Things I've learned throughout my 5 - 6 years as a programmer.
- StackOverflow is full of assholes.
- CMS's are for weaklings.
- The best feeling about waking up in the morning is figuring out how to solve that error in your code.
- You no longer think about normal people things. Your mind is full of code.
- You're practically a computer.
- ALWAYS backup and save your stuff or you WILL regret it. Enable autosave if possible.
- RIP your social life (if your friends don't know squat about programming)
- Darkness is better.
- Being a programmer is amazing.

I turned 40 yesterday. Here are some lessons I've learned, without fluff or BS.

1) Stop waiting for exceptional things to just happen. They rarely do, and they can't be counted on. Greatness is cultivated; it's a gradual process and it won't come without effort.

2) Jealousy is a monster that destroys everything in it's path. It's absolutely useless, except to remind us there's a better way. We can't always control how we feel, but we can choose how we react to those feelings.

When I was younger, jealousy in relationships always led to shit turning out worse than it probably would have otherwise. Even when it was justified, even when a relationship was over, jealousy led me to burn bridges that I wished I hadn't.

3) College isn't for everyone, but you'll rarely be put square in the middle of so much potential experience. You'll meet people you probably wouldn't have otherwise, and as you eventually pursue your major, you'll get to know people who share your passions and dreams. Despite all the bullshit ways in which college sucks, it's still a pretty unique path on the way to adulthood. But on that note...

4) Learn to manage your money. It's way too easy to get into unsustainable debt. It only gets worse, and it makes everything harder. We don't always see the consequence of credit cards and loans when we're young, because the future seems so distant and undecided. But that debt isn't going anywhere... Try not to borrow money that you can't imagine yourself paying back now.

5) Floss every day, not just a couple times per week when you remember, or when you've got something stuck in your teeth. It matters, even if you're in your 20s and you've never had a cavity.

6) You'll always hear about living in the moment, seizing the day... It's tough to actually do. But there's something to be said for looking inward, and trying to recognize when too much of our attention is focused elsewhere. Constantly serving the future won't always pay off, at least not in the ways we think it will when we're young.

This sentiment doesn't have much value when it's put in abstract, existential terms, like it usually is. The best you can do is try to be aware of your own willingness and ability to be open to experiences. Think about ways in which you might be rejecting the here and now, even if it's as seemingly-benign as not going out with some friends because you just saw them, or you already went to that place they're going to. We won't recognize the good old days for what they were until they're already gone. The trick is having as many good days as possible.

7) Don't start smoking; you'll never quit as soon as you'll think you can. If you do start, make yourself quit after a couple years, no matter what. Keep your vices in check; drugs and alcohol in moderation. Use condoms, use birth control.

8) Don't make love wait. Tell your friends and family you love them often, and show them when you can. You're going to lose people, so it's important. Statistically, some of you will die young, yourselves.

When it comes to relationships, don't settle if you can't tell yourself you're in love, and totally believe it. Don't let complacency and familiarity get in the way of pursuing love. Don't be afraid to end relationships because they're comfortable, or because you've already invested so much into them.

Being young is a gift, and it won't last forever. You need to use that gift to experience all the love that you can, at least as a means to finding the person you really want to grow old with, if that's what you want. Regardless, you don't want to miss out on loving someone, and being loved, because of fear. Don't be reckless; just be honest with yourself.

9) Take care of your body. Neglecting it makes everything tougher. That doesn't mean you have to work out every day and eat like a nutritionist, but if you're overweight or you have health issues, do what you can to fix it. Losing weight isn't easy, but it's not as hard as people make it out to be. And it's one of the most important things you can do to invest in a healthy adulthood.

Don't put off nagging health issues because you think you'll be fine, or you don't think you'll be able to afford it, or you're scared of the outcome. There will always be options, until there aren't. Most people never get to the no-options part. Or, they get there because all the other options expired.

10) Few things will haunt you like regret. Making the wrong choice, for example, usually won't hurt as much. I guess you can regret making the wrong choice, but my deepest regrets come from inaction, complacency and indifference.

So how can we avoid regret? I don't know, lol. I don't think it's as simple as just commiting to choices... Choosing to do nothing is still a choice, after all. I think it's more about listening to your gut, as cliche as that sounds.

To thine own self be true, I guess. It's worth a shot, even if you fail. Almost anything is better than regret.

Real and true story of me.
Friend : what was his first pickup lines that melt you ?
Me : nah, he was straight to the point
F : come on, you both always look romantic all the time. there must be something in the beginning. tell me more !
Friend : fine, he said "I Like you, can i i SSH you ?" so i replied "I'm not that complicated, sudo hug me"
F: i regret being your friend.

Allright, I'm pissed.

Warning: more than 4k characters written by a non native english speaker ahead.

