Details
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AboutBecause deadbeef was taken.
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SkillsJava, python with a sprinkle of node.js.
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Locationthe land of Port
Joined devRant on 4/11/2019
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Real quick stop what ur doing right now. Close your eyes, reach up super high with your hands, and then hug yourself, because your an absolute champion god damnit.3
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-Learn git early on
-Learn the basics of the web stuff even if you only want to be a backend dev
-Learn SQL. 99.9% you'll need it regardless of where exactly you land in this industry
-Build, build, build, build. Don't get stuck in tut hell9 -
Compromise.
I think that sums up development pretty much.
Take for example coding patterns: Most of them *could* be applied on a global scale (all products)… But that doesn't mean you *should* apply them. :-)
Find a matching **compromise** that makes specific sense for the product you develop.
Small example: SOLID / DRY are good practices. But breaking these principles by for example introducing redundant code could be a very wise design decision - an example would be if you know full ahead that the redundancy is needed for further changes ahead. Going full DRY only to add the redundancy later is time spent better elsewhere.
The principle of compromise applies to other things, too.
Take for example architecture design.
Instead of trying to enforce your whole vision of a product, focus on key areas that you really think must be done.
Don't waste your breath on small stuff - cause then you probably lack the strength for focusing on the important things.
Compromise - choose what is *truly* important and make sure that gets integrated vs trying to "get your will done".
Small example: It doesn't really matter if a function is called myDingDong or myDingDongWithBells - one is longer, other shorter. Refactoring tools make renaming a function an easy task. What matters is what this function does and that it does this efficiently and precise. Instead of discussing the *name* of the function, focus on what the function *does*.
If you've read so far and think this example is dumb: Nope... I've seen PR reports where people struggled for hours with lil shit while the elephant in the room like an N+1 problem / database query or other fundamental things completely drowned in the small shit discussion noise.
We had code design, we had architecture... Same goes for people, debugging, and everything else.
Just because you don't like what weird person A does, doesn't mean it's shit.
Compromise. You don't have to like them. Just tolerate them. Listen. Then try to process their feedback unbiased. Simple as that. Don't make discussions personal - and don't isolate yourself by just working with specific persons. Cause living in such a bubble means you miss out a lot of knowledge and insight… or in short: You suck because of your own choices. :-)
Debugging... Again compromise: instead of wasting hours on debugging a problem, ASK for help. A simple: Has anyone done debugging this before or has some input for how to debug this problem efficiently?... Can sometimes work wonders. Don't start debugging without looking into alternative solutions like telemetry, metrics, known problems etc.
It could be a viable, better long term solution to add metrics to a product than to debug for hours ... Compromise. Find a fitting approach to analyze a problem instead of just starting a brute force approach.
....
Et cetera et cetera. -
CI came up with 265 errors. (deploying to an old server to bring it back).
I make some very clever fixes and run it again.
Now we have 269 errors.
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We had a sprint where we removed some fields from the signup page, in order not to "scare users off" with the amount of information requested. Quite a few changes in frontend and backend alike.
Only now in the final day of the sprint (where we're supposed to deploy the changes) do we realize some of that information is actually required by the payment processor, and likely for very predictable *legal* reasons which I even questioned during planning.15 -
- Wife logs onto uni website Saturday at 11pm to drop an elective, drop deadline is Monday
- Goes to course list and chooses course to drop
- "Course modification is available Monday-Saturday from 6am to 10pm"
😑 are you kidding me..
Like 😡😠 websites don't have business hours! Servers don't need nights or weekends off!! It's ridiculous to think that someone had to code this block for these hours, more effort than just leaving it always available.6 -
Cook A:
1 - Makes a soup
2 - Leaves a mess
Company: ☺️ What a nice cook, here's your promotion to senior Cook.
Cook B:
1 - Cleans kitchen
2 - Makes soup
3 - Cleans after themself
Company: 😡 What took you so long!? Cook A made it in 1/3 of the time.
This is the pattern I've seen so far in development... and it's sad20 -
how to deal with toxic coworker? everybody hate him, he hates everybody, but this piece of shit is only backend guy here. and I need to create tasks for him. so cant really ignore.9
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I can't help but be disappointed in the direction that technology has directed us into, especially social media.
While I love my girlfriend, she more often than not spends her time scrolling away at the dumbest shit on Instagram, Facebook, .. reels. Reels everywhere. And she's not dumb, mind you. She's an engineer just as much as you (presumably) and I are. Just in a different field.
When looking into it online and stumbling upon more than one study, I learned about the term it had been coined.. technoference. That's the constant interruption of social media into our day-to-day lives, and the dopamine kick it gives -- more so than IRL peers do. Why that is, being the digital equivalent to McDonald's, that's beyond me. But somehow it seems to be better, all while the content isn't even useful. It doesn't allow you to learn anything, to gain insights, or to explore things that could serve you in the real world. Cat videos and random shit that's somehow.. funny? Having pretty much completely disconnected from social media years ago, I seriously fail to see how.
Maybe us nerds in the 90's and early 2000's telling everyone else how we'd change the world and prove everyone who called us freaks wrong, disenchanted as we were (and probably still are), were the catalyst for this social disaster. We had the cognitive skills to do it, but not the social equivalent. I feel guilty... Even though I've always been part of a big tech resistance in some capacity, I still feel guilty. Because I'm one of those people with the skills of those who created this trash fire of a societal status quo. Everyone glued to their screens, 95% of the time not for work. Not even to aid one's ability to function in the real world. Just to combat boredom. All day, for many hours on end.
