Exit the matrix

I'm trying out a new rendering engine, it's pretty slow but I'm getting somewhere.

My (6 years old) client is sitting next to me and is kind of picky and tells me exactly what to do.

No payout though 🤔

I've always been anxious about putting my stuff on GitHub.

However, I did upload a project of mine there.

Thoughs few minutes after uploading it:

"Omg, is anyone judging how bad my code is?"
"I'm sure they will criticize it."
"O shit, I forgot a // TODO in there."
"O shit did I upload my credentials by mistake?"
"Does this commit message sound right?"
"Should I commit more often?"
"Do I commit too often?"

We were all 16 once right? When I was 16, my school had a network of Windows 2000 machines. Since I was learning java at the time, I thought learning batch scripting would be fun.

One day I wrote a script that froze input from the mouse and displayed a pop up with a scary “Critical System Error: please correct before data deletion!!”. It also displayed a five minute countdown timer, after which the computer restarted.

I may or may not have replaced the internet explorer icon on the desktop with a link to my program on the entire student lab of computers. Chaos.

Interview with a candidate. He calls himself "C++ expert" on his resume. I think: "oh, great, I love C++ too, we will have an interesting conversation!"

Me: let's start with an easy one, what is 'nullptr'?
Him: (...some undecipherable sequence of words that didn't make any sense...)

In my mind: mh, probably I didn't understand right. Let's try again with something simple and more generic

Me: can you tell me about memory management in C++?
Him: you create objects on the stack with the 'new' keyword and they get automatically released when no other object references them

In my mind: wtf is this guy talking about? Is he confusing C++ with Java? Does he really know C++? Let's make him write some code, just to be sure

Me: can you write a program that prints numbers from 1 to 10?

Ten minutes and twenty mistakes later...

Me: okay, so what is this <int> here in angle brackets? What is a template?
Him: no idea

Me: you wrote 'cout', why sometimes do I see 'std::cout' instead? What is 'std'?
Answer: no idea, never heard of 'std'

I think: on his resume he also said he is a Java expert. Let's see if he knows the difference between the two. He *must* have noticed that one is byte-compiled and the other one is compiled to native code! Otherwise, how does he run his code? He must answer this question correctly:

Me: what is the difference between Java and C++? One has a Virtual Machine, what about the other?
Him: Java has the Java Virtual Machine
Me: yes, and C++?
Him: I guess C++ has a virtual machine too. The C++ Virtual Machine

Me (exhausted): okay, I don't have any other questions, we will let you know

And this is the story of how I got scared of interviews

The documentation for the matplotlib python library is terrible for newbies.

There is a "Tutorial" section, but the thing doesn't even explain what you can do until you get to the 4th section!
It starts off with some confusing examples, how to change the appearance and only at section 4 do you actually start to get an introduction to the different components you might want to use...

At some point you finally realize, most of the stuff that is shown can be omitted because the .pyplot module is all you need.

Damn you Matlab why don't you have i++ operator and ternary operator >:(

*swats a fly at work*
"heh, debugging."
*audible sigh*