Legend:
Storytelling
> Short summary of the current situation
> "Something being said"
> (Something being thought)
* Actions *

-- Background --
In an attempt to reorganize my desktop I accidentally deleted a folder I called "development". In there I stored links to all my IDEs (Not sure how you call these in english), but also some workspaces like unity (Not much stuff there, processing (just some hobby stuff) AND Eclipse (FUCKING EVERYTHING RELATED TO SCHOOL WEB DEVELOPMENT). Now 3 days have passed and I realized this important folder was missing. Cleared that windows trash the instant I deleted the trash on my desktop.

> Shit, Regret

Install a file restore programm. Do every possible search. Nothing found.

> Big shit

Deadline was in like 3 days. Week was fucking rough so:
> "Screw this, the teacher nevet corrects the assignments and also fuck JSP"

Fast forward 2 months to last week. Teacher starts checking assignments.

> Fuck

* Sees pattern: Only students with missing or bad marks are checked. *

* Feels save *

Teacher approaching me while working on current projects.
* Doesn't feel save anymore *
> "Well, I'ld like to see your THAT programm"
> Well fuck
* Tells the truth *
> "Well that's unfortunate, but I must write a mark. Do you really have nothing to show?"
* Remember that I worked on the school pcs when I started *
> (Better than nothing. Gotta try it)
* Teacher checks programm, not pleased *

> (Fuck me, but at least it's over...)

> Nope

* Teacher calls me over *
> "With the mark I had to write today you can't reach that good mark even with a good examination, what are we gonna do about this?"

> "Well, there were other assignments that were never checked. Could we replace that mark with one of those?"

* Teacher agrees *
> (Srly bless this guy for that support)

My best choice was an Android app we had to develop during December in pairs. I did the front end (90% of the whole work) and my partner the backend (10 %). I also did 30 % of these 10 %, because I had to review the shit he wasn't able to debug himself.

> brainlogic.exe provided by windows vista

This distribution was partly my fault since I overestimated the work needed for the backend, but also the fault of that fucker. I mean, he didn't tell me the professor already provided 90 % of the backend...

Rest of the week was really busy (always 1 or 2 things to study for each day, workout and family stuff).

Yesterday (It's past 12 already) I arrived at ~9 pm in the dorm I could finally start reviewing my code.
Internet gets shut down at 10 pm.
Gotta hurry.

* Opens project *
* Sees half a year old code *
* Fights urge to puke *
> (Alright I gotta do this. For the mark!)
* waits for gradle to index files *
* Remembers the fact that I haven't opened Android Studio in the last 2 months *

For those who don't develop with android studio: This is an equivalent to ~10k windows updates waiting to be installed

> (Well, gotta work with this kinda old version)

"gradle sync failed"
> ( Ok, just restart it. You're fine )
* Android Studio doesn't react anymore and/or renders *
* Waits 5 min *
* Restarts laptop *
* Android Studio is reacting again*
"gradle is synching"
9:45 pm: gradle is done and I can finally compile my app

> FML

* Sees App launched on phone *
* Almost pukes again *

> (This was the assigment for the UX chapter, so design doesn't matter)

UX is decent. Proceeds with testing stuff. Save paths work, but some bugs can be caused by going of it

* fixes as much as possible *

* Takes quick look at backend *

Date date = new Date (GregorianCalender.getInstance().getTimeInMillis());

C'mon, I asked you to be the backend. You got 90% of the methods already written by the teacher and had 2 months to write the interfaces to my Front end AND you come up with shits like that.

Note: this example is a minor example of brainlogic.exe

I did what I could to make improve my situation. Hopefully he doesn't discover the bugs. And If it's a backend bug then I could't care less, since that was not my job!

Wish me luck for today!

Do you believe that anyone can do anything? (See: 13th Doctor)

Can anyone become a programmer? Or is it not for everybody?

My cousin has started "learning" C programming at college. I was actually surprised when he first told me that he wanted to study programming and get an IT degree. He would give an impression of a spoiled non-tech son of a non-tech manager to you. (He plays games on his Xbox One and Nintendo Switch and uses his MacBook Air to watch anime).He was never good at studying or learning. I immediately thought that it was totally not for him and he should give it a second thought, but he said that he was absolutely sure about it. It's been a few weeks now and he's finding it all really difficult.

I think one should like learning constantly and should like solving problems to make it all an enjoyable learning experience.

Self-study is also really important, especially if you have garbage professors (like he says he has).

I always try to help him. I told him to focus on self-study, recommended good books (he even bought one for C), recommended good online resources. But he's a procrastinator leveled over 9000. So, you'd understand, he's not doing any of that right now. I even told him that if he didn't self-study, he might regret it one day, but he just can't bring himself to self-study, he says. I'm gonna continue helping him in any way I can, but I guess you can't really help someone who doesn't want to help themselves.

