Manager: How come the push to prod didn’t happen?

Dev: We told you at the scrum yesterday. To reiterate, our dev environment was crashing so it’s not safe to push to prod until that is fixed.

Manager: Ok well lets set a goal to fix that and push to prod happens today so that it guaranteed happens.

Dev: That was our goal yesterday and it definitely didn’t happen.

Manager: I AM AWARE OF THAT. The corrective action is that this time compliance with the goal is 100% ABSOLUTELY MANDATORY!!

Dev: We’ll do our best, can’t guarantee anything until we figure out what the nature of what is occurring on dev though.

Manager: NO. I AM THE BOSS. YOU WILL 100% ABSOLUTELY COMPLY WITH THIS. THAT IS AN ORDER. YOU WILL SUCCESSFULLY GET THIS UPDATE OUT TO PROD TODAY. ANYTHING LESS THAN THAT SHALL BE CONSIDERED INSUBORDINATION. I WANT STATUS UPDATES EVERY 15 MINUTES ON WHERE WE ARE AT WITH THIS.

Dev: …

Dev: Can I get you to send me that request in an email?

*Manager leaves the meeting*

// *****************************

Job search is ticking along. It’s tough going though because I currently make ~120k and the best offers I’ve received so far are all ~70k because “You only have 2 years experience so you couldn’t possibly have the skills to be worth 120k. You are are junior level developer and 70K is already overpaying for you. We can pay you more later™. No we will not give you that in writing”. Ah well, the hunt continues.

From my work -as an IT consultant in one of the big 4- I can now show you my masterpiece

INSIGHTS FROM THE DAILY LIFE OF A FUNCTIONAL ANALIST IN A BIG 4 -I'M NOT A FUNCTIONAL ANALYST BUT THAT'S WHAT THEY DO-

- 10:30, enter the office. By contract you should be there at 9:00 but nobody gives a shit
- First task of the day: prepare the power point for the client. DURATION: 15 minutes to actually make the powerpoint, 45 minutes to search all the possible synonyms of RESILIENCE BIG DATA AGILE INTELLIGENT AUTOMATION MACHINE LEARNING SHIT PISS CUM, 1 hour to actually present the document.
- 12:30: Sniff the powder left by the chalks on the blackboards. Duration: 30 minutes, that's a lot of chalk you need to snort.

13:00, LUNCH TIME. You get back to work not one minute sooner than 15.00

- 15:00, conference with the HR. You need to carefully analyze the quantity and quality of the farts emitted in the office for 2 hours at least
- 17:00 conference call, a project you were assigned to half a day ago has a server down.
The client sent two managers, three senior Java developers, the CEO, 5 employees -they know logs and mails from the last 5 months line by line-, 4 lawyers and a beheading teacher from ISIS.
On your side there are 3 external ucraininans for the maintenance, successors of the 3 (already dead) developers who put the process in place 4 years ago according to God knows which specifications. They don't understand a word of what is being said.
Then there's the assistant of the assistant of a manager from another project that has nothing to do with this one, a feces officer, a sys admin who is going to watch porn for the whole conference call and won't listen a word, two interns to make up a number and look like you're prepared. Current objective: survive. Duration: 2 hours and a half.
- 19:30, snort some more chalk for half an hour, preparing for the mail in which you explain the associate partner how because of the aforementioned conference call we're going to lose a maintenance contract worth 20 grands per month (and a law proceeding worth a number of dollars you can't even read) and you have no idea how could this happen
- 20:00, timesheet! Compile the weekly report, write what you did and how long did it take for each task. You are allowed to compile 8 hours per day, you worked at least 11 but nobody gives a shit. Duration: 30 minutes
- 20:30, update your consultant! Training course, "tasting cum and presenting its organoleptic properties to a client". Bearing with your job: none at all. Duration: 90 minutes, then there's half an hour of evaluating test where you'll copy the answers from a sheet given to you by a colleague who left 6 months ago.
- 22:30, CHANCE CARD! You have a new mail from the HR: you asked for a refund for a 3$ sandwich, but the receipt isn't there and they realized it with a 9 months delay. You need to find that wicked piece of paper. DURATION: 30 minutes. The receipt most likely doesn't even exist anymore and will be taken directly from your next salary.
- 23:00 you receive a message on Teams. It's the intern. It's very late but you're online and have to answer. There's an exception on a process which have been running for 6 years with no problems and nobody ever touches. The intern doesn't know what to do, but you wrote the specifications for the thing, 6 years ago, and everything MUST run tonight. You are not a technician and have no fucking clue about anyhing at all. 30 minutes to make sure it's something on our side and not on the client side, and in all that the intern is as useful as a confetto to wipe your ass. Once you're sure it's something on our side you need to search for the senior dev who received the maintenance of the project, call him and solve the problem.
It turns out a file in a shared folder nobody ever touches was unreachable 'cause one of your libraries left it open during the last run and Excel shown a warning modal while opening it; your project didn't like this last thing one bit. It takes 90 minutes to find the root of the problem, you solve it by rebooting one of your machines. It's 01:00.

