Manager: Good news everyone, I made a big giant announcement this morning that the app upgrades will be released today!

Dev: They definitely won’t be, we need another 2 weeks minimum. I told you yesterday

Manager: Ok well I already made the announcement that today was the day so too bad for you.

Dev: Doesn’t change the state of things

Manager: 😡 This announcement is supposed to motivate you to work faster! You guys are making me look bad when you don’t support me like this!

Dev: Working as fast as we can, it’s a 2 person dev team for 4 separate applications so it’s quite a bit to get pushed through

Manager: Ok well then stay extra then, we have to get this out asap. Tell your spouses they are not going to be seeing much of you until this work is done. People are starting to ask questions!!!!!

Dev: Not my problem, it’s done when its done. I’m not staying extra.

Manager: !!

// *************

Might be blowing my cover a little but what are they going to do? Fire me? Good luck getting this out without me. They’ve tried to replace me in the past but the cheapest person they could find was 60k more expensive than me and still couldn’t keep up. Probably they’ll ship the work overseas and the code will die in a dumpster fire and cost them even more. Ah well, just another company that doesn’t deserve code.

N
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Ahhhhh devrant... long time no see.

I just need to get something off my heart. The past two years, I worked for the same ISP in Germany, but now as a devops engineer. Well, popo hit the fan really quick lately..

First a good friend, team lead for one of five areas in Germany, quit his job. He was one of the nicest persons I knew, and he believed that all that five areas should work together and share dev resources. Thats why I work mostly in other areas as developer.

Shortly after, his deputy quit as well. I heard that this specific area, the management were a bunch of dicks, but wow!

A short while later, I learnd the hard truth, why those two good friends quit, and that brings me to this story. In a meeting I readied myself up to present my new plattform - a social room - to management. I got a lot of positive feedback from others and we thaught managment would approve of the project. But nope. "We can buy from external, we dont need to program ourselfs. In fact lets stop spending money on internal programming, we should outsource everything!"

I was baffeld... Wtf did i just witness? My team lead didn't say anything, and afterwards I didn't dare to question it, but I told most of my close dev friends and we all realizied, that the rumors were true... We will be shifting into project managment.

At this point, I realized that I wasnt having it, and made a linkedIn account, not because I wanted to switch jobs, but because, meh you never know.

One week ago, one of my bestest buddies said he will quit and join his team lead that left eariler this year, I was heartbroken. Me and our other buddy are devestated, because now we have to do everything he had done. Management didn't listen as we told them that nobody can maintain his code. I have so many projects, I can bearly keep up with them. Now I got a lead role for creating the server infrastucture for a huge project my buddy was working on. Only as specialist and not PM, but his Team Lead thinks I am replacing him!

Last week I got a message on LinkedIn, a consulting firm reached out to me to aquire me as a new consultant or devops engineer. They look great, only less vacation (26 instead of 30 days), 40h shifts instead of 38h and only slightly more base payment. I currently receive about 53.000€ a year, the new firm only grants up to 60.000€ a year for anyone. Otherwise, they look great.

With all my buddies quitting around me, work getting more while time developing decreasing, I don't know what the right thing to do is... There is no way I can get a payment increase in my current position. I always say "my workplace is save, but my work isnt". I don't want to do project managment.

Today I have a meeting with my team lead, she is really nice btw. This is an annual meeting where we discuss my future in the company etc. Shortly after, I have a meeting with the new firm to discuss a bunch of questions I have.

I dont know what to do...

Edit: I missed you, devrant

Manager: So great news, we will also be building a new app this year!!

Dev: We only have 2 devs and we already struggling to maintain/build our current portfolio of applications. I don’t think we have the resources to support another.

Manager: Nonsense, this is a very small project management app that was requested by the CEO himself!

Dev: …We already have MS project, why can’t they just use that?

Manager: The executive team isn’t interested in learning MS Project, it’s way too complicated. They want us to build an internal version of MS Project one feature at a time so they can pick it up over time instead of getting overwhelmed with learning MS Project all at once. It also needs to have loads of customizable automation features so leadership doesn’t ever have to get “in the weeds” having to work with it. It needs to basically run itself!

Dev: …What about this is small?

Manager: Well that is the requirement.

Dev: …

Type letter "w" in wife's browser

"What is the ratio of open to closed doors in the world right now?"

"Why doesn't my baby molt her skin all at once while she grows?"

"Will Python help me to make a robot friend for my toddler daughter"

"Where do I buy tensors for building robot brains"

"Why don't we solve aging population and climate change by not vaccinating boomers"

Me: ... "Seriously, why can't you just watch hardcore porn, like a normal person"

Manager: How long until the current set of tickets is complete?

Dev: Based on storyboard points it’ll be 1.5 weeks from now

Manager: That’s unacceptable! Let me take a look at the board and see if I can remove some low priority tickets.

*Later that day*

Manager: Oooo I found a bunch of really exciting tickets in the backlog that I forgot about. I’ve added them to the board.

Dev: Did you remove any?

