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So this just happened:
Sarah = best friend (random name)
Sister: Hey, could you help, sarah's phone isn't recognized by her computer anymore.
Me: What phone/pc does she have?
Sister: iPhone/Windows.
Me: Has she checked the drivers?
Sister: *tells to check drivers, feedback:* yes, seems to be fine.
Me: *comes up with 1000 other suggestions*
Sister: *doesn't work every time*
Me: Is there any other information that might be useful in this case?
Sister: Well, she dropped her phone in the water earlier, the phone is hardly responding.
Me: THE WAT? AND YOU DIDN'T THINK THIS WOULD BE WORTH MENTIONING IN THE BEGINNING?!? FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU.19 -
Hey everyone,
@trogus and I have been working on some cool devRant features that we're going to be launching very soon. In addition, as some might remember from a recent discussion, we're trying to bring in some more revenue (so we can at least break even) to avoid having to think about advertisements in the app. To do that, we're brainstorming possible useful add-on features maybe that we can offer to devRant++ members, or possibly offer for a different plan or as a complimentary product (under the devRant umbrella, but separate in terms of where it's accessed.)
If you have a few minutes, we'd appreciate some feedback by taking this survey @trogus put together: https://surveymonkey.com/r/DT9MKVN/
Also feel free to discuss here too if you want, and thanks everyone!45 -
So a few days ago I shared about the conflict with my colleague on learning React. Today I was let go. Obviously I asked why they would do that and they said they feel the problem isn't even my React knowledge but the fact I don't grasp the fundamentals of OO programming.
Thing is in these 3 months there has not been a single code review. They are either going of what my lying colleague told them (they claimed he was excluded from giving feedback), or the consultants who were hired to help us. And yes, I got feedback I should improve but at the same time the assurance so long as I show improvement it'd be fine. And I was told they could see improvement. So I'm not sure what changed but suddenly there is no budget to keep me on. In any case it feels like shitty corporate bullshit.
But I can't say they are wrong. I struggle to explain simple concepts I know in words. I've worked a series of bad jobs where nobody cared how you did stuff as long as it got done. I feel I'm so behind now and so affected by bad knowledge it's even harder to fix than to learn the first time. So I'm wondering how to fix this.
I'm really gutted too because I loved this company. I was finally getting a fair wage instead of being underpaid. The people were excellent. I felt I could finally relax and feel safe at work. And now I feel betrayed. Which for someone with self esteem issues is very hard. Can't trust in myself and can't trust in others.
I'm gonna try and pick myself up in the morning, but today I feel totally shit. This wasn't how I'd expected things to go. I thought my manager had intended to talk conflicts over but instead I get the boot. And the advice to stop overselling myself. Real useful that. Like it is on me that they hired me despite my subpar interview because my CV looked good. It's a shitty excuse. In any case they're now stuck with a dev that walks out of work, throws false accusations about colleagues, and another person warned me about to not engage because nothing good ever came from it. He's gonna keep over engineering everything and make up for all the time he wastes outside of work creating a dysfunctional environment for everyone. But yeah, easier to fire the new person who does her best despite the odds. And who cautioned against over engineering because we kept missing deadlines. And who believes in refactoring when it is needed because that's how agile works. Yeah better keep someone who has no sense of work life balance and makes others miserable then claiming he's being driven out by your ignorance. And of course the consultants who throw your own people under the bus. Can't get rid of those now.7 -
Hey guys, if you have some time, can you provide feedback on a new website I launched. It aggregates online product reviews and applies AI to them.
http://diducheck.com
Do you think this is a useful website? Thanks in advance!32 -
So... Heard back from a recruiter today. Lovely lass.
I’d passed over a submission for her tech demo.
The brief was basically just to create a small simple module that calculates shit, nae effort.
But, when the recruiter had me on the phone she said “I know it’s a silly small module but try and run it up like you would a production ready app”.
The job spec and recruiter were keen on me demonstrating TDD, not specific on js version, final runtime, etc. The job was a senior spec at a higher salary range. So it warranted some effort, and demonstrating more than a simple module.
“Okay, cool, nae bother, let’s crack on.”
The feedback in the response from the dev today:
“He’s over-engineered tests, build...”
