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Joined devRant on 5/19/2016
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Client: We have a HUGE security problem.
Me: *thinks about any possible vulnerabilities* What is it?
Client: A user can take a picture of our website and steal our content.
I’m done for today.36 -
*client calls*
"hello, we forgot the password to our WiFi router. Could you reset that for us?"
😐😶😮😅
"We host websites and servers sir, we don't control your router :)"
"Right, i thought so, nevermind!"
Well, that's a new one O.o23 -
Not getting into linux/foss an dumping windows/other proprietary bullshit earlier. The friends I've made through this world, the passion, the ideology behind it...
I fucking wish I'd have found out about this at a way earlier age or even begin raised with those values.8 -
Website design philosophies:
Apple: "...and a really big picture there, and a really big picture there, and a really big picture there, and..."
Microsoft: "border-radius:0 !important;"
Google: "EVERYTHING MOVES!!! And most websites get material design. Most."
Amazon: "We're slowly moving away from 2009"
Wix: "How can we further increase load times?"
Literally any download site: "Click here! No, click here! Nononono!! Click here!!..."
Facebook: "We can't change anything because our main age demographic is around 55"
University websites: "That information isn't hard enough to find yet. Decrease the search accuracy and increase broken links."32 -
Looking for a job as a deveoper be like:
Job title: car driver
Job requirements: professional skills in driving normal- and heavy-freight cars, buses and trucks, trolley buses, trams, subways, tractors, shovel diggers, contemporary light and heavy tanks currently in use by NATO countries.
Skills in rally and extreme driving are obligatory!
Formula-1 driving experience is a plus.
Knowledge and experience in repairing of piston and rotor/Wankel engines, automatic and manual transmissions, ignition systems, board computer, ABS, ABD, GPS and car-audio systems by world-known manufacturers - obligatory!
Experience with car-painting and tinsmith tasks is a plus.
The applicants must have certificates by BMW, General Motors and Bosch, but not older than two years.
Compensation: $15-$20/hour, depends on the interview result.
Education requirements: Bachelor's Degree of Engineering.41 -
I went to Paris for my first interview (that was 1989) for a job of Unix kernel developer. All dressed up. I step out of the elevator and see a young punk with scruffy hair and different colour shoes. I reckon he must be the pizza delivery guy. I ask him "dude, can you please point me to the CEO's office for interview". He said "sure, follow me man, I'll show you". We arrive at a desk, he sat down in the big chair and looks at me with a big smile and says "Ok dude, here we are. I am the CEO. Now let's see how good you are!"
I got the job. And 26 years latet, last week, amazing coincidence: I met him again at a trade show in Paris ... with the same coloured shoes. How cool is that!!!29 -
I put an Easter egg into a product, that if you enter the string "final countdown" into the stock code search field, it plays a YouTube vid of Europe's "The Final Countdown", in a hidden div. It's an in-joke for a few people in the company.
A well meaning maintainer with no sense of humour or judgement takes over and goes on the warpath against any hardcoded strings. The secret code gets moved into a config file.
A third developer changes the deployment script so that it clears any configs that aren't explicitly set in the deployment settings.
So the secret code is now "".
Literally every PC in the stock buying department is now blaring out "The Final Countdown" at top volume.
...Except none of them have speakers, so it remains this way for over a year and two more changes of maintainer.
I just noticed this afternoon and quietly re-hardcoded the string. The buying dept.'s PCs will silently sing no more.31 -
"You gave us bad code! We ran it and now production is DOWN! Join this bridgeline now and help us fix this!"
So, as the author of the code in question, I join the bridge... And what happens next, I will simply never forget.
First, a little backstory... Another team within our company needed some vendor client software installed and maintained across the enterprise. Multiple OSes (Linux, AIX, Solaris, HPUX, etc.), so packaging and consistent update methods were a a challenge. I wrote an entire set of utilities to install, update and generally maintain the software; intending all the time that this other team would eventually own the process and code. With this in mind, I wrote extensive documentation, and conducted a formal turnover / training season with the other team.
So, fast forward to when the other team now owns my code, has been trained on how to use it, including (perhaps most importantly) how to send out updates when the vendor released upgrades to the agent software.
Now, this other team had the responsibility of releasing their first update since I gave them the process. Very simple upgrade process, already fully automated. What could have gone so horribly wrong? Did something the vendor supplied break their client?