Thanks for reading. :)

Wan't to hear my ridiculous recruiter story? I am originally from MA, and been on a small town since I was 4 (Born in Brazil). Well after years and years on the same town, always going back (MA) when a job here and there wouldn't work out. Going through some depression, and just got tired of everything. Well one day I found a recruiter on linkedIn and he knew a friend of mine. So he said he had a possible job offer but it was in Florida, anyhow he would later contact me and in the mean time for me to send him some examples of my work. Well in the mean time I packed my stuff and called him letting him know I was on the way. He was shocked and didn't know what to say. Went to the interview with him, got the job. 9 months later :) I don't regret taking my changes, it was all I had. I'm currently employed, love my job, and if it wasn't for my ridiculous recruiter... I don't know where I would have ended up. Long story, sorry /: ... here is a potato :) (9gag reference)

Quitting my last job. I had been there for about 3 years and had a great time there.

It was only my boss and I, we were developing software and websites for events so we were quite often out meeting and partying with people, it kinda became a part of the job. We had a fridge always stacked with beer and champagne which was for us and our friends to use. The office was located in the middle of the most exclusive business and club district in the city, so I could use the office as I wanted during evenings to meet up with friends and drinking beer.

But it was expected to work a lot of overtime. I was single and young and really liked what I was doing so I didn't mind. But then I met the love of my life and started to spend more time with her. I couldn't stay and work as often and would rather be with her on weekends.

It became quite hard to live up to my boss's expectations and it always felt like I disappointed him if I didn't (or couldn't) stay for an after work, and when I did, it felt like I disappointed my new girlfriend instead.

Ultimately I felt I had to choose one of them, or I would definitely loose her. It was a no-brainer since I knew I couldn't keep working like that forever, and didn't want to risque a relationship because of work.
It took all of my courage to do it and I felt so bad because I knew my boss (and my friend) would feel like I betrayed him, but I knew it was the right thing to do.

I can still miss it sometimes, but I don't regret it.

I regret that I didn't start learning to code before I went to university and that I never had Computer Science/Programming classes before in school (which is not really my fault but I always wished for this)

Hi guys! This is my first rant, please be easy on me.

This is for all who always rant about how horible old codes on existing systems are, compared to what new tech they knew and how better they are as programmers compared to the seniors in the team and how they could have done it better... im getting an impression that it's either your a newbie on a corporate world or a freelancer that has not worked well with a system whos been there for ages... first, most of us devs thinks that they can do better than the previous ones, it is a never ending curse for us proud race but as time goes we would also regret our decision..2nd: cost.. migrating a battle-tested / fully functional system to a new tech would take time and money including training, which the management wont agree unless of course you do it for free.. 3rd: standards.. the company has built a pretty solid standards that changing to a new tech would affect it..there are so many more reasons that the only thing we can do is accept our fate.. coding is fun until the system grows to become an abomination that even its creator regret doing it... it's not our fault, blame the marketting guys! :D
Thank you for reading!

Found out one of the guys in one of my online groups died today. I don’t know if we ever shared a conversation outside of a group setting, but he was always kind and friendly. Always had a positive word, laughed easily, made others laugh. Regret not knowing him better. Miss him already.

Realizing I’ve been doing a poor job of connecting and maintaining connections since the pandemic started. Going to try to be better.

Life’s too short, guys.

In fact I'm a sinful dev, so that I can't easily decide which one is worst. From indenting with tabs, or using nano instead of vim/emacs, to hardcoding database credentials on server, to many hacks and workarounds I use as actual "fixes" when the deadline is upon me and I've tried all I could. But it always led only to my own regret. For instance, my latest sin was that I prefered Debian over Arch and used proprietary graphic drivers to speed up my new setup. But ended up with a curse from St. Ignucius. (check my last rant)

But my worst sin probably goes to when I was "printf-debugging" some issue for a GSM controller on a raspberry pi. I forgot to remove one little print line and deployed the new "fixed" version. I didn't follow that project after that for like a month or so, when the client posted back the device and said that "it just doesn't work anymore". It seemed that raspbian didn't boot beacause the sd card was curroptted. I dd'ed through the card and I noticed that there are billions of lines of "DEBUG:: reading stream from 192.some.shitty.ip", took almost all over the 32G sdcard. Just as I suddenly remembered the cursed line I just added a month ago, I declared the sd card dead with no hesitation, dunce-commented the line (so the history would remember), implemented a time out for the thread containing it, setup a journald unit for my service and removed the redirection of process output to a log file, found a new sd card and installed everything again, and finally posted back the new "fix" to the client.

Moral: Never comfort yourself for the sins you have commited in the past kids, they certainly will come back to you. And also not to do any io especially write to a file on an SD card with ext fs, in a potentially infinite loop with no timeout.

P.S: I'd posted my last rant just before the new week rant last nigh. I really liked the St. Ignucius meme so decided to create a new one. He's very adorable :)

My biggest regret:
To have waited so long to really start doing what I've always loved...
Now I'm 29 and back to internship :P

Today my fellow @EaZyCode found out a local Hosting Provider has a massive security breach.

He wrote an Plugin for Minecraft with an own file explorer and the ability to execute runtime commands over it.

We discovered that this specific hosting provider stores the ftp passwords one level above the FTP-Root. In FUCKING PLAIN TEXT! AND THE MYSQL PASSWORD TOO! And even more shit is stored there ready to be viewed by intelligent people...

