Dear people who complain about spending a whole night to find a tiny syntax error; Every time I read one of your rants, I feel like a part of me dies.

As a developer, your job is to create elegant optimized rivers of data, to puzzle with interesting algorithmic problems, to craft beautiful mappings from user input to computer storage and back.

You should strive to write code like a Michelangelo, not like a house painter.

You're arguing about indentation or getting annoyed by a project with braces on the same line as the method name. You're struggling with semicolons, misplaced braces or wrongly spelled keywords.

You're bitching about the medium of your paint, about the hardness of the marble -- when you should be lamenting the absence of your muse or the struggle to capture the essence of elegance in your work.

In other words:

Fix your fucking mindset, and fix your fucking tools. Don't fucking rant about your tabs and spaces. Stop fucking screaming how your bloated swiss-army-knife text editor is soooo much better than a purpose-built IDE, if it fails to draw something red and obnoxious around your fuck ups.

Thanks.

Back when I was in college I had this CS professor who was by far the worst I can remember. The class was some bullshit 100 level required intro to CS course, and the guy tried to make it as difficult as possible. Beyond that, he was just a bad professor and did stupid things.

One of the most memorable things he did was give homework assignments, and then in order to collect them (it was a lecture class of about 150 people), he would have everyone pass their printed assignments to the right, and these sheets of paper traveled all the way across the lecture hall in every row of seats. It was a complete mess.

As you can probably guess, he frequently misplaced homework assignments, and many were probably lost through this ridiculous method of turning them in. Some people almost failed this ridiculously easy class because he lost their homework assignments. I think he lost like one of mine so it didn't matter much, but some other people in the class almost failed because of this. I think in the end he had to make a lot of exceptions because of this obvious trend.

Beyond that, he was an older guy who had worked for IBM, and he made that known at least once per class, usually more. "IBM this, IBM that!" So fucking annoying.

I'm glad to be long done with college.

Gotta love well meaning juniors with completely misplaced intentions.

Nathan: "Hey, do you want a quick 5 minute demo of the code we've changed to move to library version x?"

Almond: "Sure (I wasn't that fussed about moving to library x, but he seemed determined and there's some nice to haves with bumping the version, so we approved it.)"

Nathan: "Cool, so we have this built here, and..."

Almond: "...wait, that's not our CI system!"

Nathan: "Yeah, so I moved to a new CI system too because we couldn't get that working in the old one"

Almond: "...right, we'll need to discuss that, because..."

Nathan: "Sure, we also moved the templating engine as well as there were more examples using this one with library x"

Almond: "...yeah, so I don't think we're looking to switch the templating engine because..."

Nathan: "...and you guys also need to change a bunch of your code as it's all broken since we put the new version in, most of the tests fail..."

Great... so we've got a branch that breaks a bunch of code, switches the templating engine to one we don't want to use, and switches the CI to the one the company is trying to actively migrate away from...

Almond: "We're going to need longer than 5 minutes. I'll put something in the calendar."

🤦‍♂️😬😠

Think about it:
It wouldn't be a real "bug" if it needed a 200 line fix. These little insects are so tiny they can easily hide even behind a misplaced apostrophe.

(In response to people getting upset about 1 line being enough to fix a 3 day problem)

Tfw you accidentally chmod'ed the entire root of your cloud server, because you've misplaced a "/".. Thank god, that there is such a thing called a 'backup'.

The amount of sweat and stress I had when the SSH disconnected and I couldn't log back in, the Apache and MySQL services that began to throw failures..

It's on moments like this, that you really appreciate the 24/7 customer-support! 😂

And all this while I was at my job, working for another company..

Ok so I was fetching some JSON data from a SQL database server and loading it on the front-end. Every single data is being loaded onto the table except for a single data column, which is empty.

Hmmm... So I go and check my code... everything looks fine.
Then I console.log the JSON (using .stringify() of course), all the values from the table are present in the printed out JSON.

Ok, now I am really pissed.

Long story short...
I had misplaced a single 'i' in the SQL statement, I had included the 'í' (the i-acute) character instead. And since I was using an alias in the query statement, no error was shown.

How do you debate the "it's more complex in my opinion" statement?

So, some months ago I was looking at some code which has stuff as 300 lines of code function(s) and I could feel the bad smell irl...

I analyze it a bit and there is a lot of stuff which is misplaced, repeated or unsafe.
I first re-arrange it and remove redundancy, then break it down in about five functions (plus a caller), all is now readable and assignIcon k(made-up name) only assigns an icon, it doesn't also send a rocket in space.

But then I put the code in review and the previous author of the code says that it's now unreadable, because s/he has to look as multiple functions. I counter by showing how s/he does not need to read 300 lines of code to find a bug, but approximately 60, and I point at how misleading having an `assignIcon` function which also sends rockets in space is.
The counter? "But it looks confusing to have smaller functions, revert it."

