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Its that time of the morning again where I get nothing done and moan about the past ... thats right its practiseSafeHex's most incompetent co-worker!!!
Today I'd like to tell you the story of "i". Interesting about "I" is that he was actually a colleague of yesterdays nominee "G" (and was present at the "java interface" video call, and agreed with G!): https://devrant.com/rants/1152317/...
"I" was the spearhead of a project to end all projects in that company. It was suppose to be a cross-platform thing but ended up only working for iOS. It was actually quite similar to this: https://jasonette.com/ (so similar i'm convinced G / I were part of this but I can't find their github ID's in it).
To briefly explain the above + what they built ... this is the worst piece of shit you can imagine ... and thats a pretty strong statement looking back at the rest of this series so far!
"I" thought this would solve all of our problems of having to build similar-ish apps for multiple customers by letting us re-use more code / UI across apps. His main solution, was every developers favourite part of writing code. I mean how often do you sit back and say:
"God damn I wish more of this development revolved around passing strings back and forth. Screw autocomplete, enums and typed classes / variables, I want more code / variables inside strings in this library!"
Yes thats right, the main part of this bullshittery was putting your entire app, into JSON, into a string and downloading it over http ... what could possibly go wrong!
Some of my issues were:
- Everything was a string, meaning we had no autocomplete. Every type and property had to be remembered and spelled perfectly.
- Everything was a string so we had no way to cmd + click / ctrl + click something to see somethings definition.
- Everything was a string so any business logic methods had to be remembered, all possible overloaded versions, no hints at param types no nothing.
- There was no specific tooling for any of this, it was literally open up xcode, create a json file and start writing strings.
- We couldn't use any of the native UI builders ... cause strings!
- We couldn't use any of the native UI layout constructs and we had to use these god awful custom layout managers, with a weird CSS feel to them.
What angered me a lot was their insistence that "You can download a new app over http and it will update instantly" ... except you can't because you can't download new business logic only UI. So its a new app, but must do 100% exactly the same thing as before.
His other achievements include:
- Deciding he didn't like apple's viewController and navigationBar classes and built his own, which was great when iOS 7 was released (changed the UI to allow drawing under the status bar) and we had no access to any of apples new code or methods, meaning everything had to be re-built from scratch.
- On my first week, my manager noticed he fucked up the login error handling on the app I was taking over. He noticed this as I was about to leave for the evening. I stayed so we could call him (he was in an earlier timezone). Rather than deal with his fucked up, he convinced the manager it would be a "great learning experience" for me to do it ... and stay in late ... while he goes home early.
- He once argued with me in front of the CEO, that his frankenstein cross-platform stuff was the right choice and that my way of using apples storyboards (and well thought out code) wasn't appropriate. So I challenged him to prove it, we got 2 clients who needed similar apps, we each did it our own way. He went 8 man weeks over, I came in 2 days under and his got slated in the app store for poor performance / issues. #result.
But rather than let it die he practically sucked off the CEO to let him improve the cross platform tooling instead.
... in that office you couldn't swing a cat without hitting a retard.
Having had to spend a lot more time working with him and more closely than most of the other nominees, at a minimum "I" is on the top of my list for needing a good punch in the face. Not for being an idiot (which he is), not for ruining so much (which he did), but for just being such an arrogant bastard about it all, despite constant failure.
Will "I" make it to most incompetent? Theres some pretty stiff competition so far
Tune in later for more practiceSafeHex's most incompetent co-worker!!!6 -
MAJOR RANT:
Bug in question: Shortened URLs (that we generate dynamically because fuck you) would have a pipe character added in them, obviously breaking the URL.
I SPENT 3.5 DAYS DEBUGGING A MASSIVE, FRANKENSTEIN-LIKE CODE BASE TO FIND THIS:
3 -
Some people just don't get object orientated programming. What kind of mental Frankenstein object is that you've created? It's part customer, part calculator and part tractor!2
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I can forgive some weirdness in generated html, but it is when generated html is combined with some plugins, and then a starting html dev who doesn't know what he's doing sprinkles some extras on top that you get frankenstein creatures like this.
