Things have been a little too quiet on my side here, so its time for an exciting new series:

practiseSafeHex's new life as a manager.

Episode 1: Dealing with the new backend team

It's great to be back folks. Since our last series where we delved into the mind numbing idiocy of former colleagues, a lot has changed. I've moved to a new company and taken a step up as a Dev manager / Tech lead. Now I know what you are all thinking, sounds more dull and boring right? Well it wouldn't be a practiseSafeHex series if we weren't ...

<audience-shouting>
DEALING! ... WITH! ... IDIOTS!
</audience-shouting>

Bingo! so lets jump right in and kick us off with a good one.

So for the past few months i've been on an on-boarding / fact finding / figuring out this shit-storm, mission to understand more about what it is i'm suppose to do and how to do it. Last week, as part of this, I had the esteemed pleasure of meeting face to face with the remote backend team i've been working with. Lets rattle off a few facts to catch us all up:

- 8 hour time difference to me
- No documentation other than a non-maintained swagger doc
- Swagger is reporting errors and several of the input models are just `Type: String`
- The one model that seems accurate, has every property listed as optional, including what must be the primary key
- Properties go missing and get removed at the drop of a hat and we are never told.
- First email I sent them took 27 days to reply, my response to that hasn't been answered so far 31 days later (new record! way to go team, I knew we could do it!!!)
- I deal directly with 2 of them, the manager and the tech lead. Based on how things have gone so far, i've nick named them:
1) Ass
2) Hole

So lets look at some example of their work:

- I was trying to test the new backend, I saw no data in QA. They said it wouldn't show up until mid day their time, which is middle of the night for us. I said we need data in our timezone and I was told: a) "You don't understand how big this system is" (which is their new catch phrase) b) "Your timezone is not my concern"

- The whole org started testing 2 days later. The next day a member from each team was on a call and I was asked to give an update of how the testing was going on the mobile side. I said I was completely blocked because I can't get test data. Backend were asked to respond. They acknowledged they were aware, but that mobile don't understand how big the system is, and that the mobile team need to come up with ideas for the backend team, as to how mobile can test it. I said we can't do anything without test data, they said ... can you guess what? ... correct "you don't understand how big the system is"

- We eventually got something going and I noticed that only 1 of the 5 API changes due on their side was done. Opened tickets. 2 days later asked them for progress and was told that "new findings" always go to the bottom of the backlog, and they are busy with other things. I said these were suppose to be done days ago. They said you can't give us 2 days notice and expect everything done. I said the original ticket was opened a month a go *sends link* ......... *long silence* ...... "ok, but you don't understand how big the system is, this is a lot of work"

- We were on a call. Product was asking the backend manager (aka "Ass") a question about a slight upgrade to the new feature. While trying to talk, the tech lead (aka "Hole") kept cutting everyone off by saying loudly "but thats not in scope". The question was "is this possible in the future" and "how long would it take", coming from management and product development. Hole just kept saying "its not in scope", until he was told to be quiet by several people.

- An API was sending down JSON with a string containing a message for the user with 2 bits of data inside it. We asked for one of those pieces to also come down as a property as the string can change and we needed it client side. We got that. A few days later we found an edge case and asked for the second piece of data to be a property too. Now keep in mind, they clearly already have access to them in order to make the string. We were told "If you keep requesting changes like this, you are going to delay the release of the backend by up to 2 weeks"

Yes folks, there you have it, the most minuscule JSON modifications, can delay your release by up to 2 weeks ........ maybe I should just tell product, that they don't understand how big the app is, and claim we can't build it on our side? Seems to work for them

Thats all the time we have for today,

Tune in for more, where we'll be looking into such topics as:

- If god himself was an iOS developer ... not
- Why automate when you can spend all day doing it by hand
- Its more time-efficient to just give everything a story point of 5
- Why waste time replying to emails ... when you can do nothing instead

See you all next week,
practiseSafeHex

Yesterday's (scheduled and adhoc) meetings:
10:30-11:00
11:00-11:30
12:30-1:30 (adhoc)
1:30-2:30
4:30-5:00
6:00-6:20 (adhoc)

Today's (scheduled) meetings:
9:30-10:00
11:00-12:00
12:30-1:15
1:30-2:30

Tomorrow's meetings include a 1:1 with my boss who will invariably ask why I'm not done on this "should take a week" project that I've had for a week, despite that he just unblocked me on yesterday morning, and I've had nothing but meetings since...