You shower, watch yourself on the mirror and search for the line where your forehead ends and your hair starts. It got a little bit back from yesterday; the change can't be seen with the naked eye but you know it's there.

You cry yourself to sleep. Tomorrow is another day, but it's going to be exactly like today.

Today the IT deparment update the firewall's configuration, they blocked almost every website except email and Google.
The problems:
- Blocked some systems outside the organization, there are in another building and also network
- I can search on Google but I can't see the results outside Google
- Forget about download depencies, libraries, deploy code to outside services, search at StackOverflow

I JUST WANNA SAY GOOD JOB, GUYS

PS: The firewall also block the SSH port, I had explained to my boss and he sent a request for allowing the port, so far no answer

Recently started at a new job. Things were going fine, getting along with everyone, everything seems good and running smoothly, a few odd things here and there but for the most part fine.

Then I decided to take a look at our (public facing) website... What's this? Outdated plugins from 2013? Okay, that's an easy fix I guess? All of these are free and the way we're using them wouldn't require a lot of refactoring...

Apparently not. Apparently, we can't even update them ourselves, we have to request that an external company does it (which we pay, by the way, SHITELOADS of money to). A week goes past, and we finally get a response.

No, we won't update it, you'll have to pay for it. Doesn't matter that there's a CVE list a bloody mile long and straight up no input validation in several areas, doesn't matter that tens of thousands of users are at risk, pay us or it stays broken. Boggles the fuckin' mind.

I dug into it a bit more than I probably should have (didn't break no laws though I'm not a complete dumbass, I just work for em) and it turns out it's not just us getting fucked over, it's literally EVERYONE using their service which is the vast majority of people within the industry in my country. It also turns out that the entirety of our region is running off a single bloody IP which if you do a quick search on shodan for, you guessed it, also has a CVE list pop up a fuckin' mile long. Don't get me started on password security (there is none). I hate this, there's fucking nothing I can do and everyone else is just fine sitting on their hands because "nobody would target us because we're not a bank!!", as if it bloody matters and as if peoples names, addresses, phone numbers and assuming someone got into our actual database, which wouldn't be a fuckin' stretch of the imagination let me tell you, far more personal details, that these aren't enticing to anyone.

What would you do in my situation?
What can I even do?
I don't want to piss anyone senior off but honestly, I'm thinkin' they might deserve it. I mean yeah there's nothing we can do but at least make a fuss 'cause they ain't gunna listen to my green ass.

Fuck this
I get to work with API where you CAN authenticate with username/password and get a token

But you CAN'T get user info from token (auth response contains ONLY token)

So what I have to do:

1. Get token

2. Request ALL FUCKING USERS and load them into my DB

3. Search through local DB by username and, yeah, here I go

Now I need to have a cron job to update user DB 1/2 times per day

I can't think of ANY reason not to allow this

Just finished a rant about rererereinstalling windows (sorry, in a ranty mood), and now I have another reason to rant. Not the 10 new and exciting bloatware apps. Again. Lovely. No, this rant is about Edge.
You know, the new browser Microsoft is soo excited about (or was when it came out)? Just found out that it won't connect to Googles links to download chrome (tried 4-5). Because, you know, I might need to develop something. Incredible. That's some pretty high level *insertSpecialWords* from the Microsoft Edge team. "uhhhhh so your Highness, sir customer destructinator sir, our browser isn't that great. Everyone is still using chrome."
"how about we stop them from downloading that freaking amazing browser. That should stump them."
"wonderful sir! Amazing. We'll implement that straight away."
>:(
There's even a try this list of "suggestions" to fix this "problem". Including:
> Make sure you've got the right web address.
And my personal favorite, is less subtle:
>search for what you want!
Umm, I did. And then you blocked me from doing the one thing that I would realistically use this browser for. Aaand after the windows 10 forced update debacle, I'm not feeling especially "friendly" towards windows' "suggestions".
No worries though. I installed Firefox (not blocked) just to install chrome. Great job Microsoft.
10/10

Received feedback on a task I made for a job interview (I didn't get a technical interview).

