Working in Development: Leaving sounds like a great decision.

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > The Cavern of COBOL > Working in Development: Leaving sounds like a great decision.

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redleader: Aug 18, 2005; Engage according to operational parameters

We record time spent on tasks. Luckily our management is reasonably pragmatic so tbe target is 6 hours of time recorded per 8 hour day.

Time is actually tracked in Microsoft Dynamics CRM. It... works, I suppose, and the higher-ups love running their reports through it. It's not really a tool designed for managing a scrum-ish process flow, and is a constant source of minor annoyances for everyone. But hey, it's already installed and mostly works, so why change?

# ¿ Mar 7, 2016 10:38

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 20:19

redleader: Aug 18, 2005; Engage according to operational parameters

Cuntpunch posted:

Someone keep me honest here, but I thought the variance in behavior(compared to Java) is because *it doesn't matter* in C# due to the fact that identical strings are aliased under the hood? A quick peek at Linqpad suggests this to be true - ==, Equals(), and Object.ReferenceEquals() will all return true for two strings with the same value.

Not quite - it's very possible to have two strings that are equal using == but are different instances. The behaviour you're seeing in Linqpad is due to string interning.

# ¿ Aug 28, 2016 06:40

redleader: Aug 18, 2005; Engage according to operational parameters

On the subject of job titles: my work has decided to introduce the title of "senior developer", and I'm apparently one of the lucky ones. I think this is laughable, as I have only four years of experience at only one company, in total. (I'd class myself as "middling intermediate developer" at best.)

How will the "senior developer" title look on my CV? I'm picturing some recruiter looking at this idiot quote-unquote senior developer with fuckall experience and binning it immediately. Obviously, titles are bullshit, but do they know that?

# ¿ Sep 26, 2016 11:20

redleader: Aug 18, 2005; Engage according to operational parameters

Obviously your PO needs to enter an epic to update your stuff to support a certain scale of operation, which will then get broken down, sized, prioritized and assigned to sprints as appropriate for the business!

# ¿ Jan 5, 2017 07:26

redleader: Aug 18, 2005; Engage according to operational parameters

The emotions run high because the stakes are so low.

# ¿ Jan 12, 2017 08:13

redleader: Aug 18, 2005; Engage according to operational parameters

Some of our databases run SQL Server Web Edition. Another one runs SQL Server 2008r2. I get that licensing costs are a concern for some companies, but c'mon son!

# ¿ Mar 2, 2017 19:01

redleader: Aug 18, 2005; Engage according to operational parameters

Scrum is such a piece of poo poo though. I can't loving stand it. The pointless ceremony, the constant masturbation, the "self-organising team" bullshit... It's awful and actively makes my job worse.

# ¿ Apr 6, 2017 10:58

redleader: Aug 18, 2005; Engage according to operational parameters

There's a funny bug with old versions of the Jenkins SVN plugin. If you have one particular checkout strategy selected, you would find that Jenkins occasionally duplicates the content of every file. So you'd have a file with public class Foo { ... }, followed immediately in the same file by another public class Foo { ... } definition. Luckily this causes immediate (but absolutely baffling) build failures.

This was fixed in Jenkins 1.470 or so, in mid-2013. How do I know about such an old bug? Take a guess at how maintained our infrastructure is :suicide:

# ¿ Apr 19, 2017 23:03

redleader: Aug 18, 2005; Engage according to operational parameters

jony neuemonic posted:

Everywhere I've worked has eventually devolved to this. I really want to try something like the t-shirt estimates you mentioned and see if it helps prevent it.

"Each developer can do 2 S, 1 M, or 0.5 L stories in a day..."

# ¿ Apr 20, 2017 07:16

redleader: Aug 18, 2005; Engage according to operational parameters

In scrum, everyone on the team is known as a 'developer'. Is this because:

Scrum was created for software development, and therefore teams are composed almost entirely of software developers?
Everyone on a scrum team is so cross-functional that everyone is equally useful as a software developer, no matter what their original skillset was?
Team members are 'product developers', not software devs as such, and develop a product as opposed to software? Therefore it's still correct to call them developers, regardless of their actual job (design, test, dba, etc)?

