How software projects are managed...

Software engineering is doomed.

The next generation of developers is going to suck as fuck

I've come across a lot of situation that made me think this way.

The most notable examples are right here on devrant.

I've seen a shit ton of rants blaming languages for "bugs" when in fact those "bugs" wouldn't have happened if those fuckers would have read the specifications of said languages.

This new generation doesn't read, when they've got a problem they just fucking go to Google for answers, they don't bother reading specifications, language books, rfc, etc, they don't bother reading where the true source of information are. The documentation ? What's that ? Let's go to stackoverflow first, let's think second.

Same back in school I've seen people in the highest grades that couldn't fucking decompress a tar archive.

In the coming decades we will loose the high skilled people, the people that made the software world as it is today we will be left with fuckers only able to blame things for stuff they don't understand.

This is my first true rant. This is me being pissed off.

We're using a ticket system at work that a local company wrote specifically for IT-support companies. It's missing so many (to us) essential features that they flat out ignored the feature requests for. I started dissecting their front-end code to find ways to get the site to do what we want and find a lot of ugly code.
Stuff like if(!confirm("blablabla") == false) and whole JavaScript libraries just to perform one task in one page that are loaded on every page you visit, complaining in the js console that they are loaded in the wrong order. It also uses a websocket on a completely arbitrary port making it impossible to work with it if you are on a restricted wifi. They flat out lie about their customers not wanting an offline app even though their communications platform on which they got asked this question once again got swarmed with big customers disagreeing as the mobile perofrmance and design of the mobile webpage is just atrocious.

So i dig farther and farthee adding all the features we want into a userscript with a beat little 'custom namespace' i make pretty good progress until i find a site that does asynchronous loading of its subpages all of a sudden. They never do that anywhere else. Injecting code into the overcomolicated jQuery mess that they call code is impossible to me, so i track changes via a mutationObserver (awesome stuff for userscripts, never heard of it before) and get that running too.

The userscript got such a volume of functions in such a short time that my boss even used it to demonstrate to them what we want and asked them why they couldn't do it in a reasonable timeframe.

All in all I'm pretty proud if the script, but i hate that software companies that write such a mess of code in different coding styles all over the place even get a foot into the door.

And that's just the code part: They very veeeery often just break stuff in updates that then require multiple hotfixes throughout the day after we complain about it. These errors even go so far to break functionality completely or just throw 500s in our face. It really gives you the impression that they are not testing that thing at all.

And the worst: They actively encourage their trainees to write as much code as possible to get paid more than their contract says, so of course they just break stuff all the time to write as much as possible.
Where did i get that information you ask? They state it on ther fucking career page!

We also have reverse proxy in front of that page that manages the HTTPS encryption and Let's Encrypt renewal. Guess what: They internally check if the certificate on the machine is valid and the system refuses to work if it isn't. How do you upload a certificate to the system you asked? You don't! You have to mail it to them for them to SSH into the system and install it manually. When will that be possible you ask? SOON™.
At least after a while i got them to just disable the 'feature'.

While we are at 'features' (sorry for the bad structure): They have this genius 'smart redirect' feature that is supposed to throw you right back where you were once you're done editing something. Brilliant idea, how do they do it? Using a callback libk like everyone else? Noooo. A serverside database entry that only gets correctly updated half of the time. So while multitasking in multiple tabs because the performance of that thing almost forces you to makes it a whole lot worse you are not protected from it if you don't. Example: you did work on ticket A and save that. You get redirected to ticket B you worked on this morning even though its fucking 5 o' clock in the evening. So of course you get confused over wherever you selected the right ticket to begin with. So you have to check that almost everytime.

Alright, rant over.
Let's see if i beed to make another one after their big 'all feature requests on hold, UI redesign, everything will be fixed and much better'-update.

*Evil Laugh*😈
Credits:9GAG

First day at CERN: done!

Nothing to rant about :) The place and the people are beautiful, lots of support and it's easy to navigate through things even for very young people like me! Couldn't ask for better stuff.

The welcome event in the Globe of Science and Innovation is already an experience on its own :) so many people to meet and share words with! Later on one of my senior colleagues showed me around the surface datacenter of ATLAS, as well as its control room and a (physically) separate computing testing environment to run simulations and software on to later be deployed at Point 1 (ATLAS). I am stunned, humbled and excited to say the least! More to come soon! Post your curiosities below and I'll gladly answer!

!rant.
I've worked for about two months at my (first) job. Its amazing.
We create audio/video software for the products we make.

There are 9 programmers besides me, I'm the only junior. And I'm still learning my way around the code, but they still value my input.

We only do stand ups for 5-10 min, like it should.

One if my colleagues helps me often when I have questions, so I've nicknamed him ducky.

My pm is awesome, he's great at coding and a great manager.

When we work overtime, the department pays for delivery food and drinks.

And we've already gone on 2 trips with the department, mountain biking and a BBQ.

I love my job and I hope that I'll soon be good enough to ask less questions.

!rant

So last weekend I started collecting hardware for a small scale cluster at home to test scalability of my software. Making some decent progress.

Tomorrow I will replace the switch and this weekend I will set up storage so I can start my first application

!rant

This dumb pretentious bitch.
We are both computer science students, she is writing her bachelor thesis, I'm in 4th semester, but have 6 years of professional programming experience.
So naturally when she had a problem implementing the MOTHERFUCKING PREPARING SOFTWARE, which she needs to begin writing her thesis I helped her.
First I started explaining every last bit of code, trying to teach her something, so that she wouldn't need my help ALL the time.
After a while I realised that this BLOODY GIRL FROM HELL acquired nearly half her credits by other peoples help, so I just fix the code hoping it would be over soon.
When that software was done, keep in mind, I coded nearly 90 FUCKING PERCENT OF THAT SHITTY ASS PIECE OF CRAP SOFTWARE, she asked me to also "help" her implementing a generator for samples she could test the software with.
Naturally at this point I said I'd be busy with own projects etc. And declined.

So now, nearly 1 Month after she didn't talk to me, THAT ARROGANT PIECE OF SHIT WANNABE SCIENCE BACHELOR asked if I could help her with LaTEX.
At first I was speechless. How could she have that amount of balls, asking me that. As I only am a ranting asshole inside, I declined in the most polite way.

WHAT THE FUCK! I HOPE YOU WILL FAIL YOUR THESIS AND ALL THE 12 SEMESTERS YOU STUDIED WILL HAVE BEEN FOR NOTHING, THUS SENDING YOU TO LIVE ON THE STREET WITHOUT MONEY AND DIE A HORRIBLE AND LONELY DEATH SURROUNDED BY BEGGERS TRYING TO STEAL YOUR KIDNEYS!

Sincerely,
Me.

True rant:

A student close to my place ask me to help him install some Software.

Me: Sure this does not take long.

Over to his laptop I noticed this weird popup on screen.

he said: Oh. you just need to click that away. :)

I'm clicking it away and opens up his browser typing in the address bar the search term for the software.

The Laptop quickly copy and paste my search term into a sketchy search website with not correct results..

Then another popup came again on screen.

His response: Oh. you just need to click that away. :)

I'm already internally face palming. but continue my effort to get him his software.

tried different approach on the searching part en trying to click the install button for the software..

and again. my click is high jacketed and it downloads something completely different.

and guess what.. a popup showed up

His response: Oh. you just need to click that away. :)

Stop Molesting your laptop dude! Fix your Shit I'm out!

$ rant --not-a-rant

I made it guys

I know this might not be a rant but Im sure nobody will understand this better than my fellow ranters/devs

Four years ago (16yo) I learned about a software development company in my city and Ive been wanting to.work for them ever since, at first I couldnt because I need half college credits, after because I landed a way more comprehensive job, but now I start on monday. The thing is few people have landed a dev job there as students because of what they ask but I MADE IT.

Thanks for reading this far.

rant

The Java course at our Uni requires us to do an end semester project - A Java App with Swing for GUI and some Multithreading code in it.

They asked us to upload the code to drive. I was bored and was checking out my friends' projects.

The code below is what I saw in one of the projects. They have simply called a thread with an empty run method because the project required to use multithreading concepts, wtf.

But then, It is no surprise to me cause these are the people who memorize code and vomit code for marks.

I am worried that people are going to be awarded degrees and called software engineers.

God save the software industry!

Software engineering and developers and life cycle of Project 🤣🤣🤣😂😂

my company just paid adobe to use pirated copy of adobe software ,arrested one emp.

Multinational company -_-
listed company -_-
premium product -_-

why the hell they can't pay money to deserve one?

writing this rant on pirated windows.

Venting some anger, this is a long one

<rant>
So last Friday we had a 'Christmas' party at work... Only it wasn't a Christmas party... Because that would be racist against people who don't celebrate Christmas (of whom they are none at work), also no Christmas songs, because of the same reason and because it looked unprofessional... They also removed karaoke... (an Christmas tradition at the office) Because again, it was unprofessional

But we all got a Christmas card... Strange because we weren't allowed to celebrate it 😑 and the message in that card was one of the most standard messages I've ever seen, something like

Hello $name, we enjoyed working with you in 2017, let's make 2018 even better, merry Christmas

MERRY CHRISTMAS!? BUT THAT'S RACIST WASN'T IT!!!???