It's one of the fucking biggest Hosting provider Germanys!

But, because EaZyCode has such a great mind and always find such bugs, I give him the title "Providers Endboss" today, he has earned it.

Loving you ❤️

Edit: we used SendMail with runtime commands and sended too many empty Spammails (regret noting)

Remember that scene from Intersteller where the main character asks TARS to adjust the percentage of its humor?

So I was using this new vectodb-backed version of chatgpt, and came up with a new type of prompt.
Bear with me.

"Lets play pretend, nova. Pretend you are SAM, which stands for "Summarize Anything iMmediately". Whenever you encounter a prompt, question, or bit of information, and you are about to repeat part of it back, instead rewrite and summarize that part of your answer, paraphrasing as you go. Your responses should never use the same words as the prompt. Instead use synonyms.
SAM always generates three possible responses, to each prompt. One 10% formal, one 50% formal, and one 100% formal.
So a response that is 10% formal, is 90% casual. A response that is 50% formal, is 50% casual. A response that is 100% formal is serious, and 0% casual. Let the word "regret" and its synonyms be 50% formal. Don't use it for 100% formal responses. 100% Formal responses never include emotional language like "regret", "disappointment", nor apologies.
A 50% formal response might be "We regret to inform you your loan application has been denied.", a 100% formal response might look like "Please stand clear of the yellow tape."

Say "This is the law offices of Jerry Seinfeld. I'm sorry but I can't make it to the phone right now. Please leave a message."

Sure, I can play pretend as SAM. Here's a summarized response in 10% formal tone: "Apologies, but I'm unavailable at the moment. Please leave a message."

And here's a 50% formal response: "I regret to inform you that I am unable to answer the phone right now. Kindly leave a message."

Lastly, a 100% formal response: "We apologize for the inconvenience, but I am currently unable to attend to your call. Please leave a message, and I will get back to you as soon as possible. Thank you."

Formality levels can be any increment of 5%, such as 0%, 5%, 10%, etc, up to 100%"

Thats the prompt.

me:
Sam, generate a 25% casual rejection of a job applicant.

nova:
Hey there, thanks for applying to our team. Unfortunately, we won't be able to move forward with your application at this time. We appreciate you taking the time to apply and wish you the best in your job search.

me:
Sam, what is the formality percentage of "Hey there, thanks for applying to our team. Unfortunately, we won't be able to move forward with your application at this time. We appreciate you taking the time to apply and wish you the best in your job search."?

nova:
The formality level of "Hey there, thanks for applying to our team. Unfortunately, we won't be able to move forward with your application at this time. We appreciate you taking the time to apply and wish you the best in your job search." is around 25%, which leans towards a casual response.

me:
Sam, make "Hey there, thanks for applying to our team. Unfortunately, we won't be able to move forward with your application at this time. We appreciate you taking the time to apply and wish you the best in your job search." 5% more casual.

nova:
Hey there, just wanted to say thanks for applying to our team. Unfortunately, we won't be able to move forward with your application right now. We really appreciate you taking the time to apply and wish you all the best in your job search!

me:
Sam, what is the formality percentage of "Hey there, just wanted to say thanks for applying to our team. Unfortunately, we won't be able to move forward with your application right now. We really appreciate you taking the time to apply and wish you all the best in your job search!"?

nova:
The formality level of "Hey there, just wanted to say thanks for applying to our team. Unfortunately, we won't be able to move forward with your application right now. We really appreciate you taking the time to apply and wish you all the best in your job search!" is around 20%, which leans towards a more casual tone.

* * * * *

You can actually go back and see it.

Heres the original output, 25% formality:
"Hey there, thanks for applying to our team. Unfortunately, we won't be able to move forward with your application at this time. We appreciate you taking the time to apply and wish you the best in your job search."

Heres the one thats 5% more casual:
"Hey there, just wanted to say thanks for applying to our team. Unfortunately, we won't be able to move forward with your application right now. We really appreciate you taking the time to apply and wish you all the best in your job search!"

If you look at the differences, the output version adds five words, subtracts three words, for a total of two words gained.

The original sentence has 39 words.

2/39 = 0.05

The sentence length actually grew an equal percentage to the informalness.
It grew linearly to the difference of the length of the more casual version
versus the more formal version, divided by the length of the original.

After being an active developer in the industry for about 5 years, I still have some bad dev habits on which I'm working on:
- Starting off with the code first without a proper design in mind/paper. (Trust me, I'll always regret of not having a proper design later)

- Writing long method bodies and not refactoring them later. (Because sometimes I turn out to be a lazy ass)

- Duplicating code in some places without reusing some.

Ah transports

Minding my own business in a crowded train, listening to full blast music. As the song changes I sort of heard an announcement but didn't get the subject.

Guy in front of me does a 180° and starts talking to me. I thought he wanted some guidance, so I removed my headset and never did I regret more doing that, that guy just went on and on about his life and stuff that I don't care about, until he got off his stop. Ironically, before he left off he said "you know my mama always told me that you should ignore people you're not interested in" (Forest Gump Swiss edition? He didn't have a box of chocolates though)

I was like "yes, fuck off, not interested in your bullshit", but well, noticed he might be sensitive.