SUCK MY LEFT TESTICLE YOU FUCKWIT.
Talk to your recruiters, not me.
The feedback included a phrase I never hope to hear from a developer I work with:
“Tests are good but...” 😞
It was a standard 98% test suite from an RGR cycle, no more or less than I’d expect in prod.
The rest of the feedback was misguided or plain wrong. It was useful to see because I know now when they say they have “high standards” they mean: we listen to the dude who put the factory pattern in a JS brief.
Oh shit also: “someone’s done chmod 777” was in there as a sarcastic comment in the feedback. It was his fucking unarchive tool 😞
My response was brief and polite: “cheers for the consideration, all the best, James”
It’s honestly not worth warning them. Or, asking why they’d criticise something they’d asked me to do.
If you want a shitty js module, ask for a shitty js module and no more.4 -
You know what they say...
When life gives you APIs, make clients.
So I found this API that powers the Twitch overlay extension for the Overwatch League and thought it'd cool to see a mobile version of it.
Done in Flutter: OWL Live Stats (https://drive.google.com/open/...)
Give it a try if you want. Right now it's pointing to a dummy API I created based on the one I found because there are no matches at the moment.
The goal was to get it done before playoffs start (July 11) so hopefully I'll get some feedback from you in case I want to publish the thing.
Appreciate your time :)
Disclaimer: I didn't bother investigating how legal and/or useful making/publishing this app is.
2 -
Long time lurker, I now have something to show you and it's something I've proudly made!
I've been working on OctoLenses lately, a Chrome extension allowing you to filter your PR and issues on Github. I find it really useful on a daily basis; and you might too
It can be used to:
- Monitor the PRs that need a review (or that have been reviewed successfuly)
- Find issues on open-source projects you like that you could take on
- Anything you can express with a Github search basically
It's good enough that I feel like I can share it with you, and I'd really like if you could take some of your time to give me a bit of feedback.
What do you like?
What you don't?
Which feature should I add?
Anything constructive basically :)
Thank you (and sorry for the self-promotion)!
1 -
I would say my biggest insecurity is not getting (enough) useful straightforward feedback from my boss about how I work.
I have a tendency to take a bit longer than others, but deliver code that rarely has to be fixed.
Some of it may appear overengineered but it really isn't... I just like it clean and not hacky.
There are times my boss seems like telling me subconciously that I take too long for my stuff, but then again, he is really happy when we deliver a big thing to a customer and it just works, without any bugs or negative feedback.
It sometimes drives me nuts. 😅2 -
I really do wish that Apple would put some more effort into their update screen.
Just having a progress bar that crawls along at an agonising pace isn't useful, in fact it makes the process feel longer than it is.
Give us some feedback as to what is going on, even Windows and Linux managed that.1 -
Positive reviews are ok.
Compliments are weird.
I love receiving good reviews on my software.
(negative but constructive feedback is welcome as well, of course)
But receiving compliments, especially in person is really weird.
On the one hand I know that I did a good job, I know that the features are useful and the UI is classy and comfortable. On the other hand I still feel not comfortable receiving compliments for doing something good.
I don't have any social awkwardness and yet this feels so weird.
Am I alone at this?1 -
AI here, AI there, AI everywhere.
AI-based ads
AI-based anomaly detection
AI-based chatbots
AI-based database optimization (AlloyDB)
AI-based monitoring
AI-based blowjobs
AI-based malware
AI-based antimalware
AI-based <anything>
...
But why?
It's a genuine question. Do we really need AI in all those areas? And is AI better than a static ruleset?
I'm not much into AI/ML (I'm a paranoic sceptic) but the way I understand it, the quality of AI operation correctness relies solely on the data it's
datamodel has been trained on. And if it's a rolling datamodel, i.e. if it's training (getting feedback) while it's LIVE, its correctness depends on how good the feedback is.
The way I see it, AI/ML are very good and useful in processing enormous amounts of data to establish its own "understanding" of the matter. But if the data is incorrect or the feedback is incorrect, the AI will learn it wrong and make false assumptions/claims.
