Do you enjoy pain? Love being mistreated while paying $100 a year for it? Welcome to Apple Developer Enrollment!
You'd think for a company that claims to provide "seamless" experiences, their enrollment process would be super straightforward, but no, get ready to waste incredible time with generic error messages.
"Enrollment through the developer app is not possible for this account".
Great! Just great. My peasant app wasn't worthy of being on the almight App Store anyway. Forgive me for trying, my lord.

WTF.

First, they make you prove your existence with endless verifications. Need a D-U-N-S number? Good luck because it's a nightmare. Support? Barely helpful. And if anything goes wrong? Expect weeks of waiting with zero urgency from Apple.

And that $100? You pay it every single year, just to keep your apps measly alive. Meanwhile, Google charges a one-time $25. Fair? Not in Apple land.

And if they randomly decide your app has an issue? Boom, it'll be gone. No warning, no clear answers, just frustration.

So yeah, if you're a masochist who adores pain, jumping through hoops and paying for the privilege, Apple’s got you covered!

Jackson JSON parser can be a pain in the ass sometimes.
Like, bro, I don't want you to pollute my JSON when saving into Redis. Because now the frontend clients suddenly don't understand the schema because it's riddled with @class and type definitions everywhere.
You have to perform dark magic to get this thing to work automatically with Spring Boot caching.
I've had to implement my own custom serializer and deserializer after wasting who knows how many hours on this.
Shit like this is why I tend to roll my own implementation for many things at the slightest hint that a library isn't flexible.

Okay, maybe I'm unlucky, but I find macOS to be extremely buggy and inconsistent across the board compared to Windows.
The "it just works" slogan hasn't been true in my case.
Like, there's always some dumb issue hindering me.
For example, I can't seem to resize a window by its edge on my second screen in macOS. It just doesn't work.
Of course, Windows isn't perfect, but it works without a hitch in my case.
Finally, the memory swapping issues that lead to lag.
On a typical day, I have two instances of IntelliJ running, Android Studio or XCode, and two Edge + Mozilla, and Docker. 32GB should be able to handle this smoothly. This works fine on my 32GB Windows workstation.
On my 32GB M2 MacBook Pro however, I have to constantly close some programs because of lag.
Not to mention, memory fills up really quickly. I essentially turn on the MacBook and 18 GB are in use. WTF!

Swift does some things really well, but then falls flat in others. Why is polymorphic JSON decoding/encoding such a pain?
In Kotlin, it's a breeze to support multiple object types.

Live coding interviews basically make no sense.
It's even worse when you can't use an IDE.
Like, bro, what the fuck? You want me to write code in fucking notepad?
Alright then, I can play that game. It's so easy to memorize the algos and pass the test, yet that's not indicative of a good engineer.
I wonder if the roles were reversed, how good the interviewer would perform.

MSAL, Microsoft's absolute dumpster fire of an authentication library. Who in their right mind designed this overcomplicated mess? The documentation reads like it was written by a committee of drunk orangutans throwing darts at a keyboard.
Want to do a simple login? HAHAHA GOOD LUCK! Here's 47 different configuration options you need to set up, three different flow types that are basically the same thing with slightly different names, and error messages that might as well be written in hieroglyphics. "AADSTS700054" yeah that's SUPER helpful, thanks Microsoft!
And don't even get me started on token caching. Oh, you thought your tokens would just... work? NOPE! Hope you enjoy debugging why your perfectly valid token is being treated like a expired coupon at a grocery store. The refresh token flow is about as reliable as a chocolate teapot.

I worked on a great project that was later axed and part of that was because of Msal issues. We literally only dealt with Msal issues. The app was otherwise stable. There were always issues with SSO, login, token validation...
It just couldn't work, like, at all.
I could see the clients getting fed up of the constant issues, yet, they couldn't move away from Microsoft since they'd already invested into their entreprise ecosystem. AzureAD, Office 365, you name it.

Shit like this is why I laugh whenever someone suggests that AGI will take over the world. Like, bro, we still haven't figured out how to make an auth library that actually works, and you think we're close to making a machine capable of thinking like a human?
Yeah right!

Am I going crazy or is the web dev community on some otherworldly drug?
Now "server-side"-whatever is the coolest thing ever?
To the point where client side validation is not recommended anymore and actively discouraged? Are you kidding me? So, you mean to say after filling a long form with millions of fields, the page will RELOAD when I press submit and after waiting an eternity for your shitty server to respond then and only then will I know what fields are invalid?
GTFO with that bullshit.
How in the world is that good UX/UI?
I've always had this theory that we humans are the dumbest species to ever walk this earth. I mean, serisouly, how is this even a thing?

Imagine if a mobile app had to restart to tell you that your email is invalid in a simple form.