Fucking hell.
They fill my day with shit spaced out just enough to waste practically my entire freaking day so I can't get anything done, conveniently forget this, and then have the audacity to yell at me for not finishing my tickets. Of course I didn't finish! You all were too busy blabbing at me every day for the past fucking week! (Oh, and do they listen if I have something to say? Of course they fucking don't.)

Also, as a secondary rant, the product douchebag files tickets (usually complex as hell tickets worded to appear trivial) with enough missing information to make missing large sections of them easy. If I ask him for clarification, he tells me to read the ticket, and if I insist, he gets all exasperated and quickly zooms through the site faster than I can follow, shows maybe half of what's in the ticket, and asks why I don't know how to do any of this yet. After I finish his shit ticket (and true to his douchebag nature) he blames me for missing several of those pieces he never outlined or showed, and insists that I obviously don't test anything. And because that's clearly not douchey enough, the fucking sack of shit also goes behind my back and trashtalks me to my coworkers, tells them he can't trust me to do a simple fucking thing, and that he's given up on me.

What the FUCK is wrong with these people?

Had a meeting with my boss earlier. Got yelled at for:
a) Working on a high-priority, externally-committed ticket (digit separators) that i was 85% done with on the Friday afternoon before my vacation instead of jumping to a lower-priority screwdriver ticket that just came in. Even though my boss agreed with me that what I did was exactly what I should have done, it's still bad because I was apparently rude to product by not doing as they asked?
b) Taking too long on that digit separator ticket that amounts to following a gigantic mess of convoluted spaghetti and making a few small changes, and making sure it doesn't break the world because it's all so fucking convoluted and fragile as hell. Let's not even mention my 4-10 hours of mandatory useless meetings every week.
c) Missing something that wasn't even listed in that same ticket -- somehow my fault? -- so I very obviously didn't test my work. Even though specs all passed and QA also tested and signed off on it as working and complete. Clearly half-assed and untested. Product keeps promising/planning UATs and then skipping them, and then has the audacity to complain about it.
d) Not recovering fast enough from burnout and daily mental breakdowns. I can still barely get out of bed and you want me to be super productive? Got it. Guess what? I'm being amazingly productive for my mental health. But my boss, Mr. Happy-go-lucky, thinks depression is dropping your icecream cone on your clean kitchen table, and this three-ton pile of spaghetti is "maybe a little messy, I guess."

So I need to somehow "regain the confidence" of both him and product because I'm taking awhile on difficult tickets (surprise), while having these ridiculous breakdowns (surprise), and because I don't fix things that aren't even listed in the fucking tickets (fucking surprise) -- and worse, that the lack of information is somehow entirely. my. fault. (surprise fucking surprise)

GOD I HATE THESE PEOPLE.

I'm freelancing and there was a guy who needed help with JavaFX. He gave me code only to his view class so I don't steal the rest... It was around 5k lines and it was full of compilation errors because of missing classes. While checking the code I realised something is really wrong with his model classes. So I asked maybe he could send me this one model class that was suspicious. So he did and it was around 10k lines long and had around 200 fields... ALL OF THEM FUCKING STRINGS except 3. You know what the rest of 3 were? 2 Lists of strings and a boolean... It was his "main" model class, he was using it for everything. It had setters for all fields and empty default constructor, so he would just instantiate the object and would set the fields that he wanted to use. Need new functionality? Just add 5more String fields and set them!

Someone, anyone, please tell me how is this entry level???

Maybe I'm missing something here.... 😵

Soooo it's Monday........ 🤯

@C0D4 started the day fixing current projects defects (4 tickets smashed before coffee 💪)

Then after coffee, run a test coverage report and see a significant decline over the past few months, so spends a couple hours adding more tests to get some areas filled in - meh, nothing like 50+ lines per test... to test a if() statement but whatever - complex scenarios will be complex to get too, but no my tests break and I'm missing data I didn't know about🤦‍♂️
So let's comment all that out, and go to lunch ... mmmm lunch.