The task was easy with nothing special about it that made me think if that's what the job is like, I don't want to work there. It was a simple web page with search functionality. I did the task anyway.

The feedback I got was useless. It said that I made a complex and an over-engineered solution.
What I made, mind you, was a one endpoint API and a single Vue.js component instead of using jQuery to update the results. That's it. OVER-ENGINEERED!

Complete waste of time.

I started working at my company a year ago.
Back then I was just graduating from sofware engineering degree.
The position was Junior Web Dev, But actually it is full stack developer.
When I joined I wanted salary X (because I "got offers"), which was a bit above what big companies like Intel gives to graduates back then.
The offered back 80% of it, which was a bit more than was most graduates got in startups.
I settled on their offer and we agreed that after a year I'll get the raise if I'll do good.

A year passed.
The team leader left for a bigger company, and I became the unofficial team leader (and was always the scrum master )
Bare in mind that there are two developers that are in the company for 2-3 years, yet I got the unofficial roll.

We had the talk, and my manager asked me straight away "under what salary would you start to search other jobs? We want to keep you here"
I said that under my initial X salary that we agreed a year ago.
He claimed to have forgotten that we agreed on 20% raise.
I answered that it's the least I ask, beneath it and I'll start looking for another job.

He replied that he'll do his best to make the owner give me that.

A week passed and I got no update....

What should I do in your opinion?

Recently I have updated my lubuntu to 18.04.
I don't use it regularly but I like to have it on the side of my window 10.
Anyway today I boot and decide to use it and get this error.
[0.000000] [Firmware Bug]: TSC_DEADLINE disabled du to errata; please update microcode to version 0x22 (or later)
and two MMIO read fault.

At first it sounds really dramatic and I was thinking, "Nice ... I never get a problem with Windows Update and when its Linux it doesn't work ..."

But lubuntu boots normally after so it's not a blocking problem.

So I do what most of us do in case like this, go to Google and search to know what the hell is going on.

And the answer is simple, my CPU microcode isn't up to date to prevent Spectre, one apt get install and a reboot later my 4700HQ is patched in 0x24 version and protected for Spectre where my windows didn't patch anything and worst disable the KB that I have installed manually before the last big update.

So thanks Linux, you scared me with your error but it was a good job to throw it :)

!rant - it's a THANK YOU!

Had the problem so far that I could not start some apps in docker containers with GPU support (e. g. Chromium).

After a long search and a lot of help from the community, today's update of xf86-video-ati (1:7.8.0-2 -> 1:7.10.0-1) has finally fixed the bug. Yay!

Thank you very much Arch Linux and all the great maintainers. You're doing an awesome job.

Before get get source code for freelance job, the person who cantact me say the job is to continue the project for some update and tweak.

The UI from design is beautiful and he gave good explaination for the project and the update, continue to conversarion, negosiation and deal.

but he is not the IT guy and also the project is not his work or something that he do previosly. All the person who work on that project is already leave and not contactable.

And here that I get:
- source code
- domain cred.

And here what's missing:
- documentation
- .env file
- db backup / old db cred.
- server and hosting cred.

And after some hour of learning the code I find out that:
- latest commit was 2 year ago and different from production version.
- most of the branch is RnD.
- the code have many wtf/minute lol

And for now I still re-negotiate with the person who give me the project with 2 suggestion from me.
- continue with this code with condition, he need to search for the missing part at least backup db or documentation.
- recreate the project with more time

And here's one funny part of the code.
randomNumber(){
return 5 // this number was choose by dev team at random
}

Need advice about switching to contracting.

TL;DR;

So I had 2 years of exp as an android dev, then I had a 1.5 year gap from doing android and now for the past 6 months Ive been doing android again fulltime. Im thinking of switching to contracting due to my debts and boring project and life crushing slow corporate processes in my current fulltime job, so I need tips and advices as to where should I start looking for new contracting gigs and in general what should I pay attention to. If it helps, I am based in EU, but am open to any EU/US gigs.