6 -
I need bleach...
Lot of bleach.
When you think that not using a JS framework is bad...
Ever saw a Frankenstein of a HTML, PHP and JQuery? Full rewrite of an old project with more than enough time allowed....
Just... That was not awful enough.
*sobs* so the dev added bootstrap onto this pile of garbage... Instead of rewrite....
Think I missed CSS or included it in HTML? Lol. No.
No CSS. Inline. HTML 4 Tags.
?>
<table width=40 class="table table-striped">
<?php
foreach( $table as $row ) {
....
<input onkeyup="..." onkeydown="..." class="form-control"
...
To give you a basic example of how worse it is...
But the best. The lead developer does not understand why I was speechless.
i need more beer. And bleach. Filth and disgust must get out of my system2 -
Ok, here goes...
I was once asked to evaluate upgrade options for an online shop platform.
The thing was built on Zend 1, but that's not the problem.
The geniuses that worked on it before didn't have any clue about best practices, framework convention, modular thinking, testing, security issues...nothing!
There were some instances when querying was done using a rudimentary excuse for a model layer. Other times, they would just use raw queries and just ignore the previous method. Sometimes the database calls were made in strange function calls inside randomly loaded PHP files from different folders from all over the place. Sometimes they used JOINs to get the data from multiple tables, sometimes they would do a bunch of single table queries and just loop every data set to format it using multiple for loops.
And, best of all, there were some parts of the app that would just ignore any ideea of frameworks, conventions and all that and would be just a huge PHP file full of spagetti code just spalshed around, sometimes with no apparent logic to it. Queries, processing, HTML...everything crammed in one file...
The most amazing thing was that this code base somehow managed to function in production for more than 5 years and people actualy used it...
Imagine the reaction I got from the client the moment I said we should burn it to the ground and rebuild the whole thing from scratch...
Good thing my boss trusted me and backed me up (he is a great guy by the way) and we never had to go along with that Frankenstein monster... -
I was talking to my non-tech gf about how a colleague of mine didn't understand priority queue and show led her an example, during explanation fucked up the example and duplicated priorities of 2 values but they came up in the unexpected order. She wanted to find the logic in it and blamed the computer for being dumb, but it has been ~45 minutes, she has Wikipedia about binary trees & linked list open as well as simple graphs visualising both + armed with pen and paper trying to understand how it all all works..
Achievement Earned?
P.S I am either creating a monstrosity (Frankenstein style) or recruiting a fresh mind to our ranks, either way I am proud af 😢😊😍8 -
Contex: Working on a c++ frankenstein code (mixture of legacy and new stuff whith things depending on the client using it)
User Story: Migration from oracle to SQLite for half of the DB data
Summoner: One client wants to keep using legacy for now, therefore we need an strategy chooser templated singleton...
Satan 666 = Singletons + Static methods + Different compilation units
Result: 3/4 of the files of the full backend being modified for the migration.
Conclusion: When will be loaded on production company will probably lose many clients due to unspected bugs everywhere.
Insert potato here2 -
when your teammate finds the existing endpoint that returns what you need after you frankenstein some dumbass shit from other existing endpoints that you managed to find
fuck me1 -
My Frankenstein monster.
Scraped out of discarded parts thrown away by friends and ex's (in most cases easily fixable by changing fried parts).
It looks like shit and runs even worse, but considering that out off all the setup only mouse and keyboard are actually bought and not 8+ years old or held together with glue and hope, I'm quite fond of it.
2 -
I might create a coding course for people actually interested in learning how to program correctly (not Get Rich Quick Bootcamp style, not webapps, not magic Javascript incantations).
I have an idea on how to structure it but I worry it'll be too weird for most people to follow (starting from binary theory and then teaching machine code and then working upwards to C and beyond) explaining how a computer works along the way, showing the real errors with annotations explaining things, etc.
I've always wanted to teach in this format but I feel as though it's too.. idk, "useless" to most people? But I've never had a friend go through e.g. CodeAcademy and come out knowing how to actually make applications from start to finish without just hacking together random React components and hoping the frankenstein project works well enough.