I'd always assumed it was the cross-functional bit, but someone sent a scrum master on a course and now he's bringing up questions.

# ¿ Apr 24, 2017 02:24

redleader: Aug 18, 2005; Engage according to operational parameters

Clanpot Shake posted:

I had to provide support for an integration that sent us XML that didn't validate against the schema file they sent us. We had to massage the schema to generate code that would validate the requests they were sending us. You have certainly heard of the company that did this moronic thing.

...all of them?

# ¿ Apr 26, 2017 08:00

redleader: Aug 18, 2005; Engage according to operational parameters

AskYourself posted:

And when do you get to spend time raising your kids with that ?

Make sure you add in a card or two for this on your personal Trello board.

# ¿ May 6, 2017 05:24

redleader: Aug 18, 2005; Engage according to operational parameters

Does anyone know of any tools that let you use Github-style pull requests with SVN?

# ¿ May 14, 2017 00:30

redleader: Aug 18, 2005; Engage according to operational parameters

I mean yeah, that would be great. But "cultural issues" rear their ugly heads, and it would be easier to bolt something on to SVN than to convince the org to go whole hog into some sort of git.

# ¿ May 15, 2017 01:34

redleader: Aug 18, 2005; Engage according to operational parameters

I'm so loving sick of the tabs and spaces "debate"

# ¿ Jun 17, 2017 02:19

redleader: Aug 18, 2005; Engage according to operational parameters

ChickenWing posted:

spaces are objectively better hth

agreed, but tabs

# ¿ Jun 19, 2017 13:01

redleader: Aug 18, 2005; Engage according to operational parameters

July is crunch time on a massive project for my company, with all deliverables to be completed by the end of the month (else huge financial penalties apply).

I have no idea how it's going, since I managed to book a lengthy holiday for this month :v:

. Haven't even checked my emails once. It's so loving great.

# ¿ Jul 30, 2017 22:45

redleader: Aug 18, 2005; Engage according to operational parameters

CPColin posted:

Say, if they want to run a piece of code to fix some data in Production, they'll write it, slap a [TestMethod] attribute on it, and use NUnit to execute it.

Jesus Christ. I assume you're looking for a new job?

# ¿ Oct 14, 2017 01:39

redleader: Aug 18, 2005; Engage according to operational parameters

Murrah posted:

Ive been asked to make a barcode label with some text that prints from the browser and is supposed to work appropriately on a bunch of different kinds of 1inch label printers

I cant quite express actually how frustrating this has been

We only have to target one type of label printer.

We just went out and bought one and put it right next to the guy working on the labels.

# ¿ Oct 19, 2017 00:49

redleader: Aug 18, 2005; Engage according to operational parameters

CPColin posted:

A short narrative of what just happened today:

I go to run some test data through the system.

The code fails because it can't find some configuration values it needs.

I run the unit tests, which also fail.

I look in the database where the configuration sits and everything's gone!

I look again a few minutes later and everything's back, except for the configuration my code needs, which I added a little while ago.

I add the stuff my code needs and the unit tests pass.

I try to run the test data through the system again. It succeeds, but it doesn't show up on Dev.

I look more closely at the configuration database. Everything's pointed at Prod and there's absolutely no protection against this situation happening.

Somebody now has a Social Security Number of 123-12-1234.

Coworker says, "Oh yeah, I copied the missing configuration data from Prod to Dev." and then facepalms when the realization hits.

Whee!

At least you know your backups work!

New Yorp New Yorp posted:

Developers have access to production systems and production systems contain PII? What industry are you working in?

...most of them? I think you'll find that there are more important things than handling PII properly, like features and fixes and sales!

# ¿ Nov 8, 2017 00:55

redleader: Aug 18, 2005; Engage according to operational parameters

It's fine. Just don't gently caress up on prod.

Here, you get full access to every production server and database from day 1. Few of our clients pay for pre-production environments, and we don't have a process for taking a prod DB and making it "safe" to work on. So you get people running up local websites connected to real DBs etc. Our docs remain neutral on the issue of "should I develop directly on the prod DB?"