W T F !

also our sales guy did a speech, the following is an actual quote
'software is an amazing product'
Yeah mate, software is the product... Totally not the stuff we create with it

Sorry if people get/are offended in anyway, but if you decide that having a Christmases party at work is racist in any way or form, then don't have a party at all... Not some lame half Christmas party...
</rant>

Ever since I started working at a company that has a real focus on software I have less to rant about....😒

This hurt me so deep. Feel hopeless. He want it fast , 2 Apps for iOS and Android ( that means 2 for Android and 2 for iOS) in this short time with overly complex requirements (as in the documents).

Omg. ...

Okay, y'all!
Thank you for being remotely interested in my post. It really cheered me up :-D
Here's the definition I submitted, also attached the proof of my humiliation.

devrant

It's the ray of fucking sunshine in a developer's perpetually annoying lifestyle. It is developer-made for developer-use.
An anonymous social platform where the app owners/founders/creators ACTUALLY LISTEN to user feedback!

Developers who have made up a million fucking ways to ask their fucktard co-worker/boss/client to go die, can exchange their creativity for ++s.
It's a platform to channel their rage into a creative rant and calm down a bit. It's like taking a long, deep, virtual breath.

Useless software/apps that behave like they were developed by 5 year olds, also take a hit sometime.

PS - Addiction is a common side effect.

<rant about devRant>
Can people please stop posting images stolen from someone else trying to get some points. I'm here to read rants and other interesting things you encounter while working with software development, not look at memes. Thank you.
</rant about devRant>

Been reviewing ALOT of client code and supplier’s lately. I just want to sit in the corner and cry.

Somewhere along the line the education system has failed a generation of software engineers.

I am an embedded c programmer, so I’m pretty low level but I have worked up and down and across the abstractions in the industry. The high level guys I think don’t make these same mistakes due to the stuff they learn in CS courses regarding OOD.. in reference how to properly architect software in a modular way.

I think it may be that too often the embedded software is written by EEs and not CEs, and due to their curriculum they lack good software architecture design.

Too often I will see huge functions with large blocks of copy pasted code with only difference being a variable name. All stuff that can be turned into tables and iterated thru so the function can be less than 20 lines long in the end which is like a 200% improvement when the function started out as 2000 lines because they decided to hard code everything and not let the code and processor do what it’s good at.

Arguments of performance are moot at this point, I’m well aware of constraints and this is not one of them that is affected.

The problem I have is the trying to take their code in and understand what’s its trying todo, and todo that you must scan up and down HUGE sections of the code, even 10k+ of line in one file because their design was not to even use multiple files!

Does their code function yes .. does it work? Yes.. the problem is readability, maintainability. Completely non existent.

I see it soo often I almost begin to second guess my self and think .. am I the crazy one here? No. And it’s not their fault, it’s the education system. They weren’t taught it so they think this is just what programmers do.. hugely mundane copy paste of words and change a little things here and there and done. NO actual software engineers architecture systems and write code in a way so they do it in the most laziest, way possible. Not how these folks do it.. it’s like all they know are if statements and switch statements and everything else is unneeded.. fuck structures and shit just hard code it all... explicitly write everything let’s not be smart about anything.

I know I’ve said it before but with covid and winning so much more buisness did to competition going under I never got around to doing my YouTube channel and web series of how I believe software should be taught across the board.. it’s more than just syntax it’s a way of thinking.. a specific way of architecting any software embedded or high level.

Anyway rant off had to get that off my chest, literally want to sit in the corner and cry this weekend at the horrible code I’m reviewing and it just constantly keeps happening. Over and over and over. The more people I bring on or acquire projects it’s like fuck me wtf is this shit!!! Take some pride in the code you write!

I hate people who think that building software is all about one click away and generating things. I got told to complete the task faster than the speed of light.

Fancy me some rant time? Let's name that cunt, "Bob".

"
Hey Bob, I got questions for you. Are you sure you were in your mum's womb for 8-9 months? Are you the kind of twat who honk at people as soon as the traffic light's turning green?

Building software takes time, the CI/CD takes time, TestFlight takes time, approvals from the Google Play store take time, approvals from Apple App Store connect take time, Unit testing takes time and every fucking thing you can name takes time!

It's just like sex, nobody wants to be with someone who can only last in bed for 0.000000000001 nanoseconds, the longer, the better, (but not too long).

It is also like building houses, which takes months to build not hours. As from my experience so far, something tells me that you are not the kind of person who would understand how to build a house but a sand castle which takes only hours to build.

Relentlessly, you bombarded me with a pile of bollocks and a pile of nonsense is not going to fasten up the compilation of the software.

"

Designing a new software product: 1000 hours

Designing a logo and picking a color scheme that pleases everyone: 689236323447876 hours

Making a Package Manager from Scratch is hard.

Making a Scratch-like education coding software in XAML is hard.

Setting up a server with zero knowledge is hard.

Creating a new file extension for my project and making it work is hard.

But, as a student,

studying and coding is the hardest thing.

Same 24 hours for everyone, and I should code as well as study.

Time.

The most precious thing in Earth.

==========================================

NASA dislikes this rant.

clean_air_rocks dislikes this rant.

no_suicide dislikes this rant.

students_who_study_and_code_and_wants_to_do_everything loves this rant.

!rant
This is the second month that I'll actually earn money from developing software at my job, I'm so happy to finally see all the (self-)studying and late-night coding shed its fruits 😍

I created an app that would let people in software development and general I.T related fields to bitch about shit and just rant about stuff.

But two glorious assholes stole it from me. So no startup.

Everytime when I meet new people -_-

!rant
In my Software Engineering II class, our teacher begins a overview of NoSQL DBs. A buddy of mine leans over and asks me "A SQL DB walks into a NoSQL bar, do you know why he left?"
I said, "No idea".
He said, "Because there were no tables".
Our teacher heard me laugh, so my buddy had to explain the joke to the entire class. Needless to say, the whole class got a kick out of it!

So, What should it be pronounced, 'Data' or 'Data' ?
😕

!rant

A local television station on the other side of the country has been running my software for about two years now and today I finally went to see them. (and deploy a completely rehauled version)

It was so awesome to see these people in real life for the first time. They were nice and hospitable. I'm really glad my software is contributing to what they are doing :D

This was a fun thing that just happened:

I was sent a timed questionnaire by a potential employer for a software engineer job. I'm like okay, I will do it on Monday (today) because that is when I will have a free minute.

Well I sit down to do the thing and I had had a few beers, because the Ballmer Peak is real to me when I have to answer bullshit programming quizzes.

Well F me right in the A, it is a 38 question true or false logic quiz. And I am no longer a college kid trying to get into grad school so I have no patience for that crap, and apparently less with a little beer in me. Long story short, there was no comment section for me to rant in so I decided to go on YouTube and watch cat videos instead.

Breakdown of a casual work day:

50%- typing the same commands over and over again in my terminal and watching things build.
10% - lunch, coffee, attending nature’s calls, staring into space enjoying the headphone music.
10% - googling solutions. Only to find that 3 minutes later you’re reading a wikihow page on how to moonwalk.
10% - talking to fellow humans
10% - typing my password to unlock my computer. Mac users exclusive -typing keychain passwords
5% - contemplating what will happen if you suddenly get up and start dancing. Will you start a flash mob?
5% - random thoughts continue...why am I here? Why am I not partnering with Daft Punk to release a single?

Rant
Fucking websites that dont host the latest version of their own software

Thanks for making me download a 5gb installer just to make me download another 2gb in updates assholes

!(!rant)

So I wanted a raise and the only way was becoming a software lead.

With that title you get more money but also more responsibility, so you have the last word in technical decisions, you review architecture, do tech interviews, guide the less experienced, etc. I can handle that, even as introverted as I am.

What nobody told me was that I was going to spend my whole time on fucking meetings, one after another, I have not touched my IDE in days, I hate this shit already.

Careful what you wish for they say, so true, I'm stuck here and I hate my job now, probably going to quit as soon as I recover my life, if ever.

Hello everyone 👋

I see people blaming the developers when you see a crappy software product , saying that they have done a bad job.

But even it could be true also it could be the product managers who didn’t give enough time todo what needs to be done or project scope is too big for the persons knowledge.

I’ve worked in a company where deadlines were so tight I didn’t have enough time to proper UI and Testing. I used to be only developer who has someone experience and I had to train the interns as well. I am also to blame to joining such company but in desperate times takes desperate measures.

And now when i’m leaving the company and I have spend 2 years of my life for apps that I’m not proud of.

Just rant. Please feel free to give ur thoughts

!rant For my uni project I have been developing a anti ransom-ware price of software which had a main purpose of damage limitation/containment in a business environment.

Some course mates were critising it saying yeah when is ransom ware ever really looked at these days, (they developed a chat app), then the news struck about the Nhs hack and now my Lecturer can't get enough of the project and suddenly the marks for real world application seem to be in my favour 🤘

Again not a rant, just a nice feeling after spending so long on my work.

!rant ~dev
Just got my first job in software. Over the moon.

!rant

I'm building a complex software that computes stuff with advanced algorithms and linear programming. That kind of software that proved itself strong, but you know a bug discovery would be a disaster.

The client is a dick, always acting as a bully in every email.

Last email, writes me about a supposed error of the software, while of course complaining that the software is complete crap to ensure that I keep a positive attitude.

After some hours of trying to find the cause of the fucking problem, I realized that the software was actually right since the beginning.

I've replied explaining *why* the software says what it says (acting like it was the most obvious thing in the world). Waiting for a response.