The target demographic would be those either completely new to programming or just have a fundamental or web-centric preexisting knowledge, or maybe those who simply want to understand computers better.
Am I barking up a shitty tree?28 -
That feeling when you are browsing a job offer and they claim they use "pure PHP".
LOL nope. I won't maintain your custom framework created by five different freelancers over the past few years and turn into something that does scream Frankenstein.
At least state that it uses composer, symfony2 components or some other microframework. I have yet to see an application that truly requires your own framework. And even when you do, base it on silex / symfony2 components. http://symfony.com/doc/current/...1 -
Why the hell the mutant-frankenstein language known as Javascript even exists?
Why back in the day couldn't they use an existing language's syntax for interacting with the web, Like Android did with Java?
Don't get me wrong, I like using js. But it has too many weird inconsistent parts which feel very quirky. Even more than Python.6 -
Ever come back from a small vacation and arrived to see that the rest of the team had butchered your baby and were trying to stitch it back together, but only succeeded in making it worse?
Feels just like that right now. Fucking hell. I gave them a linter, a prettier config file and pre-made shortcuts to run. Still looks like Dr. Frankenstein was drunk while stitching and overvolted the machine, so now the bloody monster is also on fire. This will be a fun week 🙃1 -
tfw you have matured enough as a developer to look at old legacy code (some of which you contributed to) from a hacked together UI Frankenstein kludge and immediately you notice all the security flaws.
How fortunate there is strong query param validation going on...otherwise this would be a veritable shit storm. -
Windows used to run windows
Then Windows learned to run linux
Then windows learned to run android
// TODO learn to run macos
// TODO learn to run ios
Isn't windows becoming a Frankenstein?8 -
I can't wait until I feel like Dr. Frankenstein when I build my PC this week. My first real computing rig!!
Some backstory: My main dev machine is my old Lenovo laptop running Ubuntu (my baby). I took Windows off of it when I got a Surface through a job and have been using that for Windows specific work. I'm going to be giving that to my little sister next time I travel home. In short, this is the first computer that will be able to cut through anything I throw at it and play games that aren't at least 6 years old.
The build is centered around an i5-8400 and gtx 1060 6GB, and I'll be running Windows as a primary OS for gaming. However, I fell in love with programming on Linux and there is no way Linux won't be on my machine. I understand the differences between dual-booting and virtualization, but I want to hear how you guys run Linux on your Windows gaming machines or if you go about it another way. I also have heard horror stories about drivers for Linux, and wonder if my graphics card being certified by Ubuntu LTS actually means that it will operate correctly. I have also only ran VMs on crappy computers so I haven't had any experiences where that performed better than dual-booting. I'd love some feedback or to hear about all of your setups, as hardware has never been my strong suit.
I'll post a pic of my setup when it's done too.4 -
I had a colleague, who built a bunch of smaller systems for the company I'm working in. He didn't want to waste his time building a "perfect" system (which I generally agree with, the question is just where to draw the line).
But because it took him so long to build the prototype, usually it went into production without being hardened (like basic input validations were missing. It wouldn't allow anything malicious, but instead of a validatiom error it'd just 500).
When he left, literally less then a week later, one of his systems, which was a prototype and nobody except him could maintain, because it was done in a fancy new technology, which wasn't even v1 at that time and their documentation said, it's production ready when we release v1. Anyway, that one system started crashing just few days after him leaving. Another Dev and me tried to fix it, but every time we touched it, it just got worse.
At some point, we gave up and just configured a cron job to reboot it every 12h. He could have probably fixed it, but to us it was just black magic.
Anyhow, this rent isn't about him, AFAIK all the systems still working, as long as you provide the correct input. Nor is it about the management decisions, which lead to this Frankenstein service on live support, which we had to increase, to be restarted every 8 hours, 6h, 4h, 3h, .....
It's about the service itself, which I'm looking forward to every day, when the rewrite will be done and I can nuke the whole git repository.
I was even thinking about moving all the related files onto a USB stick and putting that on 🔥, once we're done rewriting it....
