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Coding Horrors: Lord grant me the confidence of a mediocre C++ programmer.
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Sep 18, 2022 10:45
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| # ? May 24, 2024 00:12 |
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FlapYoJacks posted:Coding Horrors: Lord grant me the confidence of a mediocre C++ programmer.
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Sep 18, 2022 11:54
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FlapYoJacks posted:Coding Horrors: Lord grant me the confidence of a mediocre C++ programmer.
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Sep 18, 2022 15:19
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wolfman101 posted:This is the bane of software development. 95% of devs will fall over themselves to solve a “how” question asked without stopping ask “why?” I see it in jobs all the time. I have a threshold. If someone says, hey, how do I iterate over a map - no problem. If someone says, hey, how do I iterate over a map and convert the bytes of the keys to unicode characters and store them in a set I'm going to say wait, what the hell are you trying to do?
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Sep 19, 2022 17:58
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FlapYoJacks posted:Coding Horrors: Lord grant me the confidence of a mediocre C++ programmer. ......And the wisdom to know its time I hit up my job agent. *sigh*. Boss canvased us the idea of terrible terrible coder being promoted to project manager. Today the boss learned what we *really* think. , Enforced deploy pipelines with CI (inc security linting) and code review and a return of unit testing is coming back, finally. And we might be hiring. Or I just outed myself as the disaffected goony greybeard to the boss, and we might be hiring. One of the two lol.
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Sep 20, 2022 07:56
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FlapYoJacks posted:Coding Horrors: Lord grant me the confidence of a mediocre C++ programmer. It's fine, I'm an *advanced* C++ programmer *googles how std::algorithm works*
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Sep 20, 2022 08:23
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duck monster posted:......And the wisdom to know its time I hit up my job agent. They’ve already decided to promote the guy and you need to jump yesterday
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Sep 20, 2022 08:28
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Check if the php rockstar is super angry tomorrow. If he isn't, GTFO.
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Sep 20, 2022 10:33
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Would his being a PM result in him no longer coding anything and also not being part of your chain? If so, it might be possible that they're trying to sideways promote him to someplace where he can be effectively ignored even if he cannot be fired or directly sidelined.
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Sep 20, 2022 16:20
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The fact that they want to make him a PM is a bad sign and unless you desperately need this job you should look for an off-ramp
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Sep 20, 2022 16:28
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Volmarias posted:Would his being a PM result in him no longer coding anything and also not being part of your chain? If so, it might be possible that they're trying to sideways promote him to someplace where he can be effectively ignored even if he cannot be fired or directly sidelined. Oh to be young and naïve again.
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Sep 20, 2022 21:01
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at companies I've been at, project manager/program manager is not a promotion over software engineer, and defer to engineering on technical decisions and afaict generally make less. of course they can still be a pita to work with but that's true of anyone
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Sep 20, 2022 21:36
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take boat posted:at companies I've been at, project manager/program manager is not a promotion over software engineer, and defer to engineering on technical decisions and afaict generally make less. of course they can still be a pita to work with but that's true of anyone
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Sep 20, 2022 21:51
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Foxfire_ posted:Transferring someone who has been ignoring everyone else to do their own bad thing to a management role isn't going to make them spontaneously realize "I am not very good at software and should defer to others" Facts. I worked at a company that promoted a bad developer to a management position so he'd stop doing stupid damage to our codebases. He wound up doing stupid damage to a bunch of high-level processes before they wound up firing him anyway.
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Sep 20, 2022 22:02
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Uh, you ok thread/browser?
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Sep 20, 2022 22:10
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Wow, what does this look like, the Encoding Horrors thread?