Now the full story:

Initially when I joined my current fulltime job after a break I had zero confidence, lowered my and employers expectations, joined as a junior but quickly picked up the latest standards and crushed it. Im doing better than half devs in my scrum team right now and would consider myself to be a mid level right now.

Asked for a 50% bump, manager kinda okayed it but the HQ overseas is taking a very long time to give me the actual bump. I have been waiting for 10 weeks already (lots of people in the decision chain were on and off vacations due to summer, also I guess manager sent this request to HQ too late, go figure). Anyways its becoming unnaceptable and I feel like its time for a change.

Now since I have mortgage and bills to pay, even with the bump that I requested that would leave me with like maximum 700-800 bucks a month after all expenses. I have debts of around 20k and paying them back at this rate would take 3 years at least and sounds like a not viable plan at all.

Also it does not help that the project Im working on is full of legacy and Im not learning anything new here. Corporate life seems to be very slow, lots of red tape kills creativity and so on. I remember in startups I was cooking features left and right each sprint, in here deploying a simple popup feature sometimes takes weeks due to incompetence in the chain. I miss the times where I worked in startups, did my job learned nre skills and after 6 months could jump on another exciting gig. Im not growing here anymore.

So because my ADD brain seems to be suited much better for working in startups, and also I need to make more money quick and I dont see a future in current company, I am thinking of going back to contracting. All I need right now is to build a few side apps, get them reviewed by seniors and fill my knowledge gaps. Then I plan of starting interviewing as a mid level or even a senior for that matter, since I worked with actual seniors and to be honest I dont think getting up to their level would be rocket science.

Only difference between mid and senior devs that I see atleast in my current company is that seniors are taking on responsibility more often, and they also take care of our tools, such as CD/CI, pipeline scripts, linters and etc. Usually seniors are the ones who do the research/investigations and then come up with actual tasks/stories for mids/juniors. Also seniors introduce new dependencies and update our stack, solve some performance issues and address bottlenecks and technical debt. I dont think its rocket science, also Ive been the sole dev responsible for apps in the past and always did decent work. Turns out all I needed was to test myself in an environment full of other devs, thats it. My only bottleneck was the imposter syndrome because I was a self taught dev who worked most of my career alone.

Anyways I posted here asking for some tips and advices on how to begin my search for new contract opportunities. I am living in EU, can you give me some decent sites where I could just start applying? Also I would appreciate any other tips opinions and feedback. Thanks!

#Suphle Rant 1: Laravel closing the gap

This is the first of a series of long overdue rants regarding Suphle, because I have had so so much to grumble about over the last ~2 years building it. A bit of introduction: I compiled a list of all the challenges I faced in my time as a salaried PHP developer. I also gathered issues complained about by other developers in a laravel group I'm part of, and decided to solve them at the framework level since they're avoidable. I also borrowed impressive features encountered in my time working with other languages and invented a new one, as well. I quit my job last July, still haven't get a new one yet cuz office workload kept conflicting with Suphle development. I concluded all work and testing on it back in August/September but it's yet to be officially released since the docs is still in progress.

Anyway, yesterday, I stumbled upon what is IMO the most progressive /tangible update I've seen in all my time following Laravel updates. It's called [precognition](don't have enough rep to post the PR link but you can search on their repo), and contains features that are actually beneficial to both developer and end user. It also turns out to be functionality that was part of Suphle's bragging rights. Their DX is still tacky but I'm devastated cuz it's a matter of time before they work it out. Makes me wonder what the quality of all I've built would be in a year if it doesn't become big enough to attract frequent contribution. I guess there's only so much one can do against a community.

Later that evening, I found a developer from my country on twitter who claims to be making a decent living. A little snooping around his profile informed me he's building his own back end framework but in NodeJS. I know with every degree of certainty that what he'll eventually do can't hold a candle against Suphle in overall functionality or thoroughness. Not a dick measuring contest but when your motive isn't significant innovation, you'll neither plan properly nor even know what exactly to build. You'll just reinvent the wheel as an academic exercise

Yet, I can't help but have that sinking feeling he's winging it, while making a windfall with his dozens of freelance projects. It kind of feels like I shortchanged myself, and Suphle's shelf life will suffer the same fate as a hobby project for 10 stars (which I don't even have yet!!). I reached out to him to rub minds together but he ignored. More pain.

I'll get over this and return to work on the docs, but from the look of things, the end isn't an appealing or expected /deserved one