How would you debate that? I am shy and hate myself a lot, so I have issues debating good points, but I am really really sure a lot of bugs I encountered were due to stuff like this so I would like to be able to explain my point in a more efficient way, for future teams.

the havoc that can be wreaked by a single misplaced closing brace

Heard a job position opened through a friend. Passed him my CV since we don't know his email (lol how?)
Got called for an interview + technical test. Came and they were expecting my CV. They somehow misplaced my CV (lol again how?)
Told the interviewers that I made a couple of apps for fun and informative. Tested me by doing a value switch between 2 variables without introducing a third variable. Done and dusted.
A month later, the company that interviewed me disappeared.

That's my definition of the worst interview rejection. Company pulled a Houdini without telling all of their candidates that we're rejected.

I once made an oopsie in an API for a logistics provider (one of the biggest in Germany...).

To understand the oopsie...

Based on input data a string must be created containing several hex / string / formatted values.

Think of ...

$return .= sprintf("%02X", ...)

I think there were around 15 to 20 lines, although more complicated.

The bug happened because I had a brainfart.

What was previously one line with... Many many many many variables, I had to split into multiple lines since internal stuff changed and it was impossible to change this oneliner of hell with >50 formatting codes.

Of course we didn't test everything.
XD

What we didn't test was - funnily enough - wether the casting was correct in all cases.

I misplaced a formatting code.

And we had a major brainfart because we tested integer, but not double / float values....

We sent for a long time packages much cheaper than allowed (took thw logistics provider nearly 3-4 months to realize this :) ).

Spot the difference:

@highlight
print sprintf("%01.2s", $money).PHP_EOL;

print sprintf("%01.2f", $money).PHP_EOL;

I turned down another women who was absolutely, 100% flirting with me, because, from what I can gather, she was trying to get out of a relationship with her current boyfriend, a military veteran.

I outright ignored her and then when that failed, I made our work relationship 100% about that, work.
Even though I'm friendly with everyone else.

I'm an absolute shit, aren't I? I feel genuinely bad.
I'm not sure if I did it out of a misplaced sense of honor for a dude who obviously has some ptsd, or because I don't feel like I'm able to connect with anyone anymore.

I feel like I'm alone in this world. Not, like, sexually or anything, but more like I don't want to burden anyone with the shit I'm going through. Like a man on a mission on a sinking ship, and it would be wrong to let anyone else on board.
Like a one-man shit-show, all singing, all dancing, driven to one end, with one purpose. And it'd be wrong to let anyone get attached, or invite anyone else in.

Fuck I got so many irons in the fire. I have an ARG in the works, a full game, a social platform that the code and marketing plan is laid out and I'm saving money for, two more games already planned, plus spending an in-ordinate amount of time with my father and sister and mother as they deal with the loss of my sister, plus volunteering to help the homeless, plus working, plus studying.

I barely sleep.

It's just me. I'm like a cruise missile heading to one destination, to some final destination, I just don't know what. And I don't let anyone in, because then they might see how fucking crazy I am, and how crazy my life is, and how crazy my goals are. Thats not a humblebrag. Thats more of a "wholly shit, I'm so in over my head, I'm fucking drowning" type thing. But I'm not giving up, I'm just going deeper.

And it feels like drowning but somehow I'm okay with it. Like I've passed the crux of loneliness, and settled for going for it all, alone, shooting out of orbit, and saying "fuck it all' to everything and everyone. They say "if you got everything you wanted, everything you wished for, you'd wish you hadn't, which is why god isn't a genie". And lately I've been thinking god doesn't exist, or doesn't care, because he's left it all up to me, and I've fucked it up good and proper, and am on my way to either nothing, or everything I've ever wanted.

Is this what happiness feels like? Or suicide?

I don't know. I mean I really don't. I don't want to die. I think I could stop existing and be okay with it. Having achieved at least a modicum of understanding the universe, at least accomplished something small but meaningful.
Or maybe I'm delusional, driven mad with the full comprehension of human floundering against a meandering existence.

I don't fucking know.

I feel like I'm spinning my wheels, so much, that even two weeks feels like a fucking eternity. I don't sleep anymore. When I do, I escape into my dreams, where I can fly, or float, and the people in my dreams tell me I'm living in the matrix and I believe them..in my dreams. Feel it even.

And when I wake up, the feeling persists. Leaves me in wonderland, for hours after waking.

And I have visions, of going homeless, like some buddha, all the time, and then I say "wake up J, you're fucking crazy! You want to go be some couch surfing homeless bum living off other's good graces? get the fuck outa here! While others suffer, schlep it at whatever job they work, day in day out, toil. In this economy? In this inflation? What a dishonest way of thinking. What a dishonest way of dreaming."

And yet I daydream. Because its the only escape there is from all the world has become.

And I bring joy to others, earnestly, vicariously, because its the closest joy I can feel, when I've become numb.

It is this quasi-permanent sense of alienation that permeates my whole world, a sort of invisible force field that separates me from others, even as I reach out to understand them, to comfort them, to smooth the corners off their world, so that they don't become like I have, something not entirely human, but...other.

Often when we meditate, long and hard enough,
at the center that emerges, at the center of ourselves, we find an abyss, a whole universe, devoid of anything, a perfect silence, mirroring back the cosmos, and other people. Observing, silent, irreducible, implacable.