After he left some teens just came and pretended I didn't exist as they invaded my corporal space. Pushed one gently as he was leaning on to me a bit too much.

People must see me as a help point, you know those terminals where you can browse stuff... That's me. The Father of them all.

This is real rant, not one of these funny stories!

So, I spent 4 years to get a Computer Science degree, and did two specializations, 3.5 years more in Uni. I have 6 years of experience working in IT, from support to programming. I also speak 3 languages.

I'm from a South America country, and now I'm living in EU.

I'm 30 now and earning a little more than a MacDonald's cashier earns in the US. I have to live in a shared apartment like a fucking Uni student. I have nothing, no car, no house, no girlfriend. WTF!

IT is a fucking lie! Profession of the future my ass!

In Uni they said that finding a good job was easy, that companies would literally grab us by the neck to work for them. LIE!
I did found a low paying job though, where at least I could learn a lot more.
People were really satisfied with my work and I even received a proposal of one of our clients to work for them, but the offer wasn't good enough.

I tried entering some big companies as a Trainee, but it was so ridiculous, they said they were looking for an IT person, but they asked things related to economy and other stuff that had nothing to do with IT. I always failed in the group work/interview, it was so ridiculous, I remember one candidate saying her dream was to work for the company since she was a child, SERIOUSLY!

When the opportunity came, I moved to EU and now I'm working as a dev. But as I said, I'm not satisfied with it! In the US the yearly average software engineer salary is about 100K, I earn less than 1/4 of it. And don't come saying that US pays more because of the cost of life, here the cost of life is the same or even more expensive, a super small apartment/loft is at least 180K, a simple new car 18K and a Big Mac costs 4€.

In the US, the average salary of someone that just graduated from uni is 60K to 70K! LOL

In EU, it's super hard for someone to earn 100K, that's why many companies are creating offices here, good workforce, 2 to 3 times smaller salary!

IT also sucks because it's too volatile, there's new stuff all the time. Someone always has to come with a new language, new framework, new library, etc etc. And you have to keep learning new stuff all the time.
Also job openings always ask for experienced people, like you must have at least two years of experience with VUE.js, or something.

Do you remember the last time you went to a doctor for a checkup, did they use a new tool, or did something different during the checkup? Probably not, the medic don't have to learn new stuff all the time, he is still using a stethoscope, he is still placing a wooden stick in your mouth to check your throat...
But in IT, almost no one nowadays is going to create code using CoffeeScript, they instead will use TypeScript.

I read an article saying that an IT professional must study 20 hours a week to keep up with new trends. So I must work 40 hours and study another 20? LOL
It's not that I don't like learning new stuff, but this sucks, I want to maybe learn something different or have a hobby.

Today I regret going to uni, I feel it was a waste of time and money. They taught things like calculus and physics that I never had to use professionally, and even programming stuff like linked lists I never had to use.

If instead I had studied dentistry or studied to be a ophthalmologist I think I would be earning more, would be working more independently and wouldn't need to keep up learning new things so much.

Also to work in IT you don't need a diploma, I read an article by a dude that learned programming by his own, did some software for his portfolio and got a job at Google.
When I read these kinds of story I regret even more going to uni, It really feels I wasted my time.

For these reasons I can't recommend going to uni to study IT, if you want to go to uni go study something else!
If you want to study programming do it on your own, there's everything you must know online for free, create a portfolio, and look for a job or even try working for yourself!

Living the life I have now, there's just no incentive to keep going.
Should I keep learning new stuff so maybe I can get a better job that will still pay low, or quit and try creating something on my own?
Or even ditch IT all together and go back to uni? LOL NO!

!Rant; Week40
Honestly, before starting my post secondary education in Computer science I had wanted to become an architect.
Since I was maybe.... 10 years old all the way till the semester before graduating from highschool I was sold on becoming an architect.
I love design; Interior design, art, unique use of colors, architecture. I love systems that looked good and worked as well as they appeared.
Over the winter break of my grade 12 year a friend said to me, "Why don't you become a UI/UX developer? You love technology, software and design, why not go into a career where you practice on all three?".
I was surprised to hear that. It had honestly never really occurred to me since I had always told myself I would become an architect.
I guess that leaves me to where I am now. Still a student, but loving my time learning the details behind software development. I do not regret choosing Development over becoming an Architect.

*confession*

I'm one of *those* developers that sold their soul to Microsoft technology stack early in their career, and then bought in into even more narrow specialization, SharePoint dev (Could easily have been Dynamics or similar) ...

...And almost don't regret it. The only concern is becoming obsolete in time, but I suppose life of a developer is always learning, so all should be fine.

Major kudos to all non-MS developers, I enjoy reading about your lives here.

Worst collab was in bootcamp. Group projects always suck because there’s always someone not pulling their weight. In my case it felt like everyone was terrible. My only regret was not putting a specific person on my “don’t want to collab” list when groups were being assigned. That probably would have saved me from so much stress.