Maybe next month or in 2. Hopefully before we'll have to configure the cron job to restart the service every couple minutes.... -
I am having an introspective moment as a junior dev.
I am working in my 3rd company now and have spent the avg amount of time i would spent in a company ( 1- 1.5 years)
I find myself in similar problems and trajectories:
1. The companies i worked for were startups of various scales : an edtech platform, an insurance company (branch of an mnc) and a b2b analytics company
2. These people hire developers based on domain knowledge and not innovative thinking , and expect them to build anything that the PMs deem as growth/engagement worthy ( For eg, i am bad at those memory time optimising programming/ ds/algo, but i can make any kind of android screen/component, so me and people like me get hired here)
3. These people hire new PMs based on expertise in revenue generation and again , not on the basis of innovative thinking, coz most of the time these folks make tickets to experiment with buttons and text colors to increase engagement/growth
4. The system goes into chaos mode soon since their are so many cross operating teams and the PMs running around trying to boss every dev , qa and designer to add their changes in the app.
5. meanwhile due to multiple different teams working on different aspects, their is no common data center with up to date info of all flows, products and features. the product soon becomes a Frankenstein monster.
6. Thus these companies require more and more devs and QAs which are cogs in the system then innovative thinkers . the cogs in the system will simply come, dimwittingly add whatever feature is needed and goto home.
7. the cogs in system which also start taking the pain of tracking the changes and learning about the product itself becomes "load bearing cogs" : i.e the devs with so much knowledge of the product that they can be helpful in every aspect of feature lifecycle .
8. such devs find themselves in no need for proving themselves , in no need for doing innovative work and are simply promoted based on their domain knowledge and impact.
My question is simply this : are we as a dev just destined to be load bearing cogs?
we are doing the work which ideally a manager should be doing, ie maintaining confluence docs with end to end technical as well as business logic info of every feature/flow.
So is that the only definition of a Software Engineer in a technical product?
then how come innovations happen in companies like meta Microsoft google open ai etc?
if i have to guess as a far observer, i would say their diversity in different fields helps them mix and match stuff and lead to innovative stuff.
For eg, the android os team in google has helped add many innovative things in google cloud product and vice versa.
same is with azure and windows . windows is now optomissed to run in cloud machines when at one point it was just a horrible memory hogging and slow pc OS
for small companies, 1 ideology/product/domain is their hero ideology/product/domain .
an insurance company tries to experiment with stuff related to insurances,health,vehicles,and the best innovations they come up with is "lets give user a discount in premium if they do 5000 steps a day for an year".
edtech would say "lets do live streaming for children apart from static videos"
but Android team at google said , "since ai team is doing so well, lets include ai in various system apps and support device level models" ~ a much larger innovation as 2 domains combined to make a product
The small companies are not aiming to be an innovative product, they are just aiming to be a monopoly product. and this is kinda sad2 -
I am legit getting tired of trying to help people improve and hit huge roadblocks because nobody seem to care if what we do works for the intended purpose.
I have seen some terrible unstable code that fails 50% of the time on run time and never was reviewed or tested on core software, but since it was worth a lot of story points, people get congratulated for finishing it but nobody bothers checking if it really works in the first place. Story points are meaningless in this Agilefall Frankenstein shit process we use and bosses keep saying they will improve it but nothing gets done.
Worst thing is my work often depends on this shit.
I swear one of my good colleague and I are trying to introduce commit and PR gating, code review, code quality to avoid as much problems as possible while speeding up CI and documentation but 90% of devs do not give a single fuck about it. They just bypass it with admin rights because it supposedly slows them down.
When I bring up to management that the processes are terrible, I get the classic "we can't force people to use these processes because we have to respect their work ethics and it is different from yours." While I get that some things are subjective, in this case that's a lot of words to say they suck and give no fucks.
Sorry for the rant, it is starting affect my morale and efficiency at work, but I know every workplace got its problems.2 -
Just got an email that Datree is closing shop. That's too bad, I considered it a mandatory production k8s tool.
I guess I'll have to whip up some Frankenstein replacement with Open Policy Agent...
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