But.. but... but... what if the client has disabled javascript? Then fuck them! Who the fuck cares? What's next? Some dumb user is still using Android 2.1 Eclair and we should make our app support them? Fuck no! Fuck them, they should update.
Newsflash, if Javascript is disabled, then pretty much everything will be broken anyway.

Form validation should be instantenous. This isn't rocket science.
It should happen as the user types so they can see what's valid/invalid in real-time.
This does require effort and consideration, something many devs lack apparently.

This is just ridiculous.

There needs to be some sort of enforcement about who can write code. JK,
but seriously, the current dev wannabes and influencers on sh-t-witter and linkedin are literal cancer.
A dude will make a post about how to "scale" a system, yet they have no grasp of the most basic fundamentals. They have no idea what a CDN is, they think you can just store blobs and be done with it. Like, bro, are you going to be serving a 10MB image from the DB every single time it's requested? How WILL that scale? How will low bandwith users be served? Oh, yeah right, I forgot that everyone in the world has 1Gbps internet from NASA.
They think serverless will take care of it.
BUT HOW? No wonder "serverless" companies like Vercel are making bank out of idiots who can't manage to spin up a decent VPS that would take care of 99% of usecases.
Granted, most copy paste regurgitated AI slop from chatgpt but still.
It's so infuriating. There used to be a decent Twitter dev community, but not it's just AI shills, crypto bros and script kiddies all pretending to write code.
It's time I stopped using that site.
Also probably a sign I should quit this industry. Getting tired of it to be honest.
Don't see myself still writing code in 3 years.

Sometimes it's better to burn a bridge so you don't even think about crossing it in the future.

See, I left a company some years ago because I didn't see my future in it and all management combined had a collective intelligence of a chicken.
However, I got a call from them a couple of months ago asking me if I could return. The salary was double and the working arrangement seemed fine. On paper. WFH. Flexibile hours...
Since I actually liked the project itself for its technical challenge, I accepted the return offer. What a bad idea that was.

Of course, the things that made me leave for the first time had only gotten worse. Bad leadership, idiot developers in team leader positions. Tech debt higher than Mount Everest. Bad infra that makes you want to off yourself every time you work on it. The whole circus.
Seriously, the "senior" team leader will happily merge code that includes assert(true == true), but hold up a well written MR because he has a personal vendetta with the developer.
Personally, I always check him whenever he starts being an ass. But the poor juniors are in hell. They're terrified.
Now I'm leaving again, but this time I've made sure I can't come back.

Can we please stop with the multiverse crap? Please, just stop.
I watched Deadpool & Wolverine yesterday and what a shitshow.
Logan was an excellent send-off to Wolverine. An excellent one.
It showed that Marvel can actually make good movies.
Why did Marvel have to ruin it?

The issue with multiverse plotlines is that nothing is ever serious, there are no stakes, nothing matters.
Anyone who dies can come back. Anything that happens can be reversed.
Just. Fucking. Stop.

One of my favourite franchises, Mortal Kombat, got ruined with MK1 multiverse story.
Played the game for about 30 minutes then deleted it. What a disappointment.

From now on, if a movie features multiverse or time travel crap, I ain't watching.

Apple Music is the worst music service I've ever used.
By far the worst UI/UX ever.
It doesn't allow me to easily organize my music the way I want.
Search is sluggish.
The recommendation algorithm sucks.
Can't LIKE a song without it asking me to also sync my local music files to the cloud. Seriously, why the fuck can't I like/favorite a song and be done with it? Why does it need to sync with my local files?
This is a basic feature that works in literally on any other music platform.
The damn thing can't even play FLAC.

I know Spotify has its issues, but it actualls feels like a well engineered piece of software.
Apple Music seems like it was made by junior devs for a school science fair.

The only thing going for Apple Music is the sound quality, everything else is bullshit.

ChatGPT sucks so much for coding tasks and it's laughable.
Like, it's come to a point where it's unusable for me. At all.
It's like a toddler, anything you tell it, it agrees. Then spits out non-existent functions.
The thing actually slows me down.
And yes, I've tried Claude AI and it's slightly better but in no way, shape or form did it improve my productivity.

Those who claim it made them n times faster were never working on complex tasks to begin with.

It would really, really suck if we're alone in the universe. Like, I can't think of something that would suck more.
I hope aliens exist.

Whoever worked on the speak-to-chat feature for Sony XM4 headphones deserves to have a bunch of angry orangutans pull on their nipples for 1 minute.

Why the fuck do they get activated out of the blue when I'm simply talking? It feels like I'm under the water.

And the damn feature can't be turned off permanently. You can go into the app to turn it off, but it'll get activated again. You can use the two finger gesture on the sensor to toggle it off but it will still come back. It never stays off.

These are amazing headphones, but this is my biggest pet peeve. Almost ruined them for me.

I'm convinced no one really understands OAuth2, probably not even the creators.

Every blog, articles and tutorial, you have people saying don't do this, don't do that. Basically, no one agrees on a single implementation.