We don't really do "best", or even "good" practice.

# ¿ Nov 9, 2017 01:34

redleader: Aug 18, 2005; Engage according to operational parameters

Pollyanna posted:

Yeah, this. Just fixing the bug isn�t enough, I need to also understand what�s going on behind the scenes and why so I can 1) not make a similar bug down the line and 2) advocate for improvements to the system. That takes a good bit of time and effort, though, hence the friction.

You've been at your new place for what, a week? No one's expecting you to take ownership of fixing deep architectural flaws or whatever. Calm down, take your time, learn by doing. You'll pick up the problems in the codebase organically - and don't assume that the other devs are unaware of the issues.

# ¿ Nov 27, 2017 00:30

redleader: Aug 18, 2005; Engage according to operational parameters

Could you grab a recent backup of the prod DB and restore it somewhere else, and use that as a "it's less bad than the alternative" dev environment?

# ¿ Nov 30, 2017 20:07

redleader: Aug 18, 2005; Engage according to operational parameters

leper khan posted:

That’s a pretty simple algos question to see if you can write a simple parser?

There are some BS questions that get asked around, but most of them rely on the user to have some special math knowledge (special here meaning a maths undergrad probably won’t have heard of it) that usually somehow relates to the master/PhD thesis of the asker. The posted question only requires being able to find numbers that are bigger than the numbers around them, doing a prime factorization, and walking the list of combinations of those prime factors. Hardest mathy thing there is a prime factorization, which is taught in high school?

There’s definitely jobs where those aren’t necessary, but I’ve also had jobs where those things were fundamental.

You probably even get a pass at factoring the primes in O(bad) by making a joke about encryption. If the interviewer expects you to independently discover fermat’s factorization method on the fly then they’re a bad interviewer.

I agree that working on tangible problems is more fun, but if that’s the level of problem you’re hung up on you’ll probably have issues in a lot of interviews.

The trick there is realising you have to do some sort of prime number bullshit. How many people can honestly say they have had to deal with prime numbers in their day to day work?

# ¿ Dec 10, 2017 21:12

redleader: Aug 18, 2005; Engage according to operational parameters

Mniot posted:

Yes! Also, allow spaces to mean function call arguments.

code:

code block = {
  data = read from database
  clean data
  validate data
  write to database data
}
revert if error = get env "REVERT_ERR"
try:
  attempt to run code block
except:
  if revert if error:
    revert database
  else:
    re-raise exception

code:


CREATE PROCEDURE [Please do the needful] (@piss int, @poo poo varchar) AS ...

EXEC [Please do the needful] @gently caress, @whatever

# ¿ Dec 14, 2017 02:35

redleader: Aug 18, 2005; Engage according to operational parameters

LLSix posted:

Google's coding standard uses camelcase for typenames so having a variable name using something so close to the convention for types is bad.

The standard C# conventions use PascalCase for types and camelCase for local variables. You get used to it very quickly, and then find yourself getting irrationally annoyed when someone makes a Pascal-cased variable.

# ¿ Dec 29, 2017 00:35

redleader: Aug 18, 2005; Engage according to operational parameters

ChickenWing posted:

seriously our primary codebase is (according to sonar) 113k LOC with 3k unit tests and that's often not enough, how the hell rear end do other programs not break all to hell literally all of the time

You tiptoe around the existing code base, work very slowly and delicately, rely on the guy who's been involved in the code for nearly 20 years to catch any huge fuckups, and let ops sort the rest out.

# ¿ Jan 5, 2018 23:14

redleader: Aug 18, 2005; Engage according to operational parameters

Portland Sucks posted:

I'm pretty sure they think programming is actually just black magic voodoo.

And you don't?

# ¿ Jan 10, 2018 02:29

redleader: Aug 18, 2005; Engage according to operational parameters

What the gently caress is the point of corporate values?

redleader fucked around with this message at 06:14 on Jan 19, 2018

# ¿ Jan 19, 2018 06:11

redleader: Aug 18, 2005; Engage according to operational parameters

geeves posted:

Or when you get the OK from your VP to implement Checkstyle on a codebase for which it previously didn't exist.

