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smackfu posted:The worst is when people put cyclomatic complexity or any of these metrics in their linter, and some random small change is the one that breaks the rule and requires a refactoring for no good reasons. We use SonarQube on PRs but don't block based on failure - it's more to just have visibility into these sorts of things. It works out pretty well.
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Mar 13, 2021 18:25
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smackfu posted:On a different topic: how common is it for corporate employers to literally take 6-8 months to roll out each annual MacOS update? We just got Catalina a few months ago and maybe we will get Big Sur sometime in 2021? It’s a bit ridiculous and really messes with new hardware buys which are going to be on the new OS version regardless. Taking over a year to roll out Catalina is absurdly slow, but there were good reasons for it to take a while. Catalina broke image-based deployment, and while it wasn't exactly a surprise (Apple's been hinting that it wasn't going to be a viable option long-term and started providing alternatives a few years ago), anyone that hadn't actually started looking into the modern way of doing things had a lot of work to update. Big Sur also has some deployment changes, but also the ban on third-party kernel extensionx broke all the lovely antivirus systems that large corporations love and those are just now shipping Big Sur compatible versions.
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Mar 13, 2021 18:30
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FlowerRhythmREMIX posted:Encouraging pairing is good, enforcing pairing sounds like a nightmare. Having flashbacks to oldjob, where CEO visited the New York office and saw two local programmers do pair-programming. He liked it so much that all programmers in the company were switched to full time pair programming, starting on Thursday. the heat goes wrong fucked around with this message at 01:06 on Mar 14, 2021 |
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Mar 14, 2021 01:02
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I hope this is the right place to ask this. I apologize this is a very vague question but I'd appreciate any suggestions. I have a low-paid, crappy but "prestigious" job in academia. I took a CS course and I've built a program that greatly assists in performing my unusual job. Nothing like it exists and I've gotten a lot of interest in it from my colleagues. This field is very behind the times with using computers to assist with the work. So here's my question. I carefully made it entirely in my free time so my employer has no claim to it. Should I publish it as open source on Github or try to make money off it? On one hand I'm thinking it could be a great thing to put on a resume as an open source project used by others in the field. On the other hand getting some income from it would be great. It there some middle ground where I could keep the rights to it but distribute it on the internet? Any thoughts on this? Thanks.
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Mar 14, 2021 03:38
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Rework the core logic into a SaaS web application. If it doesn't make you any money, open source it
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Mar 14, 2021 04:17
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Pekinduck posted:I hope this is the right place to ask this. I apologize this is a very vague question but I'd appreciate any suggestions. Talk to a copyright lawyer. There are all sorts of gotchas and what you think was sufficient to ensure you retained ownership may not have been. Since it's niche software, you probably won't be able to make much if any money selling it. Your colleagues all want it, which is great, but if there are only a few thousand people in the world like your colleagues, then it's going to have extremely limited sales potential. Super-niche software exists, but it's usually sold in the "you're not paying for the software, you're paying a yearly licensing fee that entitles you to use the software and receive support/updates/etc" sense. If it's something that could be packaged as a SaaS offering with a monthly/yearly subscription fee, that could work out nicely for you. There's not really a downside to trying to sell it (assuming copyright pans out, etc). If it catches on and is a big hit in your field, chances are everyone will know about it and people will say "Oh, wow, you're the person who wrote Awesomesoft?!?" If it doesn't, open source it, and if it catches on now that it's free, people will still say "Oh, wow, you're the person who wrote Awesomesoft?!?", except you won't have made any money from it. If it doesn't ever catch on, it will be an interesting footnote that you can talk about.