I hope that moron will feel humiliated at least a little bit.

This is 2020. All these companies should know BSc in computer science doesn't mean shit to software development

So we ordered a piece of software from external software house becouse I was low on time and we needed it asap.

So. Long story short, their software was bugged as hell, they deny all the bugs and they have their BDD that they done and anything we say about it like "feature XYZ is broken on firefox" they will deny it "becouse it wasn't on BDD" or "let's get on call" (in which +- 6-7 people participate from their side and we of course have to pay them for this...)

So they fixed like 20% of bugs (mostly trivials/minors) Application is fairly small scope. You have integration with like 3 endpoints on arbitary API, user registration/login, few things to do in database (mainly math running from cron).

They done it in ASP so I don't know the language and enviroment so can't just fix it myself.

2 days ago (monday) they annoyed me to point where I just started to break things. For starters I found that every numeric input is vunrable to integer overflow (which is blocker). I figured most of fields are purefect opportunity to XSS (but I didn't bother to do JS... anything but not JS...). I figured I can embed into my name/surname/phone (none validated) anything in HTML...

So for now we have around 25 bugs, around 15 of them are blockers.

They figured it's somehow our fault that it's bugged and decided to do demo with us to show off how perfectly it works. I'm happy to break their demos. I figured I will register bunch users that have name - image with fixed/absolute position top:0;left:0 width/height 100% - this will effectively brick admin panel

Also I figured I can do some addotional sounds in background becouse why not. And I just dont know what to put in. It links to my server for now so I can freely change content of bricked admin panel.

I have curl's ready to execute in case they reset database.

I can put in GIFs or heck, even videos, dosen't really matter. Framework escapes some things for them so at least that. But audio/image/video works.

Now I have 2 questions:
- what image + audio combo will work the best (of course we need to keep it civil). Im thinking finding some meme with bugs or maybe nuclear logo image with some siren sound
- am I evil person?

Edit:

I havent stated this clearly:

"There is no BDD that describes that if user inserts malicious input server should deny it" - that's almost literally what we get from them....

Mini rant ahead:

So just wanted to get something off of my chest in relation to something that continues to prop up constantly in the OSS community.

OSS is not better than proprietary software and proprietary software is not greater than OSS.

Sick of seeing people complain when they see someone using proprietary software like google chrome and the like in comparison to open source alternatives.

We understand that the freedom offered by OSS is clearly better but we should not 'hate' or 'actively avoid' proprietary software.

Key example for me personally is that I use Gamemaker Studio 2 to develop my games and the amount of people who keep negatively branding that choice and tell me to use Godot because it is 'better' and 'open source'

People just really need to respect other peoples choices, if you have something to say on the matter when you see someone using something you may not agree with, sure say your opinion, but don't defend it and go on the attack because other people use differently licensed software.

* And end scene *

This rant is aimed towards those who hate on JavaScript developers and the JS language:

Dear Asshole,

I am a JavaScript developer by choice.
I think JavaScript is great.
I agree that JavaScript have some bad sides to it, but I believe that the community is driving good change to the ecosystem.
I appreciate other models of other languages.
I do not include 3rd party NPM modules without checking their source and credibility.
I will not use a framework (i.e. react, Vue, Anguler) if it's not needed.

And finally:
I can do any software engineering tasks a software engineer is supposed to do.

Kind regards,
Nedo-the-angry.

OK heavy rant on 'modern' software development coming! --> don't take it to seriously though :-)

Electron... why does that shit exist? It is like stacking all the worst technologies available to mankind into an enormous pile of crap and polishing that turd to look like something wonderful. It is big, slow and overall AWFUL!

An example? ... Microsoft Teams :-( it burns your PC like fire and makes it squeal for mercy.

When a library/framework becomes the ultimate evolution of abstraction layer upon abstraction layer and it simply should stop to exist and a reset button needs to be pressed.

I would love to see some research on the real world environmental impact that all those shitty slow and bloated web technologies have.

Solution:

Software energy label!

C, C++ and Rust e.t.c. and all accompanying efficient UI libraries should be the only languages/implementations allowed to get a A, B and C label.

Python (without C libraries like Numpy), JavaScript and all those other slow interpreted scripting/Web API nonsense should get a D, E or F label by default.

Have fun!

You know a devOps/sysadmin is doing their job and a good one when you dont need them

rant || !rant
My father-in-law wants me to buy a new computer for him. He's currently using an old Acer minitower running more malware than real software on shitty Windows Vista. He only uses Email (Outlook 2003), Facebook and Youtube. I'm gonna get him a MSI Cubi Intel N3700/4GB/120GB SSD with Linux Mint and problem solved. No more malware/virus calls from him. I'm installing Mint on Vbox right now and I'm loving it from second 0.

Life in tech industry... 😜

!rant, advice, !mine

Q: I'm [xx] years old [xyz] professional. Would that be a good idea if I try to change my career to software development right now?

A: Age is mostly doesn't matter. You can learn programming at any age. And, software is everywhere. Every background knowledge will be useful. Your prior knowledge will not be wasted.

But, should you change career?

- YES, if you deeply interested in programming.

- NO, if it's only because you feel there are better opportunities.

It's true that there may be better opportunities. But, without deep interest in the subject, you may struggle to become good software developer. Without being a good developer, your opportunities will be limited and you are likely to regret the decision.

Software development is easier for those who passionate but very difficult for those who doesn't....

!rant;

I'm so sad today. I completely lost my confidences in what I do. I recently I created an app , spent 72 hours doing that , made the app as simple as possible, The intention is clear , to help those who are in need during this pandemic.

Recently my country have the campaign (initiate by the people) raising white flags for help (food, financial help). Since our government begin to arrest those who raise their flag for help and summoned them for MYR 3000 .

So I thought making a platform where people can raise their flag digitally might be easy, but I go rejected .

Well in Malaysia, No one give a fuck about you unless you are a celebrity . Sometimes I wish I am , therefore I do changes. But unfortunately I am just a 25 year old self taught software engineer but not someone with PHD or fame .

Fuck me.

Not a rant, just a tought:

I was thinking, how amazing is to work at software industry, I mean, is there any other field of work where you can start without knowing little to nothing of the thing you are going to work with?
Got hired to work with a friend of mine in his uncle's company, started as a technician, providing support to clients, after that, started coding little windows applications using c#, even tought, I didn't know shit about it, time passed and we needed a mobile application, then when I realized I was already coding for Android in Java even though I didn't know nothing about it too.

It's just, you can do whatever you want if you will... It's amazing! I love doing what I do.

So one rant reminded me of a situation I whent through like 10 years ago...
I'm not a dev but I do small programs from time to time...
One time I was hired to pass a phone book list from paper to a ms Access 97 database...
On my old laptop I could only add 3 to 5 records cause MS access doesn't clean after itself and would crash...

So I made an app (in vb6) , to easily make records, was fast, light and well tabbed.
But now I needed a form to edit the last record when I made a mistake...
Then I wanted a form to check all the records I made.
Well that gave me an idea and presented the software to the client... A cheesy price was agreed for my first freelance sell...
After a month making it perfect and knowing the problems the client would had I made a admin form to merge all the databases and check for each record if it would exist.... I knew the client would have problems to merge hundreds of databases....
When it was done... The client told me he didn't need the software anymore.... So I gave it to a friend to use as an client dabatase software... It was perfect for him.
One month later the client called me because he couldn't merge the databases...
I told him I was already working in a company. That my software was ready to solve his problem, but I got mad and deleted everything...
He had to pay almost 20 times more for a software company to make the same software but worst... Mine would merge and check all the databases in a folder... Their's had to pick one by one and didn't check for duplicates... So he had to pay even more for another program to delete duplicates...

That's why I didn't follow programming as a freelance... Lots of regrets today...
Could be working at home, instead had a burn out this week cause of overwork...

Sorry for the long rant.

Rant=True

My sister who is quite a bit older finally realized that I can develop actually develop since releasing a phone game.

Obviously, she had to pitch her idea for an app. The idea was to be able to take a picture of food and have the program automatically recognize the food and ingredients and tell the amount of calories.

Does she think because I can develop on a mediocre level that I can make recognition software better than google?

Having to explain why I couldn't bc I sucked in comparison to large companies confused her.

SORRY JUST NEED TO RANT.....

JUST GOT OFF THE PHONE/WEBCHAT WITH SHITTY HR BLOCK CUZ THEIR SHITTY PAID SOFTWARE IS BUILT WITHOUT THE USER IN MIND AND NOW EFILED MY TAXES INCORRECTLY...

THEY CANT FIX IT SINCE ITS ALREQDY SENT TO THE IRS....

I SPENT 2 HOURS TRYING TO CONTACT A HUMAN BECAUSE THEIR WEBCHAT IS SUPER HIDDEN ON THEIR SHITTILY BUILT SITE THAT HIDES IT UNTIL I HAVE TO CALL THEIR PHONE NUMBER AND THE GUY WALKS ME THROUGH SOME SPECIFIC STEPS TO GET IT TO SHOW UP!!!!!!!!!

THEN WEBCHAT GUY ASKS FOR ALL MY INFO BUT THEN CONCLUDES THAT I NEED TO CALL THE IRS MYSELF BECAUSE THEIR SHITTY SOFTWARE ALREADY SENT THE INFO.... THE WRONG INFO....

FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AND I OWE THE GOVERMENT $2500..... ALL THIS JUST TO PAY PPL MONEY.... FUCKITY FUCKITY FUCK FUCK FUCK....