Now suddenly everyone comes to you because they just looked at git blame instead of the log to see who was really responsible.

See, I don't get this. When I blame a file, I find the line I'm interested and take a look at all the changes in that revision as a whole. If the first set of changes is just whitespace or formatting, I just run blame backwards from that commit. It's really no big deal.

Much more annoying is how SVN flat out doesn't understand UTF-16. It thinks that a text file encoded in UTF-16 is actually a binary file, and so blame just outright doesn't work. This is when I get to pretend to be a computer and run something very much like a manual binary search.

# ¿ Jan 26, 2018 06:08

redleader: Aug 18, 2005; Engage according to operational parameters

LLSix posted:

Also "our customers are our alpha testers."

Yikes

# ¿ Jan 26, 2018 22:50

redleader: Aug 18, 2005; Engage according to operational parameters

ratbert90 posted:

They couldn’t give me a office at work. Once you have your own it’s very very difficult to go back to a cube.

Holy poo poo, they have cubes?

# ¿ Feb 10, 2018 19:13

redleader: Aug 18, 2005; Engage according to operational parameters

ChickenWing posted:

Entirety of SA: What is this middle ground you speak of

# ¿ Feb 14, 2018 00:45

redleader: Aug 18, 2005; Engage according to operational parameters

speng31b posted:

also your product is a steaming pile of poo poo because you've never focused on anything that doesn't add direct user value so a stiff breeze will blow it over

God, this is the worst. Especially when your operational monitoring is so lacking that you have no insight into the stiff breeze, any way to predict the stiff breeze, or even if a stiff breeze is indeed blowing.

# ¿ Mar 28, 2018 07:52

redleader: Aug 18, 2005; Engage according to operational parameters

ChickenWing posted:

Let me tell you about the set of APIs I developed that our frontend steadfastly refuses to implement in any respectable fashion because they think having to use more than one API call for a certain behaviour is confusing

Are these APIs intended to be used by clients other than the frontend, or are they specifically to support the frontend and only the frontend? If it's the latter, I can understand his point because chaining a bunch of calls to 4 different REST endpoints for one UI action sucks.

# ¿ Mar 29, 2018 00:26

redleader: Aug 18, 2005; Engage according to operational parameters

I had one where you could apply search filters using syntax very similar to that of a SQL where clause.

Then I sent through a malformed parameter and got back a syntax error exception from their DB.

This same API took and returned data as CSV.

Despite the above, it was actually fine to develop against, and worked pretty well.

# ¿ Mar 29, 2018 21:31

redleader: Aug 18, 2005; Engage according to operational parameters

Keetron posted:

Finally, there is no pride in a report. Only in the product.

Must be nice to have a product you can take pride in.

# ¿ Apr 21, 2018 01:44

redleader: Aug 18, 2005; Engage according to operational parameters

I sometimes get annoyed at my lovely typing when writing out a bunch of repetitive not-quite-boilerplate (SQL queries mostly - join this table on this thing then join on another blah blah). I'm way too lazy and unmotivated to work on improving though.

# ¿ Apr 29, 2018 01:34

redleader: Aug 18, 2005; Engage according to operational parameters

bvj191jgl7bBsqF5m posted:

They love the heck out of Jetbrains stuff. I once was told to change the color scheme because the CEO doesn't like the dark theme.

lmbo

# ¿ May 18, 2018 01:09

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# ¿ Apr 27, 2024 20:19

redleader: Aug 18, 2005; Engage according to operational parameters

CPColin posted:

Did I mention one of the reasons my coworkers rejected this vendor previously was because passwords were case-insensitive and would have whitespace trimmed when the login form was submitted? I have a feeling that "Passwords are no longer stored in a recoverable format within the database" bit means "Passwords are no longer stored in plain text." I didn't see that version of the application, though, so I couldn't confirm it.

It absolutely means that passwords are stored in a plaintext varchar field. I've seen this exact thing before.

# ¿ May 31, 2018 02:07

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > The Cavern of COBOL > Working in Development: Leaving sounds like a great decision.

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