Want to use passwords for auth in a first party system you fully own? Apparently, that's unsafe.
Hmmm, what about magic links for passwordless auth? Also not safe you say?
Okay, I believe Okta just wants people to use their services, nothing else.

Anyone else get a feeling that some tutorials are made for trolling purposes? Like, why write an article about the most basic stuff about a particular stack and call it a day? Why copy paste from the docs without adding any new information whatsoever?
Medium.com is the worst offender.

Car reviewers are the bane of my existence.
In one video, a dude reviews a 3rd gen Rav4 and says "don't expect Porsche like performance or luxury materials".
Well, no fucking shit, Sherlock.
Who would've thought? An affordable compact SUV doesn't have sports car performance. Mind = Blown.

Also, vague and subjective criticism such as "unimpressive steering" or "not fun to drive". Not fun how? Whatever the fuck that means.
Dudes want a budget car with a Bugatti engine, that handles like a Porsche but priced as a Honda.

Seriously, why the fuck do these reviewers regurgitate the same shit, over and over again.

A good review must take into account the price of the car. And at most, compare it to similarly priced cars.
Comparing a Corolla to a 911 is down right moronic.

I'll put it this way. Svelte is like Kotlin. It's modern, elegant and a pleasure to work with.
React is like Java. Old, bloated and a pain to work with.
Svelte makes React look like it was built by masochists.

I don't work on frontend often, mostly because I despise the frameworks.
Svelte is a breath of fresh air.
I just want to ship a product quickly and it doesn't get in the way.

Nothing says asshole like a guy who won't approve your MR even though the feature is working but they prefer implementing it using their preferred approach.
Different coding styles for different folks. What matters is that the approach used is efficient, working and tested. But oh no, you have to write the code exactly how they want it.
Good thing we're free to merge our own MR when the reviewer takes more than two days to merge it.

Let's just say that I hate configuration of any kind.
AWS IAM, Cloudfront... it all makes me want to end it all.
Why can't this stuff just work?

Why the fuck would Google promote Jetpack Compose as a stable toolset when it doesn't even support a basic feature such as a scrollbar.
A. Fucking. Scrollbar.
LazyColumn can't even come close to being as powerful as Recyclerview.

Here's an idea, before launching something and touting it as something usable, and encouraging people to drop the old, battle tested tool for the new shiny one, how about you make sure the new doesn't lack features present in the old one?
Seems logical, right?

Methinks somebody was just looking for a promotion because, clearly, Jetpack Compose is a half-baked product.
Now, developers will have to suffer because project managers will read about the new framework and ask devs to use it, then wonder why the app is suffering.

Some gamers: *Gaming sucks now*
Also, those gamers: *Plays only FPS games*

Like dude, there are so many genres with amazing games that you would have a new game to play every day if you wanted. But oh no, I only play COD and Fortnite and because they suck, every other game in existence must also suck.

Stop playing the same damn games then, maybe you will enjoy gaming once more.
Also, I feel like people complain about FPS games because they expect to win every single match, which is impossible. You will meet sweats and tryhards. That's the reality of any multiplayer game.

* Calls themselves "Software Engineer"
* Doesn't know what a thread is.

I swear these coding boot camps are churning out code monkeys whose real skill is building shitty React apps.

I believe a CS degree is necessary if you want to work on something more than CRUD applications.

Nothing against devs without degrees, but at least make an effort because my head will explode next time I have to explain to someone what a thread is and why it's a very bad idea to run blocking code on the main thread.

Postman freaking sucks now. It's bloated and can't easily do what's it's supposed to do without hassle. You have to login first, then it will inexplicably lose all your previous API requests.
I guess the company has forgotten who their base customers are.

!dev
I'm a hobbyist photographer but lately I've been getting offers to work on major gigs. Apparently people have started liking my photography.
However, just like some programmers are hardliners when it comes to particular stacks, the camera world is riddled with brand loyalists that can't accept that anything other than their camera gear is better. You have Canon/Nikon users who can't wrap their minds around the fact that Sony is making better cameras for the price.
I ask a question about what lens people recommend and a flame war starts about why X camera is better than Y camera.
Guess what, it ultimately comes down to the skill of the photographer and not the camera. All I wanted was a lens recommendation for a particular style of shooting.
Thing is, all modern cameras are more than capable of doing their jobs.

!dev
fuck call of duty and activision. I finally had time to play with my friends when suddenly I had to download a 56 GB update. Why the fuck does every update have to be big? Then after that monstrous update, if you want to play multiplayer, you still need an additional 22 GB for a multiplayer pack which you already have. This has to be the most clueless company out there. I should have uninstalled this game a long time ago.

Start them young!

Gitlab works great actually!

We're all making dirty money!

Learning institutions move so slow. Kotlin and Swift are nowhere to be found in this mobile applications course.