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Mar 14, 2021 04:27
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New Yorp New Yorp posted:Talk to a copyright lawyer. There are all sorts of gotchas and what you think was sufficient to ensure you retained ownership may not have been. Will do, I fortunately know a great lawyer who I can talk to. New Yorp New Yorp posted:Since it's niche software, you probably won't be able to make much if any money selling it. Your colleagues all want it, which is great, but if there are only a few thousand people in the world like your colleagues, then it's going to have extremely limited sales potential. Yeah this is the exact situation, its a small field and has no private sector equivalent. (PM me if you're curious) ~1000 potential users is an optimistic ballpark. New Yorp New Yorp posted:Super-niche software exists, but it's usually sold in the "you're not paying for the software, you're paying a yearly licensing fee that entitles you to use the software and receive support/updates/etc" sense. If it's something that could be packaged as a SaaS offering with a monthly/yearly subscription fee, that could work out nicely for you. I could package it into a SaaS, presently its written in C with the UI implemented in Curses for use from a terminal in Linux. Honestly the program isn't too complicated but I'm drawing from my personal experience doing this job and how software could help with it.
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Mar 14, 2021 06:07
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Pekinduck posted:I could package it into a SaaS, presently its written in C with the UI implemented in Curses for use from a terminal in Linux. Honestly the program isn't too complicated but I'm drawing from my personal experience doing this job and how software could help with it. Don't do this, if it was simple everyone would do it.  This is something I am learning right now......
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Mar 14, 2021 08:40
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Very frequently, the most complicated part of a SaaS product is it's marketing, presentation, and it's payment processing. The 'service' itself seems to be increasingly trivial. I think my favorite recent example of complexity being 95% marketing with out of control pricing might be Visual Ping. For the low, low price of $97 a month, you can fetch the HTML of a webpage up to 20k times and diff it...automatically!!! Comes with cool looking screen caps. That is an insanely trivial problem to solve and if you want to use their service, it'll cost you as much, or MORE than the entire Adobe Creative Suite. Canine Blues Arooo fucked around with this message at 11:19 on Mar 14, 2021 |
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Mar 14, 2021 11:14
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Pekinduck posted:I hope this is the right place to ask this. I apologize this is a very vague question but I'd appreciate any suggestions. Talk to a lawyer then look into GitHub sponsorships or some other way to monetize it as OSS. you could also do a patreon. kitten emergency fucked around with this message at 14:39 on Mar 14, 2021 |
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Mar 14, 2021 14:27
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Canine Blues Arooo posted:Very frequently, the most complicated part of a SaaS product is it's marketing, presentation, and it's payment processing. I should make a SaaS product for making SaaS products...
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Mar 14, 2021 15:33
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Pekinduck posted:
Selling to individuals is going to be a losing proposition, you don't have a big enough potential userbase and no one is going to pay out of pocket for it at a price point that would be worth it to you. You need to look at a more "enterprisey" model if you want to monetize it. If you think you could sell a subscription to a few university departments (say, per-seat licensing at $1000 per seat per year) and get 50 or 100 users, you could have a very lucrative side project going if you redo it to be web-friendly and cloud hosted. Obviously we can't know what price points make sense, or if you could do something like free but somehow limited + ads for people who just need basic capabilities, but there's definitely potential. Niche, expensive software is pretty common if it's being marketed toward organizations instead of individuals.
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Mar 14, 2021 16:28
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The hard part about doing the niche approach is you need to be good at sales or pay someone who is, and has the contacts to get the meetings in the first place.
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Mar 14, 2021 18:23
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prom candy posted:The hard part about doing the niche approach is you need to be good at sales or pay someone who is, and has the contacts to get the meetings in the first place. Yeah, but I'm assuming that in a small, highly-specialized academic community, you know or have at least corresponded with a ton of your potential userbase already so the networking is already done, or at least the groundwork is laid.
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Mar 14, 2021 20:44
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Pekinduck posted:I hope this is the right place to ask this. I apologize this is a very vague question but I'd appreciate any suggestions. What does your contact with the University say? "We own every thing you make and every thought you have, on the clock or not" is pretty typical in the professional realm, and depending on how much a university wants to turn the screws this might end badly.