AND THERE GOES MY WHOLE NIGHT.....

Long time lurker, first time poster. This site has been a huge source of fun and laughs for me on bad days.

So dear fellas,

I've been a software engineer for about 5 to 6 years which was intense as fuck and I've been burnt out multiple times. My highest rank was a senior software engineer so far.

I was offered a new job recently as a Technical lead for a small team which would mean I have to make architecural decisions on top of good ol grunting out the code. I took up the offer but I'm more worried than happy.

Impostor syndrome has kicked in heavily ever since I agreed to the job. What if they realise I don't know certain things that engineers are supposed to know? What if I get in an embarassing situation where somebody asks me a question and I'm not able to answer? What if people who I work with laugh behind my back cos I'm not a rockstar engineer?

I'm depressed and scared as fuck right now. Usually I had someone senior to ask my questions or get my doubts cleared with, now it looks like I'll be making those decisions and getting things done and I'm shitscared and worried as fuck.

Does anyone have any pointers, tips or anecdotal advice that might help me? It would be much appreciated.

Sorry for the incoherent rant. Have a good one y'all

!Rant

Hey I was wondering if anyone had any recommendations for external software I should get for coding?

I've heard good things about git?
Any suggestions?

My first rant/story

> 3 years ago company x decides to pay for my software dev degree

> fast forward to today.. x has no idea what I've learned as they never asked..(basically java,php,sql,android)

> x gives me a contract 1 week before my final exams and expects me to work everyday except exam days..

>next day, a dev contacts me - 'oh please brush up on your Vue, Node, angular as well as laravel php framework'

>I've never touched any of those xD fml.. what to do!?

Earlier this day (or yesterday, timezones 'n stuff) I posted a "rant" about my new Project:

"The Spigot Web Framework" - a Tool that should help Owners of Minecraftservers without dedicated Webserver and knowledge about developing a website.

In the Screenshot below I show you guys, how few lines of code can make a beautiful website.

The Modulemanager is fully done and people can build their own Modules, which can be live updated.

I am currently working on "cross communication" between the Client and the Modules.

I hope you guys stay tuned!

EDIT: As mentioned in my last rant (look @comments) I will be able to pull off a standalone version of this software.

!rant

Updating PHP from 5 to 7.2 on windows server at work the other day... Thought it would be easy, but I really find software management for windows a pain in the ass compared to package based solutions like apt, brew or pacman. It ended up taking way too long due to dependcies with the website, that weren't really documented, and setting up all the software that depended on PHP over again... I ended up writing 10 pages of documentation about how to updated PHP on windows, so the next programmer would have some idea of how to approach the problem.

Of course I suggested switching over to Chocolatey for windows, but my boss is skeptical since it's not the traditional way, and it seems like it will take too many resources. So now I have to make a presentation for her to convince her that package managers are superior to downloading stuff from phps website.

Wish me luck.

DON'T. INSTALL. BETA. SOFTWARE. BY. DEFAULT.

RAZER

When I plugged my $250 keyboard (Which I have had for years and love beyond measure) into my new install of Windows, it popped up with a cute little message to install Razer Synapse, which manages the lighting on Razer devices, like my keyboards (One mechanical and one not - for silence during voice chat), mouse and headset.

"Wow, this looks different", I mutter to myself, as I unknowingly and non-optionally install software which is IN BETA.

I notice that my other keyboard and mouse don't show up. I don't customize my mouse much, I leave it in spectrum cycling. Easy, works well. My other keyboard is much cheaper and does not offer very much customization (three colors. whoop. I don't touch that either much)

Since I only really touch this keyboard, I am not bothered in the slightest and carry on for a couple months. Fast forwards to yesterday when my mouse stops lighting up. Fuck, now its just a black blob. I'll open synapse tomorrow and fix that.

No I won't

After uninstalling devices, uninstalling synapse, restart restart restart, uninstall again, install again, blah blah blah, download a tool that didn't detect the device either, etc etc, for about two hours, I was about ready to accept my dark fate. But then, I saw (screenshot attached) this little itty-bitty beta tag next to the software (again) installed by default.

I about flipped my shit, uninstalled Razer Synapse 3 so hard it sent a tsunami towards some coastal country, and then angrily installed Razer Synapse 2.

That looks more familiar. Oh, there we are, all three devices. Ah, very well, my mouse is working correctly once again. I know its at the header of this rant, but let's reiterate (or, reiterage, in this case):

DON'T. INSTALL. BETA. SOFTWARE. BY. DEFAULT.

Thank you.

!rant but help?

I currently have Kali (for labs I'm working on to teach myself the things I didn't learn in school), Ubuntu (downloaded for school), and Fedora (downloaded for my database class)... other than Kali already having Metasploit in it, I don't see a difference between these and I know there are more versions of Linux.

What would be a good starting place for every day use, that'll support Citrix receiver (required for work no idea what its requirements are but I can find out, if i can't use it in Linux, I'll dual boot) and virtual box (or other virtual software, don't mind learning new systems), and that i can also have room to grow for security learning?

read some rants about a devRant meetup?

how do I know they are not from my manager trying to catch me rant-handed?

Can we please stop using a file structure (YAML, JSON, XML etc) and just changing the file extension and calling it a new file type?

Stop trying to make your software/framework sound more complicated by saying this shit, if you use something, own it and don't try to mask it...

And mini rant over...

The evolution of a developer

!rant

Is a bachelor's degree worth it?

Context:
Up until yesterday, I was planning on not getting a Bacherlor's degree related to programming. I'm currently an intern and I believe that they'll want to keep me afterwards. Even it they don't, my old boss has a junior developer position opening soon and he asked me if I was interested.

I think I'm a good programmer, but I'm not here to boast, but rather, I want to know your opinion:
Is getting a bachelor's degree in software engineering worth it?

I know this topic is not new and has been asked in many forums, but I noticed a repetitive trend: people who have the degree say it's worth it and people who don't say it's not.

TL;DR:
Is getting a bachelor's degree in software engineering worth it? Why?

!rant
What is the reason a lot of you guys(not all of you) hate windows so much. I never had any single slow down or virus infection for ages, Windows Update always updates at the scheduled time etc.

I used Linux before, and I personally think that the experience is just about the same once you find alternatives to the windows software. But it also has flaws, dependency hell for instance.

Buuuut, I believe each OS has its ups and downs. So while one OS have trouble with something, the other might also have a problem. Some OS's are better than others and that no OS is perfect, and I wish I could see less criticism on OS's on devRant, cause it's getting kind of repetitive and stupid. Thank you.

So someone decides that the employees need to do these stupid Web-based training's that not even high school kids should be looking into.
What is about ?
Security and Cryptography, and now event the real stuff.

What it covers?
Alice and Bob, Bob and Alice.
Alice wants Bob some pics/messages that she suspects someone else will see. DDDDDDAAAAAAAFFFFFFFAAAAAAAAAKKKKKK

A total of 7 useless time wasting interactive and annoying training's, 20+ min each.

But someone forgot that please do not send this shit to engineers of your company, specially Software/Network engineers. Oh another subset, specially not to those who work deeper into the domain.

I'm getting paid to do this time wasting activity, and still.

I also may come back and remove this BUT FOR NOW I NEED TO RANT.

I'm a 16 yrs old student, learning to be a software developer. I have successes, but I can't share with anyone. My parents don't understand what am I doing, my classmates neither. Literally nobody. Maybe 1 or 2 people. Can I share with you, dear devRant community? Or I shouldn't share, 'couse it's not a rant?

I've got at least 4 hours of homework... Now THIS bullshit!!

!(!(!(!rant)))

When you're using a sophisticated software and you've shown your work to your non-dev friends and they say "Wow! What APP did u use?"

Furk it! App sounds like a small icon on your mobile phone to take a selfie putting a dog filter to post for everyone to see! You call this tool just an "APP"? May Zeus forgive this blasphemy.

destroy(rant);

!rant
If you have software in production please have some way for a user to find some contact email (create for this reason only if needed.)

I have run into crippling bugs in huge essential systems (state dmv new system, the ticket system utility marking) which they were oblivious to until I went out of my way, like a stalker to get some contact of someone remotely related to someone I could drop this info in the lap of, and so far it was a total shock to them (the dmv system was taken offline for 3 days to resolve)

I get not wanting to run a helpdesk to support users, but give technical users some contact info ( even if you think you have full coverage analytics because, being software, it may have a bug)

/rant

Not a rant!

But I had to share that I just got my first job in IT while being a first year Software Engineer student! Being a webmaster at a store that operates on campus! Not much, but it's something!

What was your most disappointing moment as a software developer?

Mine was the realization that when you're working for someone, all they want to see is the final product. The people paying you don't give a shit whether you put your braces on a new line, your domain model doesn't call a database directly or if you're applying the best practices. Your teammates do, but the people paying you don't.

People hire you to get the job done, and that job is to solve a problem for someone. Not in the way that's best for you, but in the most effective way for them. Since I realized this, I lost some pride in my work.

Rant on anti devs.

I helped my friend crack a fairly simple hackerank. The questionnaire was basic JavaScript questions and little on CSS selectors nth child. The test is finished in half hour instead of 75 mins.

5 months later. He calls again and ask if he can get the question solutions (code snippets). I didn't have those but curious why he needed it. He says he wants to put that solutions to Github. So would look on resume. This is not even a project just code snippet with a for loop. He just wants any codebase to upload to his profile.