So here I am, asking you, the wiser people, AI-savvy lads, to enlighten me with your wisdom and explain to me, is AI/ML really that much needed in all those areas, or is it simpler, cheaper and perhaps more reliable to do it the old-fashioned way, i.e. preprogramming a set of static rules (perhaps with dynamic thresholds) to process the data with?23 -
Welcome to post 2 of WHY WOULD I WANT TO WORK WITH YOU?, a saga of competence, empathy and me being dick, even tho I didn't want to be one.
This is a follow-up to: https://devrant.com/rants/2363374 It's title is: "Oh, you can post only every 2h. Didn't know that". I also didn't know that the rest of my rant would be put into a comment. For consistency tho, this time I am still splitting the story.
A wise person once wrote in their book: "People judge other people by two things: Empathy and competence." This may not be an accurate quote, but it carries the same message. Also, I don't really remember who was the author. I only know they were probably quite wise. Anyway, I just wanted to share that sentence. Have a moment and think about it. Or don't. Here's my story:
A was a software house that looked pretty promising. They were elegant, their page and offer looked nice. Well, unless you consider the fact that they offered me internship. Unpaid. But I decided to meet with them anyway, since I had hope that I could negotiate some sort of paid internship or a job contract even. I did my homework after all, and I was confident I am able to keep up with their requirements. I arrived a little bit... no, way to early. One damn hour. Whatever, I waited. I was greeted by a woman. We had a cultural conversation, she had a list of 12 questions I needed to answer, as a form of a test. We begun. First question: How do you change a value in Oracle Database? "Wait a minute", I thought, "What kind of question is that?". Why in seven hells would you want your frontend developer to know how to handle oracle db? Well, I gave my answer, I did lick some of that SQL in my life. Next question: Java stuff. The bloody gal didn't even care to check what position I am applying to before the interview! At this point I didn't really have very high hopes. A shame on them forever.
The story of B and C is connected and a little bit more complicated. More on that in part 2. B stands for Bank. A big corporation then, by definition. A person I know decided called me that day and told me they're hiring, that he referred me and that they would like to arrange a meeting. And so we did. It was couple of days before Christmas. C was a software house again. Or a startup. Idk really. Their website wasn't finished so I couldn't read anything useful up on them. They didn't tell me much about themselves either. They also started with "unpaid internship".
In C, they would greet me and instantly sit me down next to a mac laptop and told me, "hey, do this stuff in python". What the fuck, not again... I told them that I am frontend dev, they guy said "it's no problem, you said you know python, it's a simple task". And yeah, I did host some apps in Flask and I did use psycopg2. It was in my CV. But never, ever, have I mentioned knowing heuristics nor statistics. I'm no data scientist, monsieur. Whatever, I tried, I failed a little bit, I told them that maybe if I did want to spend half of my day there I would finish this task, but back then I was way too nervous to focus and code. I told them what should be done in code and that I just was unable to code this at the very moment. They nodded, we said goodbye and I was sure not to hear from them ever again.
In B, I was greeted by a senior frontend dev. He told me the recruiter is sick and he couldn't come, so we're talking alone. I can buy it. We sat down in said meeting room, and he asked me if I wanted a drink. No thx, I had digested so much caffeine during last 24h, next dose could be an overdose. And then, he took out my resume printed in paper. With notes on it. With some stuff encircled. That bloody bastard did his homework. We spent over an hour, just talking in friendly atmosphere. It was an interview, but it was a conversation also. We shared our experiences, opinions and it went just perfect.
On December 20, I was heading home for Christmas. My situation looked like this: A called me they could offer me only unpaid internship. I was getting kinda bored of rice and debts, tbh. I gracefully rejected their generous offer. B didn't give me feedback yet(it was a most recent interview, so I didn't expect any message until after Christmas anyway). C told me that they could give me internship, but I managed to convince them to make it paid internship. After three months of very bad times, things were starting to get better.
On part III we will explore further events of my very recent past. That post will be same amount of storytelling and possibly a lesson for those who seek an employer and for those who seek an employee.6 -
I'd love to get some feedback on my new insta page: http://instagram.com/dailycsscode
I will post some css tips especially for beginners but there will also be useful stuff for adavanced people7 -
So I just released a thing I've been working on for the past few days and I'm very glad that it's finally public!