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Sep 20, 2022 22:17
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The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > The Cavern of COBOL > Coding Horrors: Y̶̮̍̈́o̴̹̬͋́ů̸͘͜ ̷̞͠c̸̡̛͍͗ǎ̷̢̧n̶̢̅̕ ̴̼́́g̷̰̐a̶̪͊͌t̷̬̯̿ḣ̸̥ȇ̵̥̃r̸͔̭͐͝ ̵̠̄͝a̴̳̐l̶̫͕̈́ľ̶̊͜ ̵̘͋̐y̵̗̬̔o̴̙̩͒̓u̸̳̙͋͠r̴̘̎ ̷̖̄ṭ̷͌͑e̸̘̅c̷̺̅́h̷̙̭͐̊ń̶̠̔͜i̷̲̯̓̄c̶̟̾̍ą̵̉l̸̠̂ ̶̢̿d̷͈̉ė̴̺͚̚ḃ̵̧͉̋t̸͚́͝ ̸̝̦͒̕ḯ̸̥̫ṋ̷̀t̵͍̲͗ő̷͎ ̶̞͛̈o̷̼̭̊n̴̲̅ẻ̵͎̙ ̵̧̍e̷͔̽́ą̸͘s̷͉̍̔y̸͈͋̈́ ̵̝̈́̍f̸̨̙͆͂r̶͓̾a̶̘̯͑ḿ̷͔e̷͈͠w̵̡̑̈́o̶͓̾r̴̖͎͌k̷͕͆!̸̼͂́
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Sep 20, 2022 22:19
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Foxfire_ posted:Transferring someone who has been ignoring everyone else to do their own bad thing to a management role isn't going to make them spontaneously realize "I am not very good at software and should defer to others" I agree with most of what you posted, I'm just saying the project manager role is (in many companies) not "management" in the sense of direct reports or individual decision-making power. they instead maintain project documentation, babysit gantt charts and ticket backlogs, work on schedules for cross-team projects, etc. they can still cause problems obviously! that may not be the case for OP, it does not sound like a very bureaucratic place given what this guy was formerly doing
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Sep 20, 2022 22:27
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DoctorTristan posted:Oh to be young and naïve again. If he can wreck your day even worse as a PM than by taking your working stuff and turning it into PHP, that's actually impressive. Then again, I have worked in places where PMs set roadmaps with general goals and do not specify how to get there technology wise, while the engineers are free to tell them to eat poo poo if they demand too much. So, I guess I'm spoiled and do not live in a world where PM deadlines actually mean much without eng agreement Volmarias fucked around with this message at 00:32 on Sep 21, 2022 |
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Sep 21, 2022 00:28
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wolfman101 posted:This is the bane of software development. 95% of devs will fall over themselves to solve a “how” question asked without stopping ask “why?” I see it in jobs all the time. :nods: I teach a UI design class, and one of the tasks I give students is to make a good game startup experience. I show them a game where it starts with an account login / creation page, then some menus, etc., and they have to do better. 100% of them come back with a basic variation on that, just with prettier graphics. None of them realize the answer was to not have the account login screen at all.
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Sep 21, 2022 04:07
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lord funk posted::nods: That's weird, though, because unless I'm missing something, usually "there needs to be an account login screen" is a requirement that's imposed on a UI designer, rather than something they can just unilaterally remove for aesthetic reasons.
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Sep 21, 2022 04:28
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Yeah, I'm not sure what you're supposed to change if your game has an account system it uses, unless the system is one of those entirely optional ones that are just used for cloud saves.
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Sep 21, 2022 04:38
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You could use an anonymous guest account at first, with a "switch account" button if the user does want to log in to their existing account, and prompt the user to create a real account after they finish their first match. But yes, this is not really something that an individual UI designer would get to unilaterally decide.
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Sep 21, 2022 04:45
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I would also suggest that if 100% of your students get the answer to your question wrong, it might be a problem with the curriculum leading up to the question, or the question itself, not the students.
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Sep 21, 2022 04:48
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You could allow access to the tutorial before showing a login screen. Or move it to the Game Over screen as a "save your progress so you don't have to redo this?" kinda thing. Or investigate creating an anonymous/local-only account by default and allow the player to flesh it out whenever.
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Sep 21, 2022 04:52
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pokeyman posted:You could allow access to the tutorial before showing a login screen. Or move it to the Game Over screen as a "save your progress so you don't have to redo this?" kinda thing. Or investigate creating an anonymous/local-only account by default and allow the player to flesh it out whenever. I can see tons of security, gameplay, server/client balance, and netcode ramifications just looking at these possibilities. Not decisions that I'd expect a UI person to come to and then design around (although obviously a good team would seek input from UI for any and all decisions, same as any department).
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Sep 21, 2022 04:56
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Absurd Alhazred posted:I can see tons of security, gameplay, server/client balance, and netcode ramifications just looking at these possibilities. Not decisions that I'd expect a UI person to come to and then design around (although obviously a good team would seek input from UI for any and all decisions, same as any department). The prompt doesn’t indicate it’s an online game besides having accounts, which doesn’t necessarily mean multiplayer. These requirements you’ve stated could be well outside what the prompt intends. But if everyone fails it, it may be a bad prompt but maybe not for these reasons.