My ears are bleeding. It makes me sad that some people had to do Masters in computer science purely out of societal pressure. Just because software development is booming field a lot of folks who are not genuinely interested in development are being forced into the industry.

Not really a rant, more a proud of myself moment but the custom IVR software I built is now getting 20k calls a day and hasn't broken........

........yet

My colleague just made a very subtle rant in real life:

"I wish we could become more software developer and be less software producer"

!rant
I saw a devrant user posting something about "the cockroach" that survives in the company no matter what so I knew I had to rant about something similar. I worked with a guy and his ability to talk shit is in direct proportion to his salary. The guy watches youtube all day, searches for things to buy, goes to vacations and no one knows what he does. :)) plot twist: he just forwards ( not sends ) emails from the business to a software provider. Did I mention that he has the highest salary( don't ask how I found out ).
Anyhow, the guy is winning at life, no one gives two shits about him, he is always hiding and running from work. While writing this I'm actually amazed by his skill, how do you end up like this? He reminds me of Wally from Dilbert!

Rant
I'm a CS student at a university in the global top 10. We currently have two courses using Java, where we have to submit our work to a judge program. One of them is running Java 7. the second one Java 6! Come on, what year is it? Just update your fucking software and the assignments, you lazy fucks!

First rant. Am I doing this right?

My first rant! let's see what is about!

Greetings from Venezuela, the oil and corruption country of South America...

Is it possible to become a good software developer just being constant, every day trying, even when you don't know what you're doing but, keep it up till you accomplish a goal? Or is anything more needed to succeed? I mean I'm trying to make my first desktop app and sometimes I feel like fck! I'm leaving this... I'm trying to dominate the software development process to get better a better job, in here or out there... But geez its hard...

Well, I want to believe that maybe someday I will become a good software developer...

First rant without thinking too much...

!rant

I’ll be interviewing for a software developer position at a bank today.

What do they like to hear?

The client in my previous rant asked me to overhaul their whole internet radio system in three days.

So I went on and install RadioDJ, which needs MySQL, which also needs .NET framework. And an encoder is needed to convert the RadioDJ's output and port it to the streaming host, ShoutCast.

Oh, and every software install needs the network admin's permission.....which won't be here until end of next week.

And here I am, in their broadcasting room on a Sunday, trying to download everything that I can so the admin can install it.

On the bright side, that stupid icon is finally vertically centered.

Some epic software gore when someone called me right as I unlocked my phone

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();

What the hell is it with WordPress people. Just read a rant where this dude is calling himself a "developer" . What the hell you're not a developer stop calling yourself a developer. All you do is click and drag pictures into squares. And type plain English into text boxes. Using software thay an actual developer actually did develop. You don't see me on cook rant calling myself a cook you know why cuz I can't cook. Leave don't learn a respectable language and get back to me. And no HTML is not a language.

!rant, probably, even though kind of yes, but not overt

i just realized something: software doesn't take lot of effort and time to change because it would be difficult to make a change.

it takes lot of effort and time to change because making the change is easy, but inspecting and debugging what other things the change affects takes most of the time and effort.

it would be nice if project managers were able to wrap their head around this.

tl;dr i can make the change right now in 5 minutes, but it's going to take me an hour to check if me changing that didn't break something else.

!rant

Super awesome day today.

1. Got up early to do a risky production deploy and it worked!
2. Three PRs approved before lunch.
3. Got some time to continue learning scala.
4. Coffee and cupcakes with some refugees and discussed work as a software engineer.
5. Tried virtual reality for the first time. Really fun.
6. Helped prepare our goals for this quarter and present them to the department.
7. Department meeting had free local craft beer and pretzels.
8. Went bouldering after work and flashed a 6c.
9. Curled up with my wife watching Netflix.

I really love my life sometimes.

!rant

More like a genersl question I guess. But how do you guys react to writing software that might make someone else get laid off? At work I developed an application that manages a lot of the inventories and yard management that had to be done by hand. While I was developing it, the manager that was giving me the details mentioned (jokingly) many times that if the software works as it was expected that they will not require certain people anymore. I shrugged it off as a joke since I could not imagine it being serious. Turns out, it was serious and some talks about company restructuring have taken place since I released the app into our servers. How the fuck am I supposed to feel? If someone loses their job because of something like this, how would someone go about NOT feeling guilty af?

Rant!
Got an email from an extension developer who releases code under GPL. Had a list of all sites using "our copy" of his software and demanding that we pay twice as much now for download access. We've only asked for support on one domain ever so this feels like an underhanded way to treat customers when your software is supposed to be GPL.

Absolutely need his product so we paid it. Feeling very annoyed that GPL software license isn't really being honored. And it's creepy that he's tracking it that way.

Rant Mode: ON

Do you know what really grinds my gears? Those dreaded "404 Page Not Found" errors. It's like a digital black hole, sucking your users into a vortex of frustration.

And don't get me started on inconsistent coding standards. It's like trying to decipher hieroglyphics written by different ancient civilizations. Why can't we all just follow the same conventions?

Oh, and software updates that break everything! You spend hours perfecting your code, only for a new update to come along and wreak havoc. It's like the universe is conspiring against developers.

But hey, despite the rants, we developers are a resilient bunch. We thrive on solving problems, no matter how infuriating they can be. So, here's to the endless debugging, the endless coffee, and the endless love-hate relationship with coding. We wouldn't have it any other way.

Rant Mode: OFF

Phew, that felt good. Thanks for letting me vent!

A few years ago I would whine, complain and rant about shitty software, which I knew could be so much better than it was. But I didn't yet write software of my own.

Now I complain about shitty libraries, API's and users. Not much has changed really. And every time I write code, I curse myself, and whoever made this trashpile I have to work with. I curse the user to the moon and beyond for using the program wrong. Funny thing is, exactly the thing I was complaining about (input validation, see earlier rant) is also exactly what no more than 5 minutes after release, a user fucked up with. The bot just does not respond at this point. But fuck these braindead retards for users.

In a few years I expect myself to be complaining about shitty compilers and buffer overflows, segmentation violations, bad coding style (don't make your program a fucking colander kthx), and so on.

Next decade I expect myself to be complaining about physics itself, and why the universe is governed by the laws it's governed by. Whoever this God is, he's a fucking retard. Funny thing is, the signs for it are already there. Electron theory! If only those electrons were positrons, then the math would check out properly. Instead of negative electrons traveling from negative to positive, we'd have positive positrons traveling from positive to negative. At least from what I understand so far, this is still a decade away after all.

The point I'm trying to make is that nothing changes, only my understanding of the world around me does, as I tumble further and further down the rabbit hole. Sometimes I wish I had taken the blue pill... Either complain about others' software or perhaps not give a shit at all. Become one of those filthy users I now despise.

My rant is that I low key hate devRant.

I'm 23, I'm an average software engineer, with some expertise in machine learning and with a decent job.
But seeing all your cool stories, skills and rants makes me feel like I don't know shit and everyone else is just more driven, skillful and passionate, taking care of a 1000 pet projects at a time and dominating their work routine.

Oh impostor syndrome, how I've missed you!

P.S.: I still love your rants, keep them coming.

What's the must have tools/software when developing on Windows?

Developers who don’t use silent switches on their installers have a special place in Hell reserved for them!

!Rant; Week40
Honestly, before starting my post secondary education in Computer science I had wanted to become an architect.
Since I was maybe.... 10 years old all the way till the semester before graduating from highschool I was sold on becoming an architect.
I love design; Interior design, art, unique use of colors, architecture. I love systems that looked good and worked as well as they appeared.
Over the winter break of my grade 12 year a friend said to me, "Why don't you become a UI/UX developer? You love technology, software and design, why not go into a career where you practice on all three?".
I was surprised to hear that. It had honestly never really occurred to me since I had always told myself I would become an architect.
I guess that leaves me to where I am now. Still a student, but loving my time learning the details behind software development. I do not regret choosing Development over becoming an Architect.

var _self = Object.create(Rant);

Hello devs I'm back

A few months ago I joined a software development company and I was pretty specific that I wasn't going to do support or maintenance only feature development, well, this past 3 months I've been doing dev helping stablish good practices and a better architecture for the app, but guess who is joining a support team tomorrow, they sold me the idea of a refactor team, I was trilled and accepted, now they tell me it's a legacy bug fixing team, damn I hate this crap, hope y'all doing better

not sure if this totally classifies as a rant, but here goes:

so my Pi is giving a lot of problems. can't install software, keep getting weird error messages. so I try DD a new image onto the card. does not work at all. tried on three different machines :D
next I try run rm -rf /
it's obviously totally fucked. nothing works. pull the plug and plug it in again to see what happens.... it boots up again :D all the commands are back. no files are gone.

and that's when I was like fuck this and I returned the sd card :D

Holy shit seriously: Fuck MSOffice. Fuck it right in the eyehole.

As desktop software, it's just brutally terrible. On my work mac, it's just sweaty garbage. The latest insult is that on the most recent update, msword stole the default file association from preview.

Libre isn't terrific, but at least it's closed when you close it. For that reason alone, it's orgasmic by comparison.

Because there's justice in the world, my job is not a document-centered one, so I have no real use at all for an office app, let alone the specific macros and formulae that the msoffice versions of these apps provide, so I couldn't give less of a shit about losing functionality.