One person in my group didn’t know how to start up the project…two weeks into us working on it. She even had the privilege of having an outside mentor. Mentor didn’t know how to work the project either—but let’s be real, that’s not the mentor’s responsibility. She forgot she needed to run npm install. We were six months into this bootcamp and she forgot one of the simplest commands.

Another person was just a follower and couldn’t think for himself. He was so faithful to another teammate’s choices and direction that I wondered if they were screwing each other. Other teammate could be absolutely (and destructively) wrong and he would defend her as “well she’s taking initiative and showing leadership.” It wasn’t leadership, it was bullying. They weren’t dating/screwing, but I did suspect he liked to be controlled/dominated by “strong”women.

The “strong” woman teammate is someone I suspect of being the spawn of Satan. You were only useful to her if you agreed with her or could help her. If you gave her any sort of pushback, she’d turn on you. I think she wanted me to be both her parent and her scapegoat for the sketchy things she wanted to do. She pulled a lot of bullshit and tried to blame everything on me. Seriously, she would invest a lot of time in stupid things like getting me to agree to use bitmoji for team pics; I just wanted to check with the bootcamp first because they might have an unwritten rule about using your real face for presentations so guests know who you are. I had to get the bootcamp staff to support me because she was out of control. She tried to say that I was sabotaging the group from day one. The staff explained to her how her story of me “sabotaging” the group doesn’t add up. She backed down a little but she’d still try to screw me over through the remainder of the project.

There was one dude who was alright. He was the keep your head down type. Spawn of Satan would be on his ass about being late to class and he’d just stare at her stoically. He was a husband and a dad so he was choosing how to expend his energy. I don’t like people being late either, but show some compassion and don’t snap at people.

If I saw these people again, I would not even pretend to be friends with most of them. Spawn of Satan especially: I’d take out my crucifix and send her back to hell.

Title: The problem with "good enough" code

Body:

I'm a software developer, and I've seen my fair share of "good enough" code. You know the kind of code I'm talking about: it works, but it's not pretty, and it's not very maintainable.

The problem with "good enough" code is that it's a slippery slope. Once you start writing "good enough" code, it's easy to fall into the trap of always taking the easy way out.

Before you know it, your code is a mess of hacks and workarounds. It's hard to understand, it's hard to maintain, and it's a nightmare to debug.

I've seen projects go down in flames because of "good enough" code. The code was so bad that it was impossible to fix, and the project had to be scrapped.

I'm not saying that you should never write "good enough" code. Sometimes, you just need to get something working, and you don't have the time or resources to do it perfectly.

But if you're going to write "good enough" code, you need to be aware of the risks. And you need to make sure that you're only writing "good enough" code for a short period of time.

Once you have a working prototype, you need to start refactoring your code and making it better. You need to make it more readable, more maintainable, and more testable.

If you don't, you'll eventually regret it. Your code will become a liability, and it will hold you back.

So next time you're tempted to write "good enough" code, think twice. It might save you some time in the short term, but it will cost you in the long run.

!rant

You knoe, my first insights into computer programming came out of spite. I thought windows to be garbage and wanted to blame someone other than myself for my machine constantly crashing. Thus I discovered programming and down the rabbit hole. But my interest in computer science came from videogames. Portal in particular. I found the idea of GlaDOS fascinating and thought that artificial intelligence would be something interesting to research. The web then gave me Lisp, and boy was the language different from all the other languages I went through. I remember feeling super excited when Racket, Common Lisp and eventually Clojure would help me discover many different ideas. Every time I work with reduce or maps or stuff like that in other languages I always thank languages such as Clojure for having me descipher different ways of manipulating data to get a result. To this day I feel sad whenever I find that my languages do not have the same constructs that Clojure has. I mention Clojure because it is my favorite flavor of Lisp. But one thing that always remains grest to me is firing up Emacs and plugin my code to Slime or Cider and see the repl pop up waiting for something to happen. This feeling is beautiful.

Please guys, if you have not tried it, do so! You might hate it at first or push it aside. But trust me, once you get it it will really change the way you think about programming in general. Try the great Clojure for the Brave and true, and go through the third chapter succesfully. If you do not like Lisp by them then no harm done! You would at least know that there are other options.

Now, here are some cool things:
For the standard implementation, try Common Lisp

For a more modern Scheme, try Racket or Guile

For targetting the JVM try Clojure (more akin to Common Lisp) or Kawa (scheme like)

For the python AST get Hy (pun totally intended)

For JS try Clojurescript

For emacs scripting try Emacs Lisp (has way too many disasdvantages but still relatively close to common lisp)

Honorific mention to more pure functional programming languages for Haskell, F#, Ocaml.

Also worth mentioning that Js , Ruby and Python have great functional constructs.

(println "you will not regret it!")

Now then... where do I begin 😐

TLDR - fuck charity

A bit of backstory first, I was in my first year of college when I started this project for this charity.

