switching jobs is part of our career growth and as a developer, we do this every two years on average.
I know that after announcing my resignation my colleagues won't treat me the same.

It's like I'm an entity in the system that you don't have to query it anymore but you have to exhaust its knowledge transfer limit within the notice period.

All the facades and presenter layers will fade out and you will know which models care about you and want to keep the existent associations. Those models only deserve to publish your contact payload with them.

My requests will be faced by slow response HR endpoints and I'll have to rely on a retriable solution to access the required document data.

I was mentally ready for it but it's still painful as I have to endure this for 2 months, yes, the EU has longer notice periods.

Do you guys have tips to share from your experience?

My upright A/C doesn't have both an outside intake and exhaust, just an outside exhaust, so it intakes through the back.

My cat S&D'd right next to the intake while it was on full blast.

just had to evacuate the room and pull the smell out with my grandpa's weird closed-door air purifier thing
(it goes across the entire doorgap at top and bottom and is basically a massive vacuum that sucks everything through an industrial air filter and blows it back into the room cleaner on the other side, looks and works well for being homemade)

on second thought where do all these strange gadgets my family has come from

HELP!!!, My ubuntu system exhaust all of it's ram, my system lags too much, I was currently running firefox, vim, postman, react server and node server.