The headline and main thrust of this rant is "fuck msoffice so hard that it dies of eye-fucking."

Find yourself a manager/leader who knows a bit about software engineering. Better still, find one who is/was a software engineer him/herself.

Because software engineering is a form of art. A leader who doesn't understand your art won't be able to properly appreciate it.

They won't be interested in how and why you make/do something. They're only interested in how fast can you get it done.

Dear dev rant. I stopped being a web designer today and am now a software "developer". I feel like I don't know crap again :)

Not really a rant but just curious who listens to podcasts and which channel is your favorite?
Mine are Software Engineering Radio and InfoQ

Lets discuss Git Clients. Now I love electron, in concept. And I love what you can do with it, on paper. And I understand Github's need to jack itself off by developing its own framework just to make its own software in being what Github is, and then everyone else following suite because Github must know best. And that's my rant, I don't think it had a point. So, favorite git client and why?

Ok. This is not a rant.

My company invites our customers each year to something like a exhibition. We have a very complex business software which is installed on the intranet of our customers. So the customer representatives are very used to us.

After the presentations we all joined an event prepared by our Marketing people.

That was so great and fantastic. Honestly.
The best part - if you once drank with a customer, the comunication is much different than before 😵

I'm still having a hangover. So sorry for typos....

Rant: i have a software firm, recently got a new project, found a freelancer to work on the project.

He is a very good developer but he works on the project only when he wishes to work and I am left to answer the clients about project delays.

It's so frustrating that I can't get angry on him otherwise he will leave the project and on the other side I have to answer clients. I am stuck with all the tensions in the world.

I know this is the second rant on a row about this, but I really need to hear someone saying that IBM enterprise software sucks. Nothing works, everything heavy and slow as fuck, documentation doesn't exist, official developer's forum gives me an error on login, many IBM official pages give me a 500 internal error. And, in the end, this costed as hundreds of thousands of euro. Seriously?

!rant
I need a new OS.
I have one year of Kubuntu, one year of Fedora KDE and there years of Arch Linux (Openbox, KDE, i3wm).

Now I'm undecided between debian and Arch Linux as a stable System.

What do you guys recommend me?

I hate picking huge software from AUR and need to compile it, but i hate having always a, yes stable package, but under versioned...
(and, exist a Debian minimal without everything Archstyle?)

I just wasted 2 hours together with a colleague to trace a bug, through several modules, functions, data, etc to find out it was usage of the wrong information in the wrong place. The data used was never intended to be used this way.

I HATE SUCH SOFTWARE ARCHAELOGY.
Carefully uncovering layer over layer, getting one detail after another, from which you don't know if it's really necessary to trace the bug, until you lose the sight of the whole picture. Then when you're confused to the maximum, try to figure out what's important and what not and reassemble the puzzle until you can see where the road is heading.

At least we found the cause of the bug, so it wasn't useless. Now we have to waste more time to develop a solution (...preparing for next rant 🙇)

If I had to name one attribute that dominates the software engineering ecosystem, it would be “arrogance” especially among young programmers. I think software engineering would be a much better place to work if people were more empathetic than being ginormous assholes trying to have a leg up over all their peers. Collaboration is much more rewarding than competition. It feeds your soul and feels a lot more natural.

Collaboration over Competition.

Have a peaceful day at work guys!

!rant

Working with postgres is just a great experience every time, I've never EVER had a problem with it.

and it's so insanely POWERFUL!!!!

great role model of what all open-source software should strive to be

!rant seems that my raspberry pi serial idea is a little bit complex at the moment and may take a more serious turn later, but I have studied and found DOS based TCP/IP software that will allow me to use my 5150 with actual Ethernet. There are a few 8bit ISA Ethernet cards that will work in the 5150 and separate executables that will configure DHCP, DNS, and even allow me to use a terminal emulator and SSH to connect to *nix based computers over lan! I'll keep you all posted!

!rant (all ranters should read)

Today I was at university, doing some C low-level stuff. Then I looked my Professor.

Holy fucking shit, this man (and obviously the others) learned programming without google, stackoverflow, youtube and online doc/forum/examples/explanation.
I also believe that some of them could not compile and run at home their software.

MASSIVE RESPECT FOR YOU ALL !

!rant

Sometimes I think about packing up my bags and just going into security consulting just to get away from the world of being an infrastructure anarchist for software companies that are overvalued "Export to Excel" generators.

Imagine going on quora and answering somebodies carbon offsetting question by pushing your own stupid fucking agenda with propaganda answers like

"oh we need rainforest money!"

"oh we need grassland!"

"oh support the cows"

jesus fucking christ, THIS is why we have a problem with people not accepting climate change, becuase every fucking liberal wants to pile on one another and have their 'most important' cause behind it

give me a break you fucking idiots, it won't be solved by acting this way

sorry this is in no way software related, but it's the only place left i have to rant (however in some ways it is somehow software related, due to being able to think about the real world without being an absolute idiot and pushing some stupid peer pressured political idea because your social identity and friends are more important than actual facts, but whatever)

Hi my dear fellow coders, I have a small request for you.

If you are among those coders who are working on microchipping people / quantum dot something, tracking people, classifying people, AI, ML or any other such software which is going to harm or cage us or take away our freedom. Please stop doing so.

Why I came out with this rant?
I myself am working on a covid-19 screening app which would rate people based on symptoms and if they seem high risk they would not be allowed to enter unless they do a covid-19 test. I am tracking their movement and the requirement is to restrict people’s movement.
My conscience says that this is incorrect and and I should not be a part of such things which take away the freedom and liberty of people.
I am stopping it now.

!rant

This is my first post. I just want to say that you guys are awesome!!! I love all the rants that I understand. I can relate to that even though I just started my career as a software engineer few months ago.

Keep posting awesome rants!

Love you all !! 😊

!rant

Met up with a good friend today we go off roaring all the time since we both own hooked up Jeep wranglers. Well we got together and after a fun day of crawling (no coding 😞) lol, We went to eat and I pulled up devRant and kind of mentioned how much I loved this little app and stuff and why it was about. Well turns out that I’ve been friends with this guy for sometime and we never talked profession. This guy is the Vice President to a large scale software development company here in my state!

I was dumbfounded ! Lol all this time this dude has been in the same field and I had no clue.

(I don’t get out much) 😅

Before I learned software development, API sounded like a kind of beer.
Today I used the term so often that I have in fact recently tried to order an API at a bar.

dude fuck fucking salesforce i fucking hate the day someone came up with the brilliant ass idea of inventing this garbage crm software that i must deal with even though it is not my area. i fucking hate the developer experience to do third-party implementations, not letting you upload changes to another environment for the sake of """"good practices"""", the fucking interface is slow as shit i could've already had intense hto sex, taken a shit, cook lunch and sleep 2 hours before it can load a single retarded lightning page.
why? WHY? WHYYY? WHY MUST THIS ASSWARE EXIST? WHY?

AS A FACT I'VE WRITTEN THIS RANT BEFORE THE DAMN PAGE EVEN LOADED A CONFIGURATION SECTION. GOD HELP US.

?rant
We bought an expensive middleware which helped development speed and stability a lot. Something did not work and after a week I located the bug in the middleware. Support was adequate and the bug got fixed after my report.
I'm not mad at the developers, because bugs happen, and this one was hard to catch, even with tests.
On the other hand I have to explain my boss what took so much time.
It really wasn't my fault, but I also don't want to shame the middleware company, because it will make it harder for me to buy their stuff (and I quite like their products) or even any software at all.

RANT!

I still struggle to find the suitable address book software for our company. It supposed to be secure and inexpensive. But how so? It's flipping not possible to have both!
My boss answer to almost everything I say: Just do it! - in German: einfach machen! Please hulp!

!rant
long time lurker and finally decided to create an account and contribute to this awesome community.

I been slowly entering in the field of software development it's been a great journey and still have a lot to learn.

Have a nice day!

// RANT

STUDENTS NEED MORE HANDS ON COURSES !

I'm doing a year abroad for the fourth year of my masters. I come from a school that really pushes projects, pitches and research forward while leaving in some theory.

Now that I'm at another uni in a different country I can't help but note how UNPREPARED students are for a professional setting ! And they are one year away from finishing their masters in Software Engineering...

Students should use version control tools, they should test their software, they should apply their knowledge to a concrete project ! A 3 hour course on software testing is only as good as its practical counterpart.

context: I'm sort of a self-deprecating guy and I really don't look for validation.

So, i decided to fuck it. I tried to provide the best decisions in terms of money-wise/biz-wise but apparently this guys rather choose what he believes is best for the code... (he knows shit of coding and that's coming from someone who is not a software engineer but rather a physicist who happens to code).
So, now i let him make all decisions. no opinion from me. a few things are going to shit because of him... fuck it. i had it. as long as I get paid. fuck him.

this is probably common... sorry for the rant.

Who the FUCK thought "let's completely redesign the Doodle mobile app and make it as unusable as possible!"?

The app RESETS every selected option EVERY time you switch to another app and back. Like yea, you don't need to use the calendar app to check at what dates you're available.

Fucking morons! What. a. shit. piece. of. software. How can any PM approve of this? I bet even ChatGPT could do a better job. Fucking hell. "Let's save money with developing hybrid apps! We have no clue how to do it right but: we spend less money, yay!" Fuck. You.

(First rant. Don't know if I did this right but I had to let this out.)