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Sep 21, 2022 06:20
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Absurd Alhazred posted:I can see tons of security, gameplay, server/client balance, and netcode ramifications just looking at these possibilities. Not decisions that I'd expect a UI person to come to and then design around (although obviously a good team would seek input from UI for any and all decisions, same as any department). All good points that would come up in a discussion when the UI person says "hey this is not an ideal new player experience, are any of these directions worth exploring?" Or everyone assumes the login wall is the only way and no discussion happens because things might be hard, I guess.
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Sep 21, 2022 07:35
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You know what one thing I really liked about toying around in Visual Basic 3.0? You could start the IDE, throw some stuff on a form, write some code, press Run, and it just ran that code, without having to save any files at all. There are absolutely times where I want to test some things out quickly in C#/WPF or whatever, and the affordance of having to save a full project including figuring out a name and location for it, is making me just scrap the idea again.
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Sep 21, 2022 07:49
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nielsm posted:You know what one thing I really liked about toying around in Visual Basic 3.0? You could start the IDE, throw some stuff on a form, write some code, press Run, and it just ran that code, without having to save any files at all. There are absolutely times where I want to test some things out quickly in C#/WPF or whatever, and the affordance of having to save a full project including figuring out a name and location for it, is making me just scrap the idea again. It's for that reason that I often end up using various online test platforms like scastie or jdoodle when I want to do a small thing that I don't plan on keeping.
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Sep 21, 2022 08:44
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nielsm posted:You know what one thing I really liked about toying around in Visual Basic 3.0? You could start the IDE, throw some stuff on a form, write some code, press Run, and it just ran that code, without having to save any files at all. There are absolutely times where I want to test some things out quickly in C#/WPF or whatever, and the affordance of having to save a full project including figuring out a name and location for it, is making me just scrap the idea again. I also like a REPL it's a nice tool for such an occasion
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Sep 21, 2022 08:59
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I keep an empty rust project with a bunch of preloaded includes and all the dead code warnings blocked out just for that.
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Sep 21, 2022 09:12
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nielsm posted:You know what one thing I really liked about toying around in Visual Basic 3.0? You could start the IDE, throw some stuff on a form, write some code, press Run, and it just ran that code, without having to save any files at all. There are absolutely times where I want to test some things out quickly in C#/WPF or whatever, and the affordance of having to save a full project including figuring out a name and location for it, is making me just scrap the idea again. The ability to make "scratch files" in many IDEs is going to blow your mind when you learn about them.
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Sep 21, 2022 16:54
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what in the world are y’all talking about “no UI designer makes sweeping changes”??? of course they do, with something like a inDesign mock prototype there’s no ‘backend’ to worry about yet. there’s a myopic view bouncing around but it ain’t the UI assignment author
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Sep 21, 2022 17:39
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Designers don't get to unilaterally decide whether there's a login required to interact with a system.
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Sep 21, 2022 18:06
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"Can we change our online-only game to not require an account?" is not a useful question for a UI designer to be asking or making mockups for, especially at the point where you are hashing out the details of a screen. Some of the other stuff mentioned like moving the login screen to the end also just seem worse to me. The normal place for that is at the start of the interaction and you shouldn't surprise the user. It's like if you were making a windows desktop program and had a very convincing first principles argument that the close button should be in the upper left instead of upper right. You still shouldn't do it. Presumably this assignment prompt comes with some amount of background detail about it? UI for a RTS, a MOBA, and a free-to-play game are not the same.
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Sep 21, 2022 18:48
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If you're planning on console and use any online features (including cloud saves, achievements, etc, plenty of features that are in single player games) you'll likely need some kind of login screen, at least for first run. And you'll definitely need some UI element that shows the user which account they're signed in as, with the opportunity to switch users, before any profile operations are done.
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Sep 21, 2022 18:48
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You can, however, eliminate an actual login flow *most of the time*. At first run you'll need to create/link a publisher account, but that might be done silently and unlinked to an email. You still need the EULA flow, though. You can also pre-populate the details if the first-party account is already linked to a publisher account.
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Sep 21, 2022 18:51
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Very big "N64 port of Doom, I just need to send the porting subcontractors pictures and they change them, that's all you need to do right?" energy coming out of your class.
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Sep 21, 2022 19:07
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I'm not a designer, but I've worked with them, and "Is this thing that's generally assumed to be required actually required?" is absolutely the kind of question that I like them to ask, even if the answer is "yes" 99% of the time, because that's the question that makes sure you can actually usefully articulate and defend the requirement. (E.g. "Yes, we need the login screen at that part of the flow, because of <x> and <y>, which are non-negotiable.") Moreover, a classroom seems like an entirely appropriate place to explore the consequences of working without common constraints.
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Sep 21, 2022 19:10
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