Get back, start working on those again, and then get handed a new issue, so comment that all back out again, ( ok I know what you're thinking, but I'm working in an environment that does not use git for deployments - don't ask, real pain in the ass I haven't had time to invest into yet - but as code versioning only) anywho, starts to workout this new issue but don't figure it out, enter a 30 minute meeting.................. yea that was 2 hours later but was a very practical whiteboard session only to work out I have something like 16-20 weeks of work over 4-5 projects to get out in like 6 weeks... hahahahahahaha fml..... oh and that's excluding another project which had a 6 weeks of work in the pipeline to get to somehow.... I'm not seeing this one happening, and probably conflicting projects needed on top of that down the track... but we'll leave those out for now!

Whoot is fucking home time!!!

🤷‍♂️I'm starting to think I'm like a team of 5-10 devs right now, maybe I should start asking for 5-10x more 😏

#letsBringOnTuesday!!!!

Raging here, overheating really. One spends thousands on technology that is promoted with the catch phrase "it just works", yet here I am, after updating my fancy new emoji maker (iphone x) to 11.2 and then attempt to carry on working by compiling my code to test some new features. And...

oh, whats this xCode? You have a problem? You can't locate something? You can't locate iOS 11.2 (15C114)... sorry and you think that this "May not" be supported in current version of Xcode?

Let me get this straight you advanced piece of technological wizardy, you know you are missing something, you in fact know what it is, you can actually TELL me what is missing and yet, still, in 2017, you can't go FETCH it?????

Really? All you can do is sit, with that stupid look on your face, and watch the paint dry? Your stuck? That's it?

I hate you for the false pretense of advanced capability. and for your lack of a consistent dark theme so my eyes stop bleeding when reading your "I don't know what to do" messages...

By the way, maybe you can stop randomly crashing, or pinwheeling, I get that your bored as a machine designed to crunch numbers/data/code all day long and that for fun you feel you have to add some color to your subsitance. But stop it. Do what I'm told you can do, "JUST WORK" for once without me having to drag you forward kicking and screaming.

K. that feels better. Now for some whiskey.

Why is every company so BAD at working with spaces in passwords? Just trying to setup Hulu on my PS4, apparently I forgot my password? No, my password had a space in it. So maybe Hulu's just one of those companies that doesn't allow spaces in passwords? Wait no, I can log in with no problems on my Switch or PC with the space. It's just SPECIFICALLY the PS4 app that doesn't allow spaces. Cool cool cool.

Like, am I missing something? Is there some reason it's harder to hash than other characters? It's just an ASCII character, it's not like I'm copy/pasting in some fringe unicode shit. Some companies straight up ban it. Some like Amazon don't recognize it as a special character, while demanding I use a special character. Why is this so terrible?

I didn't leave, I just got busy working 60 hour weeks in between studying.

I found a new method called matrix decomposition (not the known method of the same name).

Premise is that you break a semiprime down into its component numbers and magnitudes, lets say 697 for example. It becomes 600, 90, and 7.

Then you break each of those down into their prime factorizations (with exponents).
So you get something like

>>> decon(697)
offset: 3, exp: [[Decimal('2'), Decimal('3')], [Decimal('3'), Decimal('1')], [Decimal('5'), Decimal('2')]]
offset: 2, exp: [[Decimal('2'), Decimal('1')], [Decimal('3'), Decimal('2')], [Decimal('5'), Decimal('1')]]
offset: 1, exp: [[Decimal('7'), Decimal('1')]]

And it turns out that in larger numbers there are distinct patterns that act as maps at each offset (or magnitude) of the product, mapping to the respective magnitudes and digits of the factors.

For example I can pretty reliably predict from a product, where the '8's are in its factors.

Apparently theres a whole host of rules like this.
So what I've done is gone an started writing an interpreter with some pseudo-assembly I defined. This has been ongoing for maybe a month, and I've had very little time to work on it in between at my job (which I'm about to be late for here if I don't start getting ready, lol).

Anyway, long and the short of it, the plan is to generate a large data set of primes and their products, and then write a rules engine to generate sets of my custom assembly language, and then fitness test and validate them, winnowing what doesn't work.

The end product should be a function that lets me map from the digits of a product to all the digits of its factors.

It technically already works, like I've printed out a ton of products and eyeballed patterns to derive custom rules, its just not the complete set yet. And instead of spending months or years doing that I'm just gonna finish the system to automatically derive them for me. The rules I found so far have tested out successfully every time, and whether or not the engine finds those will be the test case for if the broader system is viable, but everything looks legit.

I wouldn't have persued this except when I realized the production of semiprimes *must* be non-eularian (long story), it occured to me that there must be rich internal representations mapping products to factors, that we were simply missing.