Where is it going to end? When will people realize the dystopia we got ourselves into? Will anyone but a few fight it? Would those who don't fight it even care?11 -
*Now that's what I call a Hacker*
MOTHER OF ALL AUTOMATIONS
This seems a long post. but you will definitely +1 the post after reading this.
xxx: OK, so, our build engineer has left for another company. The dude was literally living inside the terminal. You know, that type of a guy who loves Vim, creates diagrams in Dot and writes wiki-posts in Markdown... If something - anything - requires more than 90 seconds of his time, he writes a script to automate that.
xxx: So we're sitting here, looking through his, uhm, "legacy"
xxx: You're gonna love this
xxx: smack-my-bitch-up.sh - sends a text message "late at work" to his wife (apparently). Automatically picks reasons from an array of strings, randomly. Runs inside a cron-job. The job fires if there are active SSH-sessions on the server after 9pm with his login.
xxx: kumar-asshole.sh - scans the inbox for emails from "Kumar" (a DBA at our clients). Looks for keywords like "help", "trouble", "sorry" etc. If keywords are found - the script SSHes into the clients server and rolls back the staging database to the latest backup. Then sends a reply "no worries mate, be careful next time".
xxx: hangover.sh - another cron-job that is set to specific dates. Sends automated emails like "not feeling well/gonna work from home" etc. Adds a random "reason" from another predefined array of strings. Fires if there are no interactive sessions on the server at 8:45am.
xxx: (and the oscar goes to) fuckingcoffee.sh - this one waits exactly 17 seconds (!), then opens an SSH session to our coffee-machine (we had no frikin idea the coffee machine is on the network, runs linux and has SSHD up and running) and sends some weird gibberish to it. Looks binary. Turns out this thing starts brewing a mid-sized half-caf latte and waits another 24 (!) seconds before pouring it into a cup. The timing is exactly how long it takes to walk to the machine from the dudes desk.
xxx: holy sh*t I'm keeping those
Credit: http://bit.ly/1jcTuTT
The bash scripts weren't bogus, you can find his scripts on the this github URL:
https://github.com/narkoz/...56 -
!rant
After over 20 years as a Software Engineer, Architect, and Manager, I want to pass along some unsolicited advice to junior developers either because I grew through it, or I've had to deal with developers who behaved poorly:
1) Your ego will hurt you FAR more than your junior coding skills. Nobody expects you to be the best early in your career, so don't act like you are.
2) Working independently is a must. It's okay to ask questions, but ask sparingly. Remember, mid and senior level guys need to focus just as much as you do, so before interrupting them, exhaust your resources (Google, Stack Overflow, books, etc..)
3) Working code != good code. You are an author. Write your code so that it can be read. Accept criticism that may seem trivial such as renaming a variable or method. If someone is suggesting it, it's because they didn't know what it did without further investigation.
4) Ask for peer reviews and LISTEN to the critique. Even after 20+ years, I send my code to more junior developers and often get good corrections sent back. (remember the ego thing from tip #1?) Even if they have no critiques for me, sometimes they will see a technique I used and learn from that. Peer reviews are win-win-win.
5) When in doubt, do NOT BS your way out. Refer to someone who knows, or offer to get back to them. Often times, persons other than engineers will take what you said as gospel. If that later turns out to be wrong, a bunch of people will have to get involved to clean up the expectations.
6) Slow down in order to speed up. Always start a task by thinking about the very high level use cases, then slowly work through your logic to achieve that. Rushing to complete, even for senior engineers, usually means less-than-ideal code that somebody will have to maintain.
7) Write documentation, always! Even if your company doesn't take documentation seriously, other engineers will remember how well documented your code is, and they will appreciate you for it/think of you next time that sweet job opens up.
8) Good code is important, but good impressions are better. I have code that is the most embarrassing crap ever still in production to this day. People don't think of me as "that shitty developer who wrote that ugly ass code that one time a decade ago," They think of me as "that developer who was fun to work with and busted his ass." Because of that, I've never been unemployed for more than a day. It's critical to have a good network and good references.
9) Don't shy away from the unknown. It's easy to hope somebody else picks up that task that you don't understand, but you wont learn it if they do. The daunting, unknown tasks are the most rewarding to complete (and trust me, other devs will notice.)
10) Learning is up to you. I can't tell you the number of engineers I passed on hiring because their answer to what they know about PHP7 was: "Nothing. I haven't learned it yet because my current company is still using PHP5." This is YOUR craft. It's not up to your employer to keep you relevant in the job market, it's up to YOU. You don't always need to be a pro at the latest and greatest, but at least read the changelog. Stay abreast of current technology, security threats, etc...
These are just a few quick tips from my experience. Others may chime in with theirs, and some may dispute mine. I wish you all fruitful careers!221 -
🦫Me a kid: I hope some day I will earn enough $ to by a cool-ass PC and play games on highest graphics presets
🤡Me an adult: I sure did earn enough $ to afford a cool-ass PC though it is a shame that I cannot find time & energy to play games9