Manager: Huh? Oh right. No, I looked and it all needs to get done.

Dev: With these new tickets added to the board our new estimate is 4 weeks.

Manager: WHAT?!? BUT I SPENT ALL DAY LOOKING FOR EFFICIENCIES!!

Dev: …

Nuked prod db today. Fortunatly we had backup.

Now I’m gonna change my pants

Two mobile devs were talking for 10 minutes in this zoom meeting whether "the component on the bottom should be hidden, or made sticky".

I just could not contain my laughter any longer when they showed an animated mockup comparison, and the product manager yelled excitedly: "Oh yeah, I love the one where it's very visible and sticky! But could you make it bigger for me?"

Sorry HR. I will never become a grown up boy.

This is a rant I had 12 years ago but somehow forgot to post it.

In the middle of one of the biggest economy crash, I received an offer letter from a very big tech corp in NJ. This was my first job in 2009. I did all the hard part. 4-5 rounds of interviews, then graduated on time to waste no time and start my job.

On the first day, I went to HR finished orientation, got my laptop, started installing my regular tool chain. My manager was supposed to take me out for lunch and introduce me to the team. He came to my desk and said HR needs a copy of my passport as I am an immigrant and there is always additional paperwork.

HR tells me there was a very horrible mistake on their side and cannot hire immigrants for that role and need a green card/citizen. That was it. They apologized, took my ID card, laptop back and gave my passport back to me.

I took a yellow cab back to my dorm room which was I about to vacate in a week as I found a new apartment.

On that day I decided never to work for a financial organization again in my life.

Recruiter: "How do you see the future of the field?"

Me: "... How do I see the future of neurorobotics?"

Hom: "Yes"

Me: 😐 *baffled*

Hi everyone,

Over the last couple of days we experienced an issue posting images on devRant posts and comments. This issue should now be fixed.

Apologies for the delay, it to address, it took some digging and we had some alerting that failed that would have helped quickly identify the source of the issue, but unfortunately that part of the alerting wasn't working as expected.

Despite the issue being fixed, there is a bit of additional maintenance that will take place to prevent it from occurring in the future. There could be a couple of minutes of downtime today, March 13 at around 10pm EST, but I'm hoping that can be avoided. I will update in the comments on this rant.

Lastly, and unrelated to this issue, an academic research team has been working on a project involving devRant/types of content posted, and would appreciate feedback and help with a short survey they put together for anyone who is interested: https://devrant.com/rants/3923796/...

Thank you again for the patience and feel free to let me know if you have any questions.

p.s. attached is a relevant meme, according to some people, who thought/hoped this was a feature :)

So I told my wife one week ago: "Yeah, you should totally learn to code as well!"

Yesterday a package arrived, containing a really beautiful hardcover book bound in leather, with a gold foil image of a snake debossed into the cover, with the text "In the face of ambiguity -- Refuse the temptation to guess" on it.

Well, OK, that's weird.

My wife snatches it and says: "I had that custom made by a book binder". I flip through it. It contains the Python 3.9 language reference, and the PEP 8 styleguide.

While I usually dislike paper dev books because they become outdated over time, I'm perplexed by this one, because of how much effort and craftsmanship went in to it. I'm even a little jealous.

So, this morning I was putting dishes into the dishwasher, and she says: "Please let me do that". I ask: "Am I doing anything wrong?"

Wife responds: "Well, it's not necessarily wrong, I mean, it works, doesn't it? But your methods aren't very pythonic. Your conventions aren't elegant at all". I don't think I've heard anyone say the word "pythonic" to me in over a decade.

And just now my wife was looking over my shoulder as I was debugging some lower level Rust code filled with network buffers and hex literals, and she says: "Pffffff unbelievable, I thought you were a senior developer. That code is really bad, there are way too many abbreviated things. Readability counts! I bet if you used Python, your code would actually work!"

I think I might have released something really evil upon the world.

Found this tweet by accident. At first I laughed, but then I realized that once I too didn't know what MySQL was. Crazy to think that I knew nothing just ten years ago.

Slowly working it up now, actually.

An annually updated, unbiased, multiple source application that engineers can use to check salary offers vs their skills, to make sure they don't get shortchanged. Intended to work for the entire planet (that we have data for).

fucking permissions

I wrote a whole custom node js project because an exec wanted to see this tool work a certain way, I’m an iOS dev but I got it done the day he asked, and when I went to push it I realized I didn’t have the right account permissions. This service has “add-on roles” for accounts and I’ve had to ask for them before, so I went to that guy and he never responded. Then he went on vacation.

This morning I mentioned it in standup and my lead recommended I reach out to his boss, which sounded great bc we have an even better rapport than I do with the other guy.

His boss first said “that sounds reasonable” and then proceeded to TALK HIMSELF OUT OF IT and tell me to either find someone else to upload it for me or sit on it til the other guy gets back from vacation.