I'll go into more details in a later post, maybe not today, because I'm working till close tonight (won't be back till 3 am), but after 4 1/2 years the work is bearing fruit.

Also, its good to see you all again. I fucking missed you guys.

Stories from Gary #000

Short background info:
So I'm working as a game dev for 3 years now and by now I can say that I've seen some shit. Mostly because of one of our game designers, let's call him Gary.

So Gary, from here on called GDG (Game Designer Gary), is a regular game designer (GD). His job is to come up with new game ideas, commission the assets, make sure that translations are done, etc. - simply put, he has to get a lot of shit together before we can start working on a new game.

Would be no problem at all if GDG wasn't lazy as shit and would work for once in his life. No dev really wants to work with him anymore, since he's known for calling a game or any issue "ready for development" even if half the assets or specs are still missing.

Let's move on to a particular situation that happened a couple of months ago.

I had an issue assigned to me, which was about implementing the translations for a new game. As I read the issue and checked if everything I needed was given, I noticed that the most important part was in fact missing - the keywords for the translations.

-.-

So, I called GDG and asked where I could find the keywords, to which he responded "Oh, I'm working on them right now... and by the way I got a weird bug with the translation program. Can you come check it out?". Sigh. I went over to his office, rambling about how I should be able to help him with a program I rarely use and which was written ages ago.
As soon as GDG saw me coming roundbthe corner, he started explaining how the keywords aren't ready yet, since the program to create translations and their keywords won't let him name a translation.

"I can create new translations, but I can't assign a keyword to them."
"Okay, show me what you did", I told him, eager to leave.
He started to type the keyword, which turned out to be huge ass long and immediately I noticed a little counter, like "x/50", directly beneath the text field started to count up with every new character GDG typed. See where I'm going with this? HE WASNT ABLE TO RENAME A TRANSLATION BECAUSE HE WAS TOO LAZY TO FUCKING READ AND CONCENTRATE FOR ONCE. Sorry for that, but even thinking about it gets me angry again.

To some this might sound like nothing, but it really got to me at this point. Maybe it will become more understandable as I post more GDG stories.

tl;dr: A 40 something year old man, who's been working in his job for over 10 years wasn't able to use a program which he daily uses and asks me for help, only to find out he's a complete dipshit.

That's it. I'm fucking retarded. I'm just so fucking retarded. I'm so fucking supid, it makes me wonder why do I even keep trying. I'm not sure I even have the energy in my fingers to keep typing this stupid rant.

I've been banging my head against this stupid fucking issue for A WEEK. Digging into the documentation, trying different library versions, trying to move stuff around even if it didn't make sense, trying to use different approaches because maybe I was missing something, or maybe I didn't understand some concept.
Surely spawning a child function from a parent can't be that hard, right?

Nothing.

Even tried it on a different OS - who knows, maybe it's Windows doing some if its magic fuckery?

Still nothing.

"Wait, why am I calling this function directly instead of calling its parent?"

Rant rant = new Rant();
rant.type = Rant.REVELATION;
rant.content = "

Being depressed with recent stuff about my ex, I've been going out a lot more than I use to, thus engaging in conversation with people I've never talked to before, and it made me realize something. Maybe it's because the world it's more connected nowadays, but I think it's more about our career (be it CS Engineer, Software Dev, Web-Dev, etc...) and correct me if I'm wrong but I think we are the kind of people that knows about everything (maybe not everything, but know basic stuff that can't be considered general knowledge) because that's what we do, we spend our days updating ourselves, growing in knowledge.

What's my point? That, thanks to this ability, we can work, cooperate or even socialize in a rather easy way. For example, I learned bit of color theory and design principles for a school project. Fast forward some months, I meet this girl that had a degree in Digital Design and I could talk to her about her field, and even knew things she forgot.

I don't know, for me, it's amazing how we can shape shift and mold to the situation, easier than any other career.

Am I wrong or missing something? Let me know
";
rant.publish();

Sooooo...

why does everyone use a million and 2 modules when working with node? I understand the speed of development goes up pretty quickly by not having to reinvent the wheel by retyping code that already exists, but...

the worst case tradeoff I've personally seen to date is someone who doens't know the difference between a string and an array but they "coded a web app" and it runs like soupy diarrhea.

maybe there's something I'm missing about node development, but I personally like writting code that does some task or function for myself to learn/understand how to do it and implement it. Usually, that also helps me figure out how and where to speed things up.