I asked for the log files from the upgrade process. They sent them, and they looked... wrong. Very, very wrong.
Did you run the code I gave you to do this update?
"Yes, your code is broken - fix it! Production is down! Rabble, rabble, rabble!"
So, I go into our code management tool and review the _actual_ script they ran. Sure enough, it is my code... But something is very wrong.
More than 2/3rds of my code... has been commented out. The code is "there"... but has been commented out so it is not being executed. WT-actual-F?!
I question this on the bridge line. Silence. I insist someone explain what is going on. Is this a joke? Is this some kind of work version of candid camera?
Finally someone breaks the silence and explains.
And this, my friends, is the part I will never forget.
"We wanted to look through your code before we ran the update. When we looked at it, there was some stuff we didn't understand, so we commented that stuff out."
You... you didn't... understand... my some of the code... so you... you didn't ask me about it... you didn't try to actually figure out what it did... you... commented it OUT?!
"Right, we figured it was better to only run the parts we understood... But now we ran it and everything is broken and you need to fix your code."
I cannot repeat the things I said next, even here on devRant. Let's just say that call did not go well.
So, lesson learned? If you don't know what some code does? Just comment that shit out. Then blame the original author when it doesn't work.
You just cannot make this kind of stuff up.105 -
!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 -
After job Interview,
We will come in contact with you later that week.
*Later that week*
You've got mail
Highpayingjob@gmail.com
Job interview
You didn't get the job.
Your didn't Meet out requirements.
Sincerely us.
*5 minutes later*
Highpayingjob@gmail.com
Job interview
We must apollogize, we've sent you the wrong mail.
Sincerely us.
*5minutes later*
Highpayingjob@gmail.com
Job Interview.
You werent good enough at our Interview.
Sincerely us.
*Me*
What. The. Fuck.
Just happened...
WHAT THE FUCK!
2 REJECTIONS FROM THE SAME COMPANY?! IN JUST 10 FUCKING MINUTES!24 -
My teachers use the number of commit you do as measure for the quality of your work.
I've the least number of commits this week since I spent most of the week doing encriptions algorthims instead of UIs and unit test as the rest of my team.
But, by their logic, I'm the worst of the group. It's simply stupid.9 -
PM asked us to skip the unit test and just deliver untested application to SIT environment due too tight timeline. But when there are defects raised by tested, PM asked why got bugs and asked us to fix them immediately while we have to develop other new features at the same time.5
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I found an interesting job post on SO, I decide to apply. It comes with a programming test. A simple unit test that must pass (see current-1 post). I get it passing, go to send off my resume and code and the fucking email they supplied isn't valid or active. Fuck you. Eat dicks. Useless fucking HR.
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Boss: "I looked at a testing suite. It is $2,500 a license and I'm buying 60 licenses. You should probably get familiar with it."
LeadDev: "Um, we already use NUnit, and it's free."
Boss: "Hmm...I'd better add Pluralsight training in the budget so you can learn about the new program."
LeadDev: "Oh, no...we need new laptops more than we need software."
Boss:"New laptops? Not my budget. When we buy this new software, everyone is going to use it"
LeadDev: "Everyone? How will you monitor it's usage?"
Boss: "I'll have networking send me captures of all the running tasks on the dev machines. The test suite better be running. Writing good tests will be our #1 priority."
LeadDev: "Um, we already write tests using NUnit."
Boss: "I don't understand what you are saying. I need something I can visualize. This UI testing suite is exactly what I need."
LeadDev: "Maybe the testing suite would be better suited for you and QA?"
<click..click>
Boss: "Submitted the budget. There will be a test server available for you to configure. This whole project costs over $100,000, so don't screw it up. Any questions?"
LeadDev: "Oh...well...what server ..."
Boss: "Dang...sorry, I'm taking off the rest of the afternoon. We'll talk about this more on Monday. Get started on those Pluralsight videos. I'll expect a full training and deployments by next week. Have a great weekend!"13 -
Spend half an hour finding music to listen to while I code; Pause it after 30 seconds to concentrate on refactoring. Stays paused for rest of day.
Really getting the most out of those expensive new headphones.35 -
Does anyone else suddenly lose the ability to type properly as soon as someone is watching/pairing?40