Does this ever end? Bc I used to chalk it up to first-year dev probs but we’re coming up on 5 years now and I don’t know what I did to deserve this torture

When a website enforces "overflow: hidden" on all content elements, so you hit them with the good ol'

for(let e of document.querySelectorAll("*")) {
e.style.overflow = "scroll";
}

I'm cry-laughing.

Management wanted us to deliver a completely new feature before the holidays (see my previous rant) and they were acting really sad when we told them it is impossible. It turns out they really want it to be done, and instead of realising it is not going to happen, they are coming up with brilliant new ideas on what we should do and how should we do it on a daily basis. It was just just a little nuisance until today, listening to them and reading their mails for half an hour a day is not a big deal.

So guess what? They changed the whole fucking specification today. I can't even...

Not sure if this has been posted before but GitHub has an official dark mode now!

And it's pretty beautiful too
(Especially check out how your own comments look on an issue!)

"Lawsuit Alleges Facebook Favors H-1B Visa Workers and Other Temporary Visa Holders over U.S. Workers"

And no one was surprised. Not that this will make a dent in the labor arbitrage problem, but at least it's evidentiary confirmation it's happening. If it goes through it'll likely mean a slough of follow-on lawsuits for the thousands of companies doing the exact same thing, and a cottage industry to find new creative ways to continue being predatory assholes.

https://justice.gov/opa/pr/...

An intern approached me for help in one of their past exam questions. They said they had already turned in the exam but just wanted to know the answer. The question was not that hard and I had a bit of time to kill so I helped them.

Me: So, to make it O(n), you have to make it a double linked list, and keep a tail.

Them: But the problem requires us to solve it with a single liked list.

Me: You can just iterate it at the end to make it single-linked again. That costs O(n), so the solution is still O(n).

Them: Oh yeah right. I don't think we even need a tail though, we could just have a variable pointing to the last link.

Me: ...which is called a tail.

I progressively became more right over the course of 30 years. At the point where I was contextually right more often than not, I determined that to be "good." Then I kept getting better, just in case.

Okay, this is MAJOR FUCKING BULLSHIT.
I understand variability of, dunno, 10, but 40?
The tests were ran on the same machine, one after another. What the fuck?

Sick.
Worst sleep of my life last night.
Freezing cold, weak, sore, can’t think, starving but can’t eat or drink, as low energy as a dead Chinese “heavy duty” battery.

Finished some changes to my feature today anyway; everything should be done now. Refactored some specs, and got them all to pass.

Falling asleep on my closet floor. Heavy winter coat, fuzzy pants, space heater. It’s warm in here and there’s a shelf for my lappy. Floor is uncomfortable but idc. I’m so tired and out of it I don’t even notice.

This sucks.

At least I have the rest of the week off.

Omfg windows!! I thought you quit this shit 5 years ago!!!

Dear Recruiters,

If you start your communique by saying anything in the vein of, "we have an immediate need for," I will not be replying to your email, linkedin ping, friend request on Instagram or semaphore frantically waved from the tallest hill in view. You are trying to sell something to me, I am not desperately longing to do something for you. If you don't work for me, you have no capacity to represent my interest.

Regards,

The Talent

----------------
Tldr; developers cede the power in the relationship to recruiters and other middlepersons at their own peril.

What happens as you accrue years of experience is, you feel as if you learned a lot, actually its yes and no, yes because working in an environment with deadlines teaches things, no because the tech is changing.

The fact is tech is changing every few months if not year, one should be having a baby's curiosity to learn and adapt to the new practices.

When I started my tech career I was having a growth mindset, as I went on I felt somehow I got into a fixed mindset and got frustrated often. It's better late than never to realize that you may get wrong more often than right and learn to have an open mind when working.

Finally always take it easy on yourself, learn and move on.

Most hated language features?

PL/SQL:
• it exists

XSLT:
• it also exists

PHP:
• it still exists.

VB:
• Significant parentheses: `subName` calls the subroutine, and `subName()` calls the subroutine and gets a return value. If you use the wrong invocation, it yells at you. Why!?
• For reasons unknown, you can only have `sleep` appear once per codebase. (So put it in a function!)

Ruby:
• It’s bloody easy to write code with absolute shit performance, and it kind of feels encouraged because of just how easy Ruby makes everything. Less critical thinking means worse performance, and Ruby’s blissful elegance encourages mental laziness.
• Minor: You cannot pass a hash as the first method parameter without enclosing it in parentheses, ex:`method({key: value})`. This is due to the ambiguous case between passing a hash argument and a (curly) block/proc (`method {|args| code}`). This could be remedied pretty easily with a little bit of look ahead.
• Minor: There is no `elsif` for `unless` (a negated if). Why? No reason given.

Python:
• no block endings, so nested code can be extremely difficult to follow.

Bash:
• The freaking syntax oh god why.

All languages:
• rand vs rand() vs Rand vs Rand() vs rnd vs RND vs random() vs random vs randInt() vs Math.random() vs Math.randInt() vs ...

My dad coded in vim.

I code in VS Code.

My son will code in VS Code.

But his son, will code in vim.

Be a dev; Output more than you input.

Here's one.