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Mar 14, 2021 21:15
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Volmarias posted:What does your contact with the University say? "We own every thing you make and every thought you have, on the clock or not" is pretty typical in the professional realm, and depending on how much a university wants to turn the screws this might end badly. I think this depends on jurisdiction because that certainly isn't the case here
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Mar 14, 2021 22:03
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HappyHippo posted:I think this depends on jurisdiction because that certainly isn't the case here yeah, this is very much a case of "start by talking to a real lawyer"
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Mar 14, 2021 22:20
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Mr Shiny Pants posted:Don't do this, if it was simple everyone would do it. Good point, thanks! New Yorp New Yorp posted:Yeah, but I'm assuming that in a small, highly-specialized academic community, you know or have at least corresponded with a ton of your potential userbase already so the networking is already done, or at least the groundwork is laid. Yup this is the situation. Volmarias posted:What does your contact with the University say? "We own every thing you make and every thought you have, on the clock or not" is pretty typical in the professional realm, and depending on how much a university wants to turn the screws this might end badly. Not sure about that, IP rarely comes up with my job. Will definitely talk to a lawyer.
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Mar 16, 2021 00:51
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Pekinduck posted:Not sure about that, IP rarely comes up with my job. Will definitely talk to a lawyer. Offering a correction: the comment meant to ask what your contract says, not your contact. Dig out the contract itself and you may find some (seemingly) clear-cut bad news (eg, we (the university) own any inventions pertaining to any or all business interests of the university, regardless of yadda yadda)
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Mar 16, 2021 03:14
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Newf posted:Offering a correction: the comment meant to ask what your contract says, not your contact. Dig out the contract itself and you may find some (seemingly) clear-cut bad news (eg, we (the university) own any inventions pertaining to any or all business interests of the university, regardless of yadda yadda) But also talk to a lawyer, because those clauses can be invalid in certain jurisdictions.
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Mar 16, 2021 03:16
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Newf posted:Offering a correction: the comment meant to ask what your contract says, not your contact. Dig out the contract itself and you may find some (seemingly) clear-cut bad news (eg, we (the university) own any inventions pertaining to any or all business interests of the university, regardless of yadda yadda) I looked though the contract and couldn't find anything. This is a union job with a collective bargaining agreement. Also its hourly not salary which from my understanding state law prohibits non-competes.
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Mar 16, 2021 05:00
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Software Design for Flexibility A new book from Gerald Jay Sussman of SICP fame. It looks interesting, but I think I'm going to hold out for the paperback.
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Mar 19, 2021 15:24
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Here's a weird question, not asking for any reason than out of my own curiosity. Anyone ever use the VS Code Live Share feature in an actual professional development context? I personally have not.
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Mar 23, 2021 18:13
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Protocol7 posted:Here's a weird question, not asking for any reason than out of my own curiosity. Anyone ever use the VS Code Live Share feature in an actual professional development context? I personally have not. I do. It’s...I mean, I’ve never liked pair programming tools, so as far as I can tell it’s pretty good among them, but I still end up fighting a lot for control with the person I’m pairing with. Also a lot of ambiguity on what side the changes end up on. (Then again I think it’s the specific person I’m pairing with that’s actually difficult...)
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Mar 23, 2021 18:21
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Protocol7 posted:Here's a weird question, not asking for any reason than out of my own curiosity. Anyone ever use the VS Code Live Share feature in an actual professional development context? I personally have not. I've used VS live share (which I assume is similar) and I've been very impressed. But it's mostly been for short discussions and walkthroughs etc, never long term pair programming.
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Mar 23, 2021 22:27
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Now for something completely unrelated. We're at the tail end of a project. Big spreadsheet of processed data needs to go out to the customer this week. Today, the guy who is basically the project manager and SME has dropped two bombshells:
I cannot wait for this week (and therefore this project) to be over. 
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Mar 24, 2021 17:27
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Protocol7 posted:Now for something completely unrelated. Why was the format of the data not part of the acceptance criteria of the user story?
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Mar 24, 2021 17:52
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Sounds to me like your project manager hosed up.