Sometimes I feel like I don't exist. Sometimes I think others don't exist.

Very often I feel like nothing is real. And that I am playing some sort of game. Not like a video game per se, but that there is a bigger pattern, a hidden pattern to it all, just out of reach, and I'm reaching for it but understanding eludes me.

Not that the universe has made me for some special purpose, but merely that the universe observes me specifically, for no special purpose, other than that it can, whatever trivialities may impede or push forward my life.

As if the universe were bored.

Each time I login at GitHub and take
a look at featured repos, also when I realize the huge server destroyer bug it's just a misplaced line.
Sometimes I look at some repos and I'm scared to contribute...never contributed once.

Node: The most passive aggressive language I've had the displeasure of programming in.

Reference an undefined variable in a module? Prepare to waste your time hunting for it, because the runtime won't tell you about it until you reference a property or method on the quietly undefined module object.

Think you know how promises work? As a hiring manager, I've found that less than 5% of otherwise well-experienced devs are out of the Dunning Kruger danger zone.

Async causes edge cases and extra dev effort that add to the effort required to make a quality product.

Got a bug in one of your modules? Prepare yourself for some downtime because a single misplaced parentheses can take out the entire Node process, killing unrelated pages and even static file hosting.

All this makes for a programming experience that demands much higher cognitive load, creates more categories of bugs, and leads to code bloat/smell much more quickly than other commonly substituted languages.

From a business perspective, the money you save on scaling (assuming your app is more compute efficient under Node) is wasted on salaries and opportunity costs stemming from longer dev time, more QA, and more frequent outages.

IMO, Node is an awesome experiment, a fun language, a great tool for specific use cases, and a terrible fucking choice for an entire website.

I was hired with the promise of being able to grow by doing as a software developer. After one year of reminding them almost once a week that I wasn't being able to do any development, but put in a position where I was somehow a Product Owner, today we had a meeting where I was suggested as a PO for real for next year. Funnily enough, our manager laughed and said that he knew I didn't want that. But still... no other name came up.

Sometimes, even if you are capable of doing something and doing it right, if that's not what you want to do, you should do it wrong. Otherwise, if there is the need for someone to do that thing you hate but can do, you will end up being the one that does it.

PO my balls...

Anyone else think the emphasis on scaling is misplaced?

I think we can have more innovative products that solve real problems in specific ways if people focused on solving specific problems rather than targeting wider audience in attempt to sell to as many as possible.

#! usr/bin/rant

Our Entreprise CMS at work (obviously):
- inconsistent UI : check (misplaced buttons, some pages are more developed than others)
- slow: check (average 6 seconds of waiting, with cache)
- loading screen as page transitions covering the whole page, making it impossible to click somewhere else if mistaken, adding +3 seconds to loading : check
- time-based session, inlined in HTML and wildly disconnects you, making you lose all changes : check
- sometimes objects are inaccessible and can't do anything about it : check
- "delete" button next to "edit", delete is bigger and I have already clicked the delete button by accident : check
- can't have local development environment, need to work with integrated editor which has no helping features: check
- first TTFB: adds +2-6 seconds to loading time

TL;DR : a pleasant, developer-friendly, frustration- and rantless CMS to work with, reliable and fast.

I was writing a simple algorithm to simulate gravity. But when I tested it it produced wildly wrong results. I looked over my whole algorithm trying to find the error, but thought that the last bit, the final position update, must be fine.
I was wrong, some misplaced brackets were accidentally multiplying the position + 0.5 by the sum of the old & new velocity instead of adding the position to 0.5 those velocities.

I noticed that and fixed it, and now it runs pretty well.

When your code just doesn't work without any apparent reason, and after hours you realise that it's due to a misplaced }. Semicolons are overrated.

Fuck me! Fuck VSCode!
Wasted nearly a whole day of entire team by breaking a core functionalty.
Don't know if others also hate it so much when you want to add a bracket and VSCode detecting a closing bracket or whatever nullifies your attempt leaving the number of brackets constant.
Not exactly sure today's defect was caused by this, but I strongly suspect it because it was caused by just a misplaced bracket.

I'm often taking with co-workers and my supervisor, but it's extremely frustrating because they interrupt all the time before I've finished a sentence or if I misplaced one word while talking. They completely misinterpret what I say and I have to deal with their bickering once they think I said something incorrect.
Good grief people, just be patient.

Never underestimate the power of a misplaced static in your Java to totally fuck you over.

I was busy with my computer science project for the semester where we have to implement a Sudoku solver without backtracking by using graph theory.

So there I was writing my data structure for the grid when for some reason all the cells were initialized with the value 8.

After a whole night of debugging I was about to start over when I realized I had made my array static.

And boom, it works. WTF!!!!!!!

Woke up at 6am today to do a little bit of work (code review and demo deployment) before I had to catch the train to go to Antwerp only to find out I misplaced the appointment on 24 instead of today.. 😒 slow clap for me, well done dude

On a brighter note, I am now actually on the train to go to TEDx Leuven, anyone else? 😀