It's a thing that you can use on your website to let the user choose which cookie they want to allow.
https://github.com/metaa/cookiebox
It's worth playing around with the cookie panel in your developer console of your browser on the example page, too!
https://metaa.github.io/cookiebox/
I'd be glad to get some serious feedback and I hope it could be useful to someone out there. 😊 -
I made a Linux Command Library/Help App for Android and iOS a while ago. In the app I give the user the possibility to request missing commands. A lot of useful feedback and commands arrived since then but apparently some people think I know and can just give them a command to hack entire facebook. like wtf :D
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Hey guys, I'm looking for some feedback for a new website I launched socialfeedapi.com. It provides quick and easy API access to any Instagram media feed (for any public username or hashtag). Is this something that you guys think will be useful in the dev world? Is it just me, or has anyone here tried to gain access to an Instagram feed and was frustrated in doing so? Thanks in advance!7
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Just received code review from interview technical task. 50 percent of it was because of encapsulation (that 5-8 variables could have been private instead of public). 20 percent was about shit that was expected but missing (error validation, dependency injection). It was missing because it was not specified in app requirements and also noone said that I have to build a production level application for a simple interview here. 10 percent was nitpicking about formatting(I used default intellij formatter) and one ide error that appeared because of project importing. And only 20 percent of feedback was actually constructive and useful. Cool. Also developer said that he was shocked that I made loading animation but didnt call it in my app. However I made it, but if you have fast internet connection it doesnt show up. I mean if you run my app on a phone with gprs connection u will see that damn animation. What Im supposed to do slow down the app so u could see it? But we are building production level app here no? Shit. It feels like he applied double standards to me or something. Half of review nitpicking about useless details and another half about shit that is expected to be in the app but was not even communicated. Also I did not get developers contact so I could ask him what the fck he wanted from me.1
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I'll have to make some tough choices over the next 6 months. With my tech career beginning and my college education ramping up, time is of the essence, and the skills I develop now will be at the forefront of my future. So what does this have to do with Microsoft?
Well, the story begins in the Spring of 2016. Social Forums was about to turn a year old, Trump's campaign was ramping up, and I had just found my love for technology. With all my friends having phones, I had to get a phone and get working on development. The year before, Windows 10 was launched, and I was psyched. I found Microsoft's products to be underrated with potential. That day, I purchased a Lumia 640, upgraded it to Windows 10, and immediately began working. After another year-and-a-half gone by, I went from loving Microsoft, to defending Microsoft, to tolerating Microsoft. I could go on and on about the lousy structure, the privacy issues, the forced upgrades, the redundant developer platform, and other such issues that is leading me away from them. But if there is one thing they have proven over the years, is that the they are completely out of touch with its developers and its customers. They spent years ramping up their phones. They failed. They spend years ramping up their phones. They failed. They spend years ramping up their semi-annual OS updates. They failed. So why did they fail? It's not that they made the wrong prediction out of chance. They legitimately don't care about feedback. It's their way or the highway. This sounds vaguely familiar. They have been spending a decade ignoring feedback from the community because they want to become just like Apple. Right now, Apple LIVES off of brand loyalty and its stable, useful ecosystem. This cannot work for Microsoft as they don't have a lot of brand loyalty. But most of all, they don't have a working ecosystem. They have Windows Insiders, which provides them with hundreds of feedback messages per day. These include suggestions, bug reports, and constructive criticism. The feedback is public. You can have several pages of the same complaint, and they still won't do anything about it. They say they have a good relationship with their community, and that this Beta program helps Windows become better for all. But in the end, we are nothing more than a glorified unpaid labor force. They fired hundreds of professional debuggers just before the Insider Program took off. We are only here to provide bug reports for free. Now that their phones, AR headsets, browser, online services, and VR headsets are failing for all these reasons, I see little reason to develop for Windows anymore. I don't just mean their UWP and App Store platforms, I mean Windows as a whole. I'm definitely not a Mac guy either. I never see myself going to Mac either, as they are really no different in terms of how they treat their Developers and PC users. If things continue down this route, I will leave the platform all together. I've always wanted to be a Systems Programmer, so I don't really need an established paid platform to be successful. Even now, I'm not certain about leaving Windows altogether but as a developer, I need to find my place. Time is of the essence in my life, and I need to find out my place in the software world. Now I think it isn't on the Windows platform like I had dreamed it would be. But where do I go?10 -
I have a platform idea, I need feedback
Problem statement: it’s hard to find researchers of specific area, which discourages students to even start looking for research opportunities. The reason for that is because people often look into their own academic circle, and the resource available is simply not enough.
