@retoor

Part 3

Me: "Legal!? Holy crap. Seriously? You're kidding. Please tell me you're kidding."

A: "No, one download for all the devs isn't going to work."

Me: "We use different registration keys. One for each devloper."

A: "Ooohhh...I didn't know how it worked."

Me: "Why in the world would go to the VP anyway, I'm responsible for the Delphi licenses, not him."

A: "I can try to get our money back, but aren't we scheduled to hire more developers next year?"

Me: "Yes, we'll eventually use the licenses, but the disks are useless and we paid about $100 more than we should."

A: "Its OK, we're still within budget. Let me know if I can help with anything else."

@retoor

Part 2

Me: "What is this?"

A: "Copies of Delphi you ordered"

Me: "I didn't tell you to order physical copies, it was a download."

A: "Umm...yea...about that. I didn't know how one download would work with all the developers. I talked with the VP and he agreed, physical copies are better and probably more legal than the one download."

@retoor

Part 1:

Back then, CodeGear (Borland) gave a discount if we purchased the electronic download vs. physical copies. I submitted the PO request and the admin didn't understand what the 'electronic download' meant. I had to explain when we purchased the software, we would be given a link to download the software and corresponding # of registration keys.

Still confused (he didn't think downloading development software off the internet was real), but he made the purchase, and he sent me the URL and keys. I download and unpack everything (it was basically the ISO), sent the keys to the other devs and we're all running the latest Delphi.

About 7 days later 'A' stops by my desk with 5 physical copies Delphi.

@retoor

https://devrant.molodetz.nl/preview...

>"Any proof that you are vibe coding or using AI tools would be an immediately failure of that class"

My daughter is dealing with this right now. Her papers have been flagged as being written by AI and she is at risk of academic probation/suspension (teachers have warned her) and 100% of the content came from her smart little brain. I just want to walk into the prof's office and smack 'em upside the head with a sea bass and say "Stop using whatever website you're using and start using your <bleep>ing brains!"

These classes have peer reviews (they read and critique each other's papers) and it took me 10 seconds to spot the AI copy+paste papers. Sooo frustrating.

@whimsical > "I am the first and last Delphi for dotNET developer you'll ever speak to."

Ahhh...Delphi for .Net...I miss those days. I've got a Delphi for .Net DVD-Rom install still in shrink wrap behind me right now (tried to upload a pic, it failed).

> "Readable > Clever"

I'm fighting this right now.

My boss (probably an IQ in upper 3 digits) developed all the security for our blazor (WASM) apps (including all the custom backend authentication and authorization). In order for an app to login, there is no less than 10 required nuget packages and all them have indirect or direct dependencies on each other. Once you have all the planets aligned, everything 'just works'.

Looking into utilzing the new~ish Interactive feature of Blazor to speed up some page loads, I'm finding how the security context is passed around only works in a WASM project because he decided to write his own javascript library framework to manage the user's state, which doesn't work on Blazor Server (yes, he wrote his own state state mgnt framework).

I can't any sense of what's going on and I'm afraid to ask him for help. He'd likely write his own browser to get around the problem.

As a junior developer, would you have taken that advice?

My nuckle-head back then would have said "Pffft...I don't need any life lesson lists...I got a CS degree from a college ...I know what I'm doing!"

This isn't a proper rant without details.

You came to the right place to rant.

Above all means, include screenshots/code-snippets, etc. so we all can enjoy in your misery. :)

@antigermanist > "my mum's a nurse, she got stabbed"

Holy crap, I'm sorry. Nurses are not appreciated, protected and certainly not compensated for the nonsense they are expected to deal with.

Folks who want in that field are cut different.

If I had your mum as my nurse, she would only hear "Yes ma'am" and "No ma'am" from me and only the upmost respect.

@antigermanist > "Bitch please you never worked a real job in your life lmao"

You're right, its pretty sweet now. All I do is click keys, drink coffee, and solve a problem or two.

Lets see, my dad had me working since I was 8. Pushing a lawnmower, yard work, and whatever odd jobs he found for me. My first 'real' job at 16, the grocery store mgr asked "Son, do you want a job or do you want to work?" ...odd question...so I answered "I want to work". I started the following Monday.

