I worked for this Chinese company, one of their systems that was supposedly handling millions of US$ in transactions per day had an API that returned HTML tables...

I stop you right there commenter, there was no format=json parameter.

Another of their API I gave up on:

Status = 200
Content = "error"

So the company is launching this massive new project, I'm tasked with building a dashboard to track the performances of the whole thing in near real-time.

90% if the data comes from this one somewhat rubbish API (3rd-party).

I'm given plenty of time to build this, everything runs fine prior to the launch, manager happy.

Launch day, happening exactly at midnight.

I go and check my dashboard 5 min past the hour, all excited.

Errors, errors everywhere. "What is going on?" I exclaimed. #datHeartAttack

Took me a fair amount of time to figure out the issue.

Due to the time difference I was technically requesting the 3rd party servers for "tomorrow's data," and that instead of handling that in some sensible manner, the API just threw a "wrong fucking date error."

I mean, we're paying additional money, good money, for this API.

Oh F***, not again!

Bob, every single time you "patch" the servers I run into issues, that you cannot fix.

Bob: "heuuu... I don't know anything about python or npm or any of that"

Then stop touching it!!!

This is git.

You code whatever, add the files, commit and push.

Just keep doing at repeatedly.

Until your push is rejected, in which case you delete the local folder and re-clone the whole thing.

#howOneLearnsGit

Jesse, she's a right knobhead.

Prototypes in prod.

Co-worker: "You don't need to know the math! Stop going on about it."

Me: "I think you do for some things, my algebra is not good at all, I need to improve it a lot and I just think you should too."

Co-worker: "Oh stop it, If the code runs it's OK!"

Me: "Well yeah, the code runs but you're over-fitting like a mad man and have a P-value of a bejillion."

Co-worker: "What!?"

"data scientist"

We’d love to get at complete ease with vim but we’re struggling to learn and still only know the basics, so we diss vim users out of jealousy.

Need *markdown* in [devrant](https://devrant.com) posts.

A rant

Do some universities have actual websites or do they all just host a collection of PDFs?

Dear "managers,"

Stealing credit for something you have not done is real theft.

When I come up with an idea and a detailed outline of how to build and deliver it, you do not get to say "oh I also had this idea." You did not. How could you? It uses tech you don't even know exists.

When I then proceed to build the whole thing on my own without any of your inputs (then again, you have no idea of how it works, what would you bring to the table), you don't get to parade my project in front of the board not even mentioning my name.

You see, it's not the first time you pull that off, you have taken full credit for every thing.

it's not just my wee feelings getting hurt for lack of recognition: it has real world consequences.

You get the promotion, you get the salary raise and you now live in a flat with a balcony and a view, while my wife and I share a studio as my salary has not budged.

You're a cunting thief, I hope your mom dies.

Best,

X

Wait, was it there before?

When I left the house to work abroad my mom called me.

Mom: “every time you touch the computer things change!”

Me: “I haven’t touched it in months, what’s the problem?”

Mom: “my google has changed, please put it like before!”

The same phone call, day after day, I couldn’t figure what she meant and she was getting pissed off.

Then I realized, it was just the google doodle...

Me: *Opens GitHub issue*

Maintainer: "it's a known issue"

# issue closed

What tools do you have access to at work?

I don't work a tech company, far from it. I love it but both the hardware and software at my disposal are so shitty I'm starting to lose it.

Running Windows locally, I'm not allowed any Linux distro because "security." Indeed, I don't even have admin rights on my machine. It was rejected. The excuse being that I am sudoer on a server, which (and can only be) physically located in our headquarters.

Today I found out this server's CPU from the dark ages does not support tensorflow, so here I will be building that shit from source tomorrow (no GPU of course).

And thanks for 4G of RAM on what you refer to as a "power" machine.

At work today when the manager asks If I can

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Learn some...
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Ruby to help the lads with..
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What the...
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Fuck...
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Is this...
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It's turned into a free for all this.

Let’s get together and buy back github, I have $2.5 what do you have?

When you proudly display that failed Travis badge in the README.

Visual Studio, because you need bugs in the IDE that you use to fix bugs.

I don’t run Ubuntu or mint; do you like me daddy? Do you like me now? #ImSoCool

That guy who called in sick yesterday and turned up with a new haircut today...

Puts three months of work into this project; cronjob to ping 3 APIs at regular intervals, cleans, massive features extraction, dumps into PostgreSQL db. Got Django on top of that with a small neural net and interesting viz - absolutely gorgeous!

Can’t fuckin wait to showcase that.

Feedback: “is that the right blue? I think you have the old company logo! etc”

Mah.LahF

1% of OSS: “I came across this very common issue which is a pain in the arse, I pulled together this awesome solution for the community, packaged it nicely, here, use it.” - 3 ⭐️ on Github.

The remaining 99%: “I was bored last Sunday so maed zis.” - 10’393 ⭐️ on GitHub.

When you're on holiday with the missus and she won't let you use the laptop so you download an app to ssh onto your server and vi your way through bus rides and beach days.

Advice on great hardware for Linux kernel? I'm going to get myself a new laptop, my current one gave me great headaches due to the Realtek network card (no jeffing driver). I'd like to avoid this sort of things this time around: what should I get/avoid?

Instagram, a social network all about pictures... No, you can't see them full screen!

I've been trying to diversify programming languages I know.

It's been rough; I just don't like a lot of the high level programming languages and low level ones are often tough to learn to for someone without formal CS background.

Then I tried Go, and you should too!

The most frustrating part of the "your password must be min. 8 characters long and include a number and a special character" thing is that it does not improve security.

On the contrary.

I wonder how many people in the company have the name of the city they are located in, and the current year in their password...

#newyork18 #beijing2017