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Mar 24, 2021 17:54
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New Yorp New Yorp posted:Why was the format of the data not part of the acceptance criteria of the user story? Well that's part of the crux of the issue - the project manager is not familiar with traditional software development workflows so he doesn't touch any of our tasks in Jira. Most of the task requirements discussion happens in a Zoom call and all kinds of stuff gets lost in incomplete meeting notes or other stuff like that. Fortunately he is not involved in any of the projects after this one is complete.
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Mar 24, 2021 18:13
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Protocol7 posted:Now for something completely unrelated. So why is this stressful for you? Is the end date of the project fixed?
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Mar 24, 2021 20:04
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Bruegels Fuckbooks posted:So why is this stressful for you? Is the end date of the project fixed? So I mean, it is and is not stressful in a sense. My work situation is kind of unique in that it's basically me and my boss, plus a few people who are SMEs in their fields. Basically then, all the extra work falls on me to complete. However, if, for whatever reason, I can't complete the tasks and get the spreadsheet delivered by the end of the week (which is the project end date, at which point we will start working on a new project out of Jira properly again), it also doesn't really affect me in any way, basically it would just sour the relationship between the project manager and the client. I won't get shitcanned or anything. More or less, I am just bitching about this PM guy having zero organization and planning, and that therefore somehow constituting an emergency on my part.
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Mar 24, 2021 20:11
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Protocol7 posted:Basically then, all the extra work falls on me to complete. However, if, for whatever reason, I can't complete the tasks and get the spreadsheet delivered by the end of the week (which is the project end date, at which point we will start working on a new project out of Jira properly again), it also doesn't really affect me in any way, basically it would just sour the relationship between the project manager and the client. I won't get shitcanned or anything. Yeah, that sounds like a lot of Not Really Your Problem. I'm not saying not to do the work, but I wouldn't necessarily scramble towards its completion either, or else the reward might be that you end up working with the dude who doesn't plan well again.
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Mar 24, 2021 20:35
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If you work major overtime and stress yourself out to finish the job in time, the takeaway from the manager will be: "I did an awesome job, and I should learn zero lessons from this whatsoever"
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Mar 24, 2021 21:27
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Oh don't worry, I'm not putting in overtime for this. Getting my 40 in this week and basically gonna say "it's your problem now" if it's not ready by then.
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Mar 24, 2021 23:01
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Protocol7 posted:Getting my 40 in this week Get a load of the overachiever
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Mar 25, 2021 02:59
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Remember that even with Covid that you should be continuing to shitpost from your toilet and that counts towards your work week.
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Mar 25, 2021 05:02
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Rocko Bonaparte posted:Remember that even with Covid that you should be continuing to shitpost from your toilet and that counts towards your work week. In fact, accounting for the increased drinking during covid there probably should be an increasing amount of time allocated for shitposting from the toilet. And, of course, those are billable hours.
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Mar 26, 2021 01:47
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I feel kinda bad because I think I got another consultant fired. Second person who they hired onto our team without any interview. This guy didn't understand why com.company.thing wasn't working. It was supposed to be com/company/thing. You know like anyone who has done a week of java knows. Scariest part is that the new architect with 3 years of java dev exp had to drag me, a frontender who knows java into that meeting to solve it. Same guy pushed a thing which just pushed a thing which would have sent every customers mail to all the customers into prod. This week he sent 300k emails though only internally.
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Mar 27, 2021 00:06
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Has anyone ever heard of this Amazon 6-pager thing? https://writingcooperative.com/the-anatomy-of-an-amazon-6-pager-fc79f31a41c9 quote:Amazon is well known for its lack of using PowerPoint. The way this works is that before a meeting, you print out enough copies for everyone in the room. You’re not allowed to read the document from your computer unless you are remote. Also, no one reads the document before the meeting. You are usually given 20–25 minutes at the beginning of a 60-minute meeting to read the doc from beginning to end. Most people write down questions or feedback directly on the printout since using a computer during this time is frowned upon.
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Mar 31, 2021 18:31
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smackfu posted:Has anyone ever heard of this Amazon 6-pager thing? yes. they're great if you ever need to coordinate meetings and make sure something actually productive happens during them
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Mar 31, 2021 19:05
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