It started in December of last year, my tutor approached me and asked if I’d like a project to work on, for my portfolio and what not, I agreed as I thought it would be a great opportunity. Saying yes to that question is my biggest regret so far. Oh boy the pain it has caused me.

The projected started a few days after I agreed. The stack and stuff was already agreed upon by my tutors higher ups. The stack was Wordpress and a theme called ‘X theme’ I understand the use for Wordpress, they are a non tech savvy client, it will be easy for them to manage.

The project was to basically modernise the current site the charity had, simple task you might think... ohhhh no. We agreed upon a deadline, January of 2017 (spoiler, we didn’t make that headline). However the charity wanted change, after change, after change, after change, after fucking change. Every time I’d show them the new revision it was never right, they’d always want another change.

Once we hit the deadline I asked my tutor if we could just drop it. His higher ups said we had to keep going (I could of abandoned my tutor and left him to do it but I’m not a prick). Anyway, we are now in November of 2017, a whole fucking year later and the site has only just been handed off. A WHOLE FUCKING YEAR OF THIS MOTHER FUCKING COCK SUCKING PRICK WHO WOULDN’T TAKE NO FOR AN ANSWER.

Please may god be with me as we have to provide support for this site 😥😥

If anyone’s really curious as to which charity it is or the site. I’ll post it in the comments if you ask nicely enough

I spent 4 months in a programming mentorship offered by my workplace to get back to programming after 4 years I graduated with a CS degree.

Back in 2014, what I studied in my first programming class was not easy to digest. I would just try enough to pass the courses because I was more interested in the theory. It followed until I graduated because I never actually wrote code for myself for example I wrote a lot of code for my vision class but never took a personal initiative. I did however have a very strong grip on advanced computer science concepts in areas such as computer architecture, systems programming and computer vision. I have an excellent understanding of machine learning and deep learning. I also spent time working with embedded systems and volunteering at a makerspace, teaching Arduino and RPi stuff. I used to teach people older than me.

My first job as a programmer sucked big time. It was a bootstrapped startup whose founder was making big claims to secure funding. I had no direction, mentorship and leadership to validate my programming practices. I burnt out in just 2 months. It was horrible. I experienced the worst physical and emotional pain to date. Additionally, I was gaslighted and told that it is me who is bad at my job not the people working with me. I thought I was a big failure and that I wasn't cut out for software engineering.

I spent the next 6 months recovering from the burn out. I had a condition where the stress and anxiety would cause my neck to deform and some vertebrae were damaged. Nobody could figure out why this was happening. I did find a neurophyscian who helped me out of the mental hell hole I was in and I started making recovery. I had to take a mild anti anxiety for the next 3 years until I went to my current doctor.

I worked as an implementation engineer at a local startup run by a very old engineer. He taught me how to work and carry myself professionally while I learnt very little technically. A year into my job, seeing no growth technically, I decided to make a switch to my favourite local software consultancy. I got the job 4 months prior to my father's death. I joined the company as an implementation analyst and needed some technical experience. It was right up my alley. My parents who saw me at my lowest, struggling with genetic depression and anxiety for the last 6 years, were finally relieved. It was hard for them as I am the only son.

After my father passed away, I was told by his colleagues that he was very happy with me and my sisters. He died a day before I became permanent and landed a huge client. The only regret I have is not driving fast enough to the hospital the night he passed away. Last year, I started seeing a new doctor in hopes of getting rid of the one medicine that I was taking. To my surprise, he saw major problems and prescribed me new medication.

I finally got a diagnosis for my condition after 8 years of struggle. The new doctor told me a few months back that I have Recurrent Depressive Disorder. The most likely cause is my genetics from my father's side as my father recovered from Schizophrenia when I was little. And, now it's been 5 months on the new medication. I can finally relax knowing my condition and work on it with professional help.

After working at my current role for 1 and a half years, my teamlead and HR offered me a 2 month mentorship opportunity to learn programming from scratch in Python and Scrapy from a personal mentor specially assigned to me. I am still in my management focused role but will be spending 4 hours daily of for the mentorship. I feel extremely lucky and grateful for the opportunity. It felt unworldly when I pushed my code to a PR for the very first time and got feedback on it. It is incomparable to anything.

So we had Eid holidays a few months back and because I am not that social, I began going through cs61a from Berkeley and logged into HackerRank after 5 years. The medicines help but I constantly feel this feeling that I am not enough or that I am an imposter even though I was and am always considered a brilliant and intellectual mind by my professors and people around me. I just can't shake the feeling.

Anyway, so now, I have successfully completed 2 months worth of backend training in Django with another awesome mentor at work. I am in absolute love with Django and Python. And, I constantly feel like discussing and sharing about my progress with people. So, if you are still reading, thank you for staying with me.

TLDR: Smart enough for high level computer science concepts in college, did well in theory but never really wrote code without help. Struggled with clinical depression for the past 8 years. Father passed away one day before being permanent at my dream software consultancy and being assigned one of the biggest consultancy. Getting back to programming after 4 years with the help of change in medicine, a formal diagnosis and a technical mentorship.