I'm just postulating that maybe reinventing the wheel can be a good thing, that's probably why we don't see formula1 cars using pennyfarthing wheels. 🧐

Why does Google FRP even exist?!

For everyone who doesn't know what FRP is: FRP (Factory Reset Protection) is a partition on an Android device that stores data about the last used Google account on the device. It "protects" the device to be used by a second person (or a thief) even AFTER a factory reset when executed via bootloader.

Last week I bought a HTC One A9 second-hand w/o any documents. I ensured it has been reset, so I took it home... I then wanted to set it up, as following message appeared on the screen: "This device has been reset. Please login using a Google account that has been synced with this device before."
I checked the IMEI for being blacklisted, but it wasn't. Unlocking the bootloader and erasing the frp partition is not an option, because on HTC devices you have to enable OEM unlocking in the settings first. Someone stated on a forum, that you can bypass the bootloader lock with a "RUU Image" (I'm not familiar with this so pls don't blame me for that statement). But since the phone has a branding from Vodafone Germany, I can't find a RUU Image that would flash the device without a CID mismatch...

Why the f*** does Google have to implement a feature that prevents to use the phone when bought from another person that you don't know?

I'm trying to upgrade my account passwords etc. keepass (password manager) doesn't generate resizable windows, so when I want to generate a new password or do anything that creates a new window, THE NEW WINDOW IS TOO TALL FOR ME TO SEE WHAT'S AT THE BOTTOM AND THERE'S NOT EVEN THE OPTION TO SCROLL OR ZOOM OUT. YOU'RE OPEN SOURCE AND GIVING ME THIS BULLSHIT? If you were a living creature you'd be a giraffe with short stubby legs. Your missing features mean you don't get the best leaves and leave you dining with the rest of the peasants. At least I can interact with what I CAN see and closing the window prompts me to save changes, and passwords are generated by the rules I can actually see to manipulate.

Maybe I should look into the source or look at others' screenshots to see what I can't and tab into it to make blind changes, but I'm sufficiently happy with the passwords it gives already. I'm just pissed something so well rated has a flaw like that. Like a game where some levels are locked and you can't unlock them through play -_-

TLDR; WINE+me=system binaries gone. (HOWTHEFUCKDIDIDOTHAT) Kernel panic. Core program files gone. I'll never have it fixed right. Will backup, then install fedora tomorrow.

I really like games and I'm sure there are many of you who can relate. Imagine my perpetual pain, being on the job hunt, no money, and only my Linux laptop for games. (It's only Linux because of a stupid accident and a missing windows installation disk, partly explained in a previous rant). My stack of games my dad and I have played over the years, going back to populous and before, looked light enough for my laptop to run them smoothly. I wanted to see if I could get one to work. My eyes settled on simcity 4 and Sid Meier's railroad tycoon, 13 and 10 years old, respectively. Simcity didn't work as many times as I tried following online instructions. Disk 1 went fine. Disk 2 showed up as Disk 1. Didn't think much of it, so long as the computer could read the contents. I downloaded playonlinux as that could apparently do the complex stuff for me. Didn't work. I gave up with it after an hour and a half.

Next was railroads. Put the disk in aaaand it says SimCity disk 1 is in the tray. Fuck right off, thank you very much. Eject, put back, reject, eject, fiddle in wineconfig, eject, more of this, and voilà it read as railroads :) Ran autoplay.exe with wine, followed instructions, installed it, and it worked! Chose single player, then the map and setting, pressed play, and all the models of the buildings and track were floating in the air over a green plane, the UI is weird and the map doesn't represent anything but trains. All the fkin land is gone, laying track is gonna be a ballache.

I quit it and decided bedtime.
Ctrl+alt+t
sudo shutdown -h now
shutdown not found.
sudo reboot
reboot not found
Que?
Nope, I don't like this.
Force choked my laptop by the power button. Turned it on again.
Lines of text appear.
Saw a phrase I've only ever seen on Mr Robot.
Kernel panic.
Nooooo thanks, not today, this is fiction.
I turned it off and on. Same thing. I read the logs and some init files couldn't be found. I got the memory stick I used to install mint in the first place and booted from that. I checked the difference between my stick's bin and sbin and the laptop's, and it was indeed missing binaries. Fuck knows what else has happened, I only wanted to play games but now I don't know what is or isn't in my computer. How can I trust what's on it now?
I go downstairs and tell my dad. He says something about rpm, but this is Linux so it won't work. I learn that binaries can be copied over, so maybe I can fix it.
Go upstairs again, decide not to fix it. Fedora is light, has a good rep for security, and is even more difficult to get games on, which is my vice. There are more reasons, but the overriding one is that I'm spooked by the fact that something I did went into and removed system binaries, maybe even altered others, so I want something I'm less likely to do that with. Also my fellow cs students used to hate on it but my dad uses and recommended it so I want to try it.