!rant
Remember the Stress ball's TransOceanic Trackable Voyage? (Also called Devvie in a bottle.) Well, we're finalizing the design. But if you are interested in helping us with software, hardware, launching, recovery, or anything else that might help, join us at stotv.herokuapp.com. PS, we're also looking for sponsors, so if you are or know someone who is interested in sponsoring, send a message to @sven on Slack.

!rant

Just read an article about a blind sofftware developer, who is proficient in way more technologies then me, for example.

He can use certain screen reader and code edor combo to read out the text, and also something called refreshable braille display.

This is so insiprational and only goes to show that there is no excuse whatsoever for a person NOT to learn software developing...

!rant
My first real software job is my current one. Nothing to rant about: great colleagues, lot of challenging work. Plus I get to work remotely.

Some people of devRant are astonishingly stupid.

I post a rant of Ryan Dahl where he says he don't like the unnecessary complexity of modern software. It's an obvious UX rant, but @Crost says that it's about rushing releases and writing sloppy code to "tick the item off my list and solve the problem". @Crost and other boubas, if Ryan's vision was more widespread, macOS, the OS you all hate so much, wouldn't have existed because Linux would have the best UX ever.

I post a rant about Google algo being nasty and throwing triggering shit at me. I previously posted stuff like this, Root confirmed that it works just the way I think it works, it's a manipulative piece of crap. But @Oktokolo says that "The algorithm literally just gives you same of the stuff you just saw", well, I don't know, nice view of the problem for a guy with no computer and no smartphone, @Oktokolo! All that "youtube recommendations gathered us together on some obscure video" comments, and you still don't get it.

I post a rant about how I redesigned a fucking color wheel icon. It shows a "before-after" pic and the colors are obviously the same, but fucking @Oktokolo be popping up again, telling me that I have eye condition (!) that makes me see more blues than yellows.

No wonder you guys don't know how to use CSS, the simplest programming language (yes, it's a programming language).

No wonder smart people like SortOfTested just leave.

I still refuse to believe that devRant user base consists of stupid people exclusively. Perhaps they are just average, and I'm the genius with my Aspergers just getting way more information out of my environment like I always do.

!rant

I know this may not be the typical post on Devrant and it may be a little off topic, but I could really use some advice from fellow colleagues here.

The thing is, I just finished engineering school and I got my first job as a software engineer. So far so good. I've never been a natural talent in this field, and I suck at writing code. I find things like architecture, system design, innovation, requirementsspecification, management and business development much more interesting.

These past weeks as a software engineer has been really challenging for me. I seem to be totally "in over my head", and fuck everything up. I can't understand how the code I'm supposed to write works, and can't solve even the simplest of tasks that are assigned to me if they involve any implementation of code, or fiddling with Github or build servers.

Is it normal to feel like this as an engineer with zero experience? Will things get better, or should I just resign or wait to be fired?

What would a natural next step for a software engineer who'd like to move more into business and management be? A MBA? Project management courses?

I hope to get some advice from you guys. Maybe you've felt like this when you started out as well? Anyway, any constructive feedback would be really much appreciated.

Hell is programming in a language where everything is global, strings have a maximum length and error handling is nonexistent.

You know what? FUCK Australian employers. I know they'd be damn fucking lucky to have me on their team.

I just finished working on something that I made several years ago (what I raised funds for in my previous rant), I then took it a step further and automated the process [if some things], and now I have my own software finding me new leads and sending them to me via email and push notifications.

With a little bit of tweaking maybe, and a little bit of time, I expect to find some new clients again.

monday.com: our manager has been pushing for it for weeks. We barely got any time with the demo before it expired and the company took forever to get licenses.

Now that we're on it ... this thing sucks ass. It hijacks all the browser keyboard shortcuts. You can't use Ctrl+F or Ctrl+L .. you can't even right click.

This is the worst project management software I've ever seen. It's amazingly even worse that Jira. I wish we had just gone with Redmine. It's free and not garbage

Today I got to work and could not find my computer anymore.

A little background: I am studying IT half of the time, the other half I work at a small software company. Today I came back from three months of University and wanted to start working again.

On the desk I worked the last six months is a laptop. I used a tower. So I asked where my PC went, but literally no one can tell my where it is. Some people think the admin gave it to some other person but saved the HDD somewhere, but he does not answer the phone and he is not in the office for another two days.

TL;DR I am sitting here, writing a rant and drinking coffee. I should have waited some days before showing up...

I am trying to reverse engineer a fingernail hardening device for rapid hardware prototyping (becoming some kind of hardware developer I guess)

Since it is a fucking mess (all cables are black) they've chosen a weird construct to operate microcontroller on 240Vac (seems to be possible and made in very low energy consuming devices) i do not find any datasheet for one of the used products. It would help a lot but no. And messing around with high voltage is no fun.

I'm unsure if this fits as a dev rant since most/all I've read so far are software-related.

Fruit Machines... Kind of a dev rant, I mean, they have software running them now, but my gripe is the hardware (I think).

Any of you that frequent pubs and use fruit machines notice that many of the LEDs are "broken" / "non functioning" lately? I mean it's rare I see one that doesn't have lights that are out, rendering the entire machine useless, yet it still takes your money.

Intentionally made to break? Or are LEDs really that difficult to get right? Or maybe it's software determining which ones to appear "broken" and there is a way reset it?

It's a rant none the less...

Not a rant

After coding, cooking/ book reading is my favorite hobby.

Before last 3 month I took dcsn to give a shot to my other hobby cooking and pause on coding for few months.
I decided to give 100days to my cafe.

Arranging money and perfect location took 2 months , on 16 july I started my cafe not so fancy, just sweet simple.

Means 30 days we're completed,
I was earning 1000 inr as software developer, i am earning 10000 inr daily . My net profit is 1500inr

Moral of the story

Don't hesitate to take risk
Believe on yourself
Never never never start with partnership

Currently I have to pay 1.5 lakh to my ex business partner who left cafe in first 15 days

N

Forget personal life. Your business is your priority.

Not spend even १ full day with my family and gf in last 3 months.

Soon I will back in software.

Have a good day to everyone.

Life as a Software Engineering intern so far,
Travel 10 miles everyday from home to workplace.

Week 1: Understand the existing stack and start working on Django + Angular JS.
Task : Add something to existing documentation.

Week 2:
Task : Start working on existing product and improve request and response time for a particular module.

Week 3: Shift to new stack. Learn new stuff and start again.

Mandatory work policy for 9.5 hrs. FML

We use a open-source business management software (incl. crm, e-commerce, billing, accounting, warehouse, ...) that is highly customizable.

Previously we had "Company A" that customized it for my company. It was very expensive so they hired something to do the same but cheaper & inhouse. The codebase that "Company A" has written was terrible (confirmed by CTO & the new colleague").

Then the CFO wanted functionality A. Colleague said that this will take 2 weeks to implement. One week later, it was no longer needed & functionality B was now mandatory. Rinse & Repeat.

The CFO: "Why is nothing ever gonna get finished" or "why is the quality so bad?"

So they hired another person for the same position. This person has more experience so it costs them a lot more... And suddenly, everything works well

They contacted a few months later a consultant that analyzed the company. The consultant asked (for good reason) why such a small company has 2 people maintaining the in-house BM software. And suddenly, they wanted to get rid of the worst person. <enter my previous rant>

He is thrown out. Now the head of Operations wants to remove that software because it was not "sexy" enough (her words). So they introduced a glorified spreadsheet with less functionality. That new colleague was offered to take the lead on that project... And thus he fled to another company.

That project failed and now everyone is fired... And they hired back "Company A" to maintain that BM project.

I'm currently at a company where we have "performance reviews" every 2 weeks, and based on the outcome we get a percentage which then is used to calculate a performance bonus.

This is simply my manager (also a developer) who has his Excel spreadsheet, looking at tasks I did over the course of the past 2 weeks and almost nitpicking to find some fault. There is no code review or software demo to see what's been done either... I was there for the first 3 months and I don't think anyone had even open my code!

And when confronted, I get told that "You should also somehow be financially liable for the goings-on in the business", along with a 2 hour meeting to support that.

This is NOT how you motivate developers!

Apologies for the long rant...

</rant>

With a recent HAProxy update on our reverse proxy VM I decided to enable http/2, disable TLS 1.0 and drop support for non forward-secrecy ciphers.

Tested our sites in Chrome and Firefox, all was well, went to bed.

Next morning a medium-critical havock went loose. Our ERP system couldn't create tickets in our ticket system anymore, the ticket systems Outlook AddIn refused to connect, the mobile app we use to access our anti-spam appliance wouldn't connect although our internal blackboard app still connected over the same load balancer without any issues.

So i declared a 10min maintenance window and disabled HTTP/2, thinking that this was the culprit.

Nope. No dice.
Okay, i thought, enable TLS 1.0 again.

Suddenly the ticket system related stuff starts to work again.

So since both the ERP system and the AddIn run on .NET i dug through the .NET documentation and found out that for some fucking reason even in the newest .NET framework version (4.7.2) you have to explicitly enable TLS 1.1 and 1.2 or else you just get a 'socket reset' error. Why the fuck?!

Okay, now that i had the ticket system out of the way i enabled HTTP/2 and verified that everything still works.

It did, nice.

The anti-spam appliance app still did not work however, so i enabled one non-pfs cipher in the OpenSSL config and tested the app.

Behold, it worked.

I'm currently creating a ticket with them asking politely why the fuck their app has pfs-ciphers disabled.