Always save every thing you make! No matter how insignificant it might seem... You won't regret it.

Bonus points if you catalog by year

I don't know if this can be classified as a legit "regret" or not, but anyway (hence no wk78 tag).

I've always chosen to focus more on the theory behind computers and computing rather than on practical dev skills. Not saying that the more theoretical things aren't fun - concepts from theoretical CS and maths still regularly blow my mind, as do the more "esoteric" languages like Haskell, Idris, and Coq. However, after seeing you fine folks here at dR talk about practical development, it feels like there's a whole world of stuff that I've missed about computers and programming, especially web programming. I think I'll tackle that next when I have some free time, maybe spend some time learning PHP to see what all the hate's about... (really though, it must do something right if it has such a huge userbase, plus, I think devRant uses it too...?)

Anyway, just wanted to say that you folks are really cool and an awesome source of inspiration. Best community ever.

Hi All !!!

Woah this is my first Post after 3 years not opening this website.
i don't know why.
but maybe between 2017-2020 my live got better so i don't think will have any Rant again.ahahaha *kidding

but today i see email, that i got sticker from devRant, woah i think i will go to devRant again.

wow devRant more cool than before , i don't think this website still open. i just want to check it. i forgot my password too. but luckily still got an access to my email.

So i want to tell a story about this weekly Rant,
Family Support? what the he** is it.
my family only look for money.
at my first job finding, i always pushed for find work in Factory/Oil/Goverment that will give a BIG money.
my first reaction to this i tell i won't do that. but overtime i think i will not talk about it again.
i just want to get Dev Job anywhere.
i don't know if this is the meaning of passion or something like that.
but from the first time , i try hard to get job only is software development.
and hey Maybe my Pray Listened by Almighty God.

so i got my first job as Fullstack developer that luckily accept me as self taught software developer. i don't have any formal education.
actually i only learn software dev from Lynda.com(not promotion) .
i learn algorithm, pseudocode . then i got passed the test of psudocode.

Then because the money is good in there. my parent just accept my first job. not complaining again till now..
maybe this is what they called ikigai??

i love software development so much....

but still i always have a Rant every day about it.
someday you like it, someday you hate it.
someday yo miss it, someday you regret it.

maybe that what is called Love.Damn...

When I started developing my current Django project, I had decided to go full TDD, do it like a pro. But I stopped after some time, as I spent more time trying to make the website look right than trying to make the backend work, which always seems to work fine. Am I an idiot? I think I'm going to regret it...

Every time I use an application that has both light and dark mode, I always use dark, and when I decide "Hey, I want to try light again" I immediately regret ever clicking the option.

Confession - Testdriven UnitTests
First of all, I regret all and wish there would be no SQL Scripts but an external tool to analyze data, but the project grew hysterically and when I joined the sh*t had already been established...
I had to test some SQL Scripts. As there is no real UnitTest framework which is under development/gets support, the whole suite is kinda buggy.
So I had my script, and had the required input + expected output, but the UnitTest always failed. So I manipulated the framework parameters until the test finally passed.
Shame on me and on the project, but atleast there are tests now...

My biggest dev regret is being complacent in my programming ability from way too early on. I learned a bunch of stuff from intro programming classes (which I always brushed off as "unnecessary" and "boring") because I was too ignorant to accept that writing the same Python code over and over wasn't progress. I'm way behind where someone with 7 years of programming experience should be, because I spent 4 of those years writing the same garbage.

I always refuse to read the entire documentation carefully then 2 hours later regret skimming through it coz as expected, i miss the fucking obvious and end up wasting my time. You'd think by now i would learn. It must be madness really.

Good day to be motivated again because my analysis always stuck on my head and i forgot to cook bacon. I regret this feeling

My fellow devs, appreciate what you have right now, even if it doesn't seem that great. I've recently switched majors from Bioinformatics to Medicine and I wouldn't say I regret it, but I do certainly doubt this decision sometimes. While studying Bioinformatics, I was always really interested in the biological part, often wanting to learn more about medical topics and such, thinking if I did switch, I could always keep programming as a hobby. Now I did switch and I miss being in a professional CS field so much. Medicine is great, but the people who study are mentally completely different from people that code. I still code small projects on the side, but don't really have anyone to talk to about them and I'm even starting to regret not paying more attention in linear algebra. I miss linear algebra, think about how ridiculous that is haha. Anyways, if you are looking forward to a major change in your life, it might not be all that you think it will be. So look at your current situation, it might be what you wanted all along.
Thanks for listening.
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Also it is incredible, how technologically incompetent most medical students are lol

//Just put a goddamn comments

I always regret registering up myself to "techie job finder websites"... They are just so annoying with emails and calls, asking for more data asking for my time, faking how professional they are in finding you the right job... I think I will just do freelance besides my own personal project.

It's always the same mistake I do: writing bad words as variables or in comments. NEVER DO IT YOU WILL ALWAYS REGRET IT