Also, seriously, fuck wine/PlayOnLinux/my inability to follow instructions(?)/whatever demons haunt me. Take your pick, at least one if not more is to blame and I can't tell which, but it's prooooobably the third one.

It's going to be 16 hours before I touch my laptop again, comments before I backup then install fedora are welcome, especially if they persuade me to do differently.

P.S thanks for reading this mind dump of a post, I'm writing while it's fresh but I'm tired AF.

What should I do to practice being a "good coder" vs a "code Googler" who slaps other people's code into the site just because "it's enough to get the damn thing working"?

I feel really overwhelmed with all that Ive learned thus far. At this point I feel width with know depth when it comes to my knowledge of websites.

I've been messing around with html/css/js for a while and played with plenty of other languages,pre-processors, frameworks, etc. I never went to school for programming and have done work for small businesses independently for some time. Most of what I know comes from codecademy treehouse and similar sites. I can refer to Google on a lot of things but I feel like there are habits that I should be implementing so I don't have to re-do things later. I love the book apart series but I still feel like it's missing the foundational knowledge that I'm looking for.

After all of the time I've spent going through courses I feel like my experiences have given me solutions to build a few things and now I'm just jamming those solutions onto whatever I can until something I like comes on to the browser.

It's really easy to sit down and bang my head against the keyboard until something comes out that looks the way I want it to. However, I know there is way more going on that could help me make better decisions. I just feel like I'm missing something. Maybe it's experience, or maybe it's just the lack of commroddery from working alone and not being able to approach problems with a team.

I hate pulling up my css file and feeling like it's rubbish, and feeling like I don't completely understand things like flex, or display, or position. I've been pushing at this for a while but I don't think I've found a resource that has really made me feel like I'm anywhere close to being a competent coder.

There are tons of watch and learn and do type classes that show you how to make stuff, but I guess what I want to know now is why we make it that way.

At some point do you just sit down and read the MSN start to finish?

I wonder sometimes if my brain has been reprogrammed because I grew up in Google world and don't actually have to solve anything for myself. I read about a guy who locked himself away for hours with books on code and he just sat there and wrote his code on paper until he was confident that he was getting it right.

I'm tired of taking breaks, only to find bugs IRL.

I draw the line at my grapes throwing an exception!

Debugging the crane game app, my ISPs aggro DHCPv6 query vs their WAN6 scripting and the label printer at Quest Labs was annoying enough.

I don't even know how to tag this.

A day ago I tried ordering a coffee and doughnut on Doordash. I thought, I must be too tired/missing something. Dunkin' Donuts didn't have doughnuts on the menu, despite the header of "Donuts and Bakery", I called them... A few minutes later the reason was found. Their PoS system upgraded, changing the formatting of the doughnut options so a minor bug caused it to show as fully updated, despite actually disabling the doughnut menu options... today it's the weirdest, possibly inappropriate-looking, grape I've ever seen... and I grow 5 varieties of grapes. Maybe if I get drunk enough(wine?) later, I'll be able to not debug or re-engineer anything for a few hours.

Any suggestions on how to stop iterating through a debugging loop IRL 24/7 is certainly welcolmed.

Now, wtf do I do with this, mildy disturbing, grape?

Can there be a happy rant?

This is going to be a bit of a rambling semi coherent story here:

So this customer who just doesn't know what their data schema is or how they use it (they're a conglomeration of companies so maybe you get how that works out in a database). For every record there's like a ton of reference number type things mapped all over the DB to fit each companies needs needs.

To each company the data means something different, they use the data differently, and despite their claims otherwise, I think there are some logical conflicts in there regarding things like "This widget is owned by company A, division B, user C.". I'm also pretty sure different companies actually don't agree on who owns what... but when I show them they just sort of dance around what they've said in the past...