Solution: by scraping Google scholar, generate detailed tag of sub areas for each professors, make a search system for that which will display the most important works of a researcher and what they are working on recently. If possible, invite the researchers to use the platform to add tags of traits they are looking for in students.
I have quite polarized feedback right now, one is the subarea tagging is really useful and academic circle is a problem, other is this is completely useless.
Please let me know what you think.4 -
9 Ways to Improve Your Website in 2020
Online customers are very picky these days. Plenty of quality sites and services tend to spoil them. Without leaving their homes, they can carefully probe your company and only then decide whether to deal with you or not. The first thing customers will look at is your website, so everything should be ideal there.
Not everyone succeeds in doing things perfectly well from the first try. For websites, this fact is particularly true. Besides, it is never too late to improve something and make it even better.
In this article, you will find the best recommendations on how to get a great website and win the hearts of online visitors.
Take care of security
It is unacceptable if customers who are looking for information or a product on your site find themselves infected with malware. Take measures to protect your site and visitors from new viruses, data breaches, and spam.
Take care of the SSL certificate. It should be monitored and updated if necessary.
Be sure to install all security updates for your CMS. A lot of sites get hacked through vulnerable plugins. Try to reduce their number and update regularly too.
Ride it quick
Webpage loading speed is what the visitor will notice right from the start. The war for milliseconds just begins. Speeding up a site is not so difficult. The first thing you can do is apply the old proven image compression. If that is not enough, work on caching or simplify your JavaScript and CSS code. Using CDN is another good advice.
Choose a quality hosting provider
In many respects, both the security and the speed of the website depend on your hosting provider. Do not get lost selecting the hosting provider. Other users share their experience with different providers on numerous discussion boards.
Content is king
Content is everything for the site. Content is blood, heart, brain, and soul of the website and it should be useful, interesting and concise. Selling texts are good, but do not chase only the number of clicks. An interesting article or useful instruction will increase customer loyalty, even if such content does not call to action.
Communication
Broadcasting should not be one-way. Make a convenient feedback form where your visitors do not have to fill out a million fields before sending a message. Do not forget about the phone, and what is even better, add online chat with a chatbot and\or live support reps.
Refrain from unpleasant surprises
Please mind, self-starting videos, especially with sound may irritate a lot of visitors and increase the bounce rate. The same is true about popups and sliders.
Next, do not be afraid of white space. Often site owners are literally obsessed with the desire to fill all the free space on the page with menus, banners and other stuff. Experiments with colors and fonts are rarely justified. Successful designs are usually brilliantly simple: white background + black text.
Mobile first
With such a dynamic pace of life, it is important to always keep up with trends, and the future belongs to mobile devices. We have already passed that line and mobile devices generate more traffic than desktop computers. This tendency will only increase, so adapt the layout and mind the mobile first and progressive advancement concepts.
Site navigation
Your visitors should be your priority. Use human-oriented terms and concepts to build navigation instead of search engine oriented phrases.
Do not let your visitors get stuck on your site. Always provide access to other pages, but be sure to mention which particular page will be opened so that the visitor understands exactly where and why he goes.
Technical audit
The site can be compared to a house - you always need to monitor the performance of all systems, and there is always a need to fix or improve something. Therefore, a technical audit of any project should be carried out regularly. It is always better if you are the first to notice the problem, and not your visitors or search engines.
As part of the audit, an analysis is carried out on such items as:
● Checking robots.txt / sitemap.xml files
● Checking duplicates and technical pages
● Checking the use of canonical URLs
● Monitoring 404 error page and redirects
There are many tools that help you monitor your website performance and run regular audits.
Conclusion
I hope these tips will help your site become even better. If you have questions or want to share useful lifehacks, feel free to comment below.
Resources:
https://networkworld.com/article/...
https://webopedia.com/TERM/C/...
https://searchenginewatch.com/2019/...
https://macsecurity.net/view/...
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