And I thought disabling DEPRECEATED tech wouldn't be an issue... Wrong...

I work everyday with a x16 app that is written in vb3 for Windows 3.1 that runs "natively" on Windows 95, adapted to work in Windows XP, somehow the app works on Windows 7 and in this moment some people is working to make the app works on Windows 10...
You should imagine how good the app behavior is...

!rant

After a hard search and test work my boss finally agreed upon using YouTrack as a software management tool.

😁😁

!rant (kinda)

So I'm currently working on a personal project, where the concept is something, that if I wanted to, I could probably make a decent penny off of it.

The plan is to make it open source, and not charge anything for it, and when I tell this to non-dev people, they're almost shocked! Why would I not take an opportunity to make a lot of money!?

Well basically I think it's awesome to have open-source software, and I really want to "contribute to the society". And only after like 10 minutes, people start understanding my point, to just help people make something new, instead of being a greedy person, and keep it private, making it unavailable for a lot of people.

Hopefully I'm not the only one with this mindset?

!Rant
Software is grown, not built. -- Bill de hÓra

!rant
I decided to dive into programming by learning C#. Main reason behind it was to avoid the zillions of frameworks and technologies (which scare me) and most importantly dumb client requests. I already have a lot of xp as a designer and working for the web bizz was just UGH!

Nevertheless, I am still wondering if I should pick up some web technologies. I am planning to pick up .NET and C# design patterns next, but what then? Do you think it's smart to focus only on enterprise software development today? I don't mind developing a bigger web-based app or doing server-related stuff either. Everything but startups and developing sites for my cousin's friend's sister hair saloon.

What is the smartest way to go with C# as a starting point in terms of job opportunities?

!rant

Guys I need your help, I'm considering the corporate life, and I have two major options

Option A:
A software factory where I would be working on maintaining existent systems and adding features, but I would learn a lot with their shadow program.

Option B:
An IT department where I would use a lot of different technologies, .Net, Java, ADF, etc, maybe even hardware but I would be paid the fifth than with A.

So what do you think?

This rant can basically be boiled down to the name of the software in use/question:
FileMaker Pro 8.5

Please chime in if you have ever had the privelege of working with this gem of a database program, especially the scripting capabilities...

Trying to make it print/save/export an individual PDF file into a folder specified/created by one field with the filename set from another field. Will probably get it to work but the drag and drop scripting style reminds me of setting up an autoclicker for runescape; so fricken painful. Love to hear your comments.

Also happens to be running on an ancient PPC G5 iMac with 1 Gig of RAM running 10.4.11 hidden in the back room of an old warehouse with extra creepy flickering lights...

EFFF EMMM ELLL

So yeah thats my rainy Friday rant, hope you all are having this much fun.

!rant

I always hear stories about someone hearing one of our developer friends is a developer and assumes that means they know everything about computers. Hell, I've had it happen to me before (usually the common "oh I have an app idea that's better than facebook! you just have to build it")

A big one I hear if someone asking a developer that has only worked with software to help fix a hardware issue or build a computer. Personally, I'd prefer if someone asked me about a hardware issue (except printers, fuck printers) or to build a computer for them. I've been called a rare breed for knowing about an equal amount about computer hardware and software.

I'd much rather do some physical work building a computer (as simple as a hello world program, a lot of it is putting shit where it fits) than build an entire website or program for someone. But I mean, I might actually know hardware a bit better than I know software, and that's just me. (Obviously never do anything for free when you could be paid for it)

Ok, today's rant brought to you by Microsoft Visual Studio, once again. The updated version I downloaded yesterday now has a weird problem where upon the first run of the emulator, my changes show, but on subsequent runs, no matter how much I change, save, clear cache, restart the emulator, no changes will show in the emulator until I completely restart visual studio! Currently in the process of uninstalling the updated version to download the older version, but again I can't just refresh my PC, because I have to download a version from the developer account downloads. Because the trial version can't be upgraded. This is Microsoft's Flagship Development product running on their flagship OS on a machine with killer specs and the latest updates. GET IT TOGETHER. I would be fired if I released such buggy updates and had such an arduous user experience.

Hi there, First “rant” here, although it’s more of a question.

I have been working on a side project for some time and it has come to the point where I feel it might be prudent to protect my work with a patent or something similar.

The project in question is a multiplayer browser based game. The code is currently open source, but that can always change.

Given this is software people use rather than a service that developers might build off of, is copyright more appropriate than creative commons?

Based in the US if you can't tell and I'm above the age of majority luckily.

Thanks for any advice!

Is it just me or is the 'storefront' test for CAPTCHA much harder than the schoolbus or traffic light? Could be my diminishing eyesight, or bourbon too.

!rant

So this happened sometimes ago.
We ,primarily, makes accounting software with industry specific integrations of manufacturing,etc. A soon-to-be new client visited our office for a meeting and a quick demo.
He's not satisfied with his current software and wants to switch but keeps bragging about how his current software operates and it's easier for him.(Only because he's been using it for years.)

NC : We used to do like that. Blahblahblah.

My Boss : Well, I built this new office last year. I visited "Taj Mahal" just before that. It was so beautiful. But it doesn't mean I should build a "Taj Mahal" for my office because it's not practical. Same goes for this software.

The client has a great sense if humor. He burst into laughing after 5 secs of silence. Not a single word of his current "system" after that.

PS : My first post.

So I was hacked, this guys encrypted all my files and asked me to pay BTC to decrypt it. They even changed my wallpaper and gave me put instructions on all my folder directories on how to pay and recover my files

//not an actual rant
Just curious how many non software students/employers/people code while it is not their main profession

!rant

Just found out that all the high school varsity sports kids that got full rides to ivy leagues for sports are all transferring or failing. Meanwhile, I've been accepted into a graduate program for Software Engineering and I'm going into my second internship this summer. I know to most people that's just more work and more school but to me that's winning

!rant
EULA proposition for broke developers with no legal knowledge whatsoever (like me): “By installing/using this software you agree not to sue me.”

??? git good

Just finished fourth interview with a company (fuck me) for a solutions engineer position (I am a self taught dev that is transitioning to technical roles from a pretty "soft" background with the hope of being in a software engineer role within three years). Anyone have any experience with the solutions engineer role and some advice about it? Note: this IS an invitation to rant about solutions engineers so I know what NOT to do.

Lets make a rant before going to bed

Who had the marvelous idea that a developer's proeficiency could be measured by years?

So at my new job Ive been waiting for credentialls, server access software installation, etc ( i know i know but thats for another rant ) and all that idle time has given me opportunity to crawl in the company's sharepoint page which has the career path for a software developer, since Im a student Im listed as trainee, but after that I have to wait 3 years + certifications to be considered as senior and then be able to hop to next hierarchy level Software Designer and then another three years to be able to become a software architect. So my point, as I was seeing this I thought "I dont wanna wait 6 years to become a software architect, Im going to be better faster in order to become needed and make them promote me faster"

The thing is Ive always wanted to become a softwsre architect and learning that I have to wait 7 years to be considered a proeficient architect just makes me mad.

Pd: One of the requirements for a senior developer is knowing Lines of code time stimation

Multi-mini-rant time!

1. The Case of the Craptop

Someone wants me to fix their permadead battery, cut-up charger, and what amounts to a laptop held together with GUM... all with software. The charger is like 6 bends from snapping entirely, and requires fucking with. Hard drive is on last legs. Battery's like $50 on its own.
Fuck me...

2. The Fuckery Continues...

Wednesday, it's gonna be -30°F or worse with wind chill. School isn't closing. Normal temps are like 40°F rn, so it's not like it's usual weather or anything.
Fuck me. Again.

/rant on

React Native is BS for Android. Outdated as hell Gradle builds (1.x for certain plugins I mean wtf) and it targets outdated SDK and build tools... Why no simply code for system your software is meant to work :P

/rant over

In seriousness, I get the concept of build once deploy on all platforms ala Electron but better but hell why is the tooling so outdated?

!rant

I find IT to be an amazing field. There are so many parts to it that take tremendous dedication to fully understand, yet, each part works together.

Teams of people dedicated their entire life to software development, which would be impossible if teams of people did not dedicated their entire life to the development of operating systems. That would be impossible if teams of people did not dedicated their entire life to integrating hardware and software. That again would be impossible if teams of people did not dedicated their entire life to electrical engineering.

I know I missed tons of subfields that link everything together, but just the massive amount of dedication and teamwork to make something as simple as a console application work properly is amazing. I wish I could understand it all and I hope everything will always be as easily accessible my entire life as it is now.

Hey DevRant!

Not really a rant but a question:
I just got accepted into a coding bootcamp. Have any of you been involved in one? How was it? What would you do to make it a better experience throughout? Any advice or suggestions?

It's full time, six months long and I start in October and I want to make sure I make the most of the experience and absorb as much as possible.

I'm super happy that the course appears to be less just learning JavaScript and more involved in the Computer Science side of things, even including bits about C/C++, distributed systems, algorithms and data structures, software design/testing, cryptography, database management, and computer architecture. It also, of course, covers tons of resume work, interview practice, and networking.

Thanks!

! rant || question
Preparing slides on "how to pick the right open source software" right now.
Any story you care to share?

My commute time recently went from 15 min. to 50 min. (rant for another time). Looking for a podcast that I can listen to on my way to work. It can be language specific (java) or it could be about software development in general. Anyone have any recommendations?