So I write a report (just an SQL query that outputs ... somewhere ... I mean what isn't that?) that tells them about all the things that happened given X, Y, Z.

Then every damn morning they'd get all up in arms about how some things are 'missing' but sometimes they don't know what or why because they've no clue what the underlying data actually is / their own people don't enter the data in a consistent way. (garbage in garbage out man...)

So I've struggled with this for a few weeks and been really frustrated. Every morning when I'm trying to do something else ... emails about how something isn't working / missing.

In the meantime I'm also frustrated by inquiries about "hey this is just a simple report right?" (to be clear folks asking that aren't being jerks, and they're not wrong ... it really should be simple)

Anyway my boss being the good guy he is offers to take it over, so I can do some things. Also sometimes it helps just to have someone else own something / not just look it over.

So a few days into this.... yup, emails coming in about things 'missing' or 'wrong' every day.

Like it sucks, but it's nice to see it suck for someone else too as validation.

Fuck you PuPHPet 😒😣
php doesn't work in apache after all the trouble i went to get Puphpet to work with vagrant. Not sure how this supposed to improve the work flow if i have to spend a day trying to make it work.
Maybe I'm missing something coz I'm still new to vagrant stuff. But geez... Isn't these kind of things supposed to make your god damned life easier 😒

I tend to overengineer. Why? Because I had a view in JavaFX with its controller that had a bunch of key listeners which changed the UI. I wanted to change the view based on wifi connection/no connection with a server, which was managed in a Client class. The controller took the client to give it a message that client then had to send. For "separation of concerns" I created a separate view + controller for the "not connected" state.
Now the Client knew all about the connection, so I put up the Observer pattern and wanted the Main (Application) class to swap the layouts as an Observer of the Client. After an Exception on FX thread and Platform.runLater(), to solve the issue, I faced a new problem: the key presses weren't executed anymore. I still don't know why this happens. Maybe I'm missing something.🤷
Then met with one of my group partners (it's a uni project):
Let's attach the Observer to the original controller. Have only the original view that changes due to the controller updates as Observer. Let's see if that might even remotely work...🤔
It worked🤦😂

Saturday morning, trying to set up an automated testing environment on my own since at the workplace it's not considered something useful and time should be spent on other stuff. Yay.
Been there another couple of times, both times failed due to poor, overcomplicated architecture that makes use of DI in the very places it shouldn't (and vice versa)... but then I finally found where the DB access is configured and thought "well, let's try tomorrow to automate this bitch".
...turns out, the db access object is injected indeed, but... from a static, deeply nested configuration file, that's referenced EVERYWHERE and embedded in the project core dll.
So basically I can't use a mock DB without changing it in the original config and recompiling the actual project I'm testing, not the test project itself. WTF?!
Or maybe I'm missing something... god, I hope it's me missing something here.
I hope so much to be wrong...

I'm not sure why this is a good thing? Maybe I'm missing something?

!dev

I'm on vacation this week but spent yesterday going to the post office for the Nth to follow up on undelivered mail. When got a diff package that said was delivered... But wasn't.

This morning wake up feel sorta sick but was OK, called USPS mail number and waited 1hr to get a person. And they said the post office closed all the cases I raised regarding the missing mail.

They said they will escalate these.. Which and to be just we'll do something, eventually maybe.

After the call I felt tired so went back to bed... Woke up 3hrs later (1pm) and sorta sweaty. Maybe a cold/fever.

I have an hard to schedule appointment with doctor tmr.

So took some meds and now hoping I feel better tmr and don't have COVID..... Just so I don't need to cancel...

And if I do go there only news I expect to hear is they discover some new health problem.

Some vacation this is.... Still gotta deal with the unending onslaught of problems in life....

So I was given a project. It was all Android. I never worked on Android. So it's been almost 4 weeks and 2 weeks I took to understand Android concepts, debug to see the relevant classes for the requirement. Then I wanted to create a prototype as I still couldn't understand how will everything work. With little support I could get things done but still some things are missing and I am stressed about this project.
I have been working alone on it with little support from people around me.
Tomorrow if I am still not capable of making a design they might take decision ro switch my project or maybe something else.

It's a big MNC I'm working with, really think that this is not a good impression and they might think of firing me.

Although firing will give me severance but still.

What do you think? did I take a lot of time to build my solution when I didn't know anything about Android and struggled to find the people who knew the codebase? Or am I just a slow and bad developer?