From there I promoted to a floor mgr, frozen food mgr, and produce mgr, all before I was 19. The owner tried really hard to convince me that college and learning computers would be a waste of time and I could really 'make it big' in the grocery business.

Even now at my age, I'm 100% sure I could outwork the teenagers I see at the stores, not to mention any of the crew that works for my bro-in-law's landscaping business.

He jokes that when I retire, he wants me to work for him at least part time.

@antigermanist > "a nurse making 6 figures?"

Its not normal, but he's been aggressive in getting the max raises and promotions as compared to his female counterparts. They give raises and promotions based on merit, not what is/isn't between the legs.

If he wanted to make even more, he'd be a traveling nurse, especially around Florida and other retirement destinations. Its not unusual for those nurses to make $300~$400K a year.

@Lensflare > "@antigermanist you are projecting so hard and you don’t fucking realize it lol. It’s sad but also funny."

I know, right? This is almost fun. Wait until he reads "I've never worked for a poor person". I might hear a popping noise.

@antigermanist > "people making six figures don't work sweetie"

- I do, 90% of the devs here do to.

- My son, a nurse, does

- Cousin that works for an H-Vac company does

- Farmer friend does

- Brother-in-law owns his own landscaping company does

- Friend that owns a local truck stop does

I could go on and on with the working people I know that are killing it.

The idea that working people can't make it is a lie.

@antigermanist > "Ya know I'm not a kid. Daddy want a job because he have bills to pay "

Exactly. You want a job, you don't want to work.

That's not a "right wing" value, that's a very human "I'm hungry, I must work to eat" value.

I'd work as hard for Nail Clipping Inc making minimum wage as I would for Amazon making 6-figures. I'd prefer the 6-figure salary, but neither effects my work ethic.

@antigermanist > " I'm sure it says a lot about his actual real-life skills."

Says he's willing to do more than the 200 people that send generic CVs to my company. Someone knocking on our door and wants to *talk* to a human just got in front of the line.

Acting like a victim and blaming others says a lot your real-life skills.

You clicked a button and sent 250 resumes to faceless companies you put zero effort into researching and wonder why no one is interested in you? Really?

How about this, pick 5 of those companies. Do some research on them. Find out what they do, what their core values are, do you align with those core values? Then make calls, physically go and knock on their door and ask to speak to whoever. If you come across as wanting to work and can add value day 1, someone will hire you.

Or you can sit in self-pity and complain on devrant about having to work and why the government should steal from the 'evil rich' and give you free stuff.

@Lensflare

If he "sent" 250 resumes and only 2 replies, that tells me he went through a site like linked-in. Our company never accepts those type of lazy resumes. I suspect the other 248 companies don't either.

If he was really serious about a job, it takes knocking on doors and making a connection. You'd be surprised what a handshake and a "Hi, I'm Tom and I'd like to talk about what I can do for your company" can accomplish. Might not work the first time, but I can almost guarantee you'll have better chance than those job sites.

@kamen > "It doesn't really need the context. It's in a bleeping CV"

If a CV comes across my desk bragging they improved performance of some X service, it better have context or in the trash it goes.

CVs better scream "I'm here to work, serve people, and not bullcrap you around. " or in the trash it goes.

Since our HR dept changed hiring strategies (staying away from the 'academic' CVs), the team we have now are freaking rock stars.

Google level? No, better. They write code and go home. None of this "Look at me! I'm working 12 hour days! Look at MEEE!!" stuff that comes from devs who spend months shaving 3ms from a query that nobody is waiting for and expect awards and accolades.

@Lensflare > "What’s the problem with that?"

Lacks context. 40% of what? I can increase the performance of my service by 99% by not accessing the database. Should I put that on my resume and expect employers to light up my phone with 6-figure offers? I'm sure some do.

We had a team that lived for coming up with contrived 'speed improvements' for services. They would spend months re-writing a service and send out graphs showing 20%...10%....40% ..etc improvement numbers. Without context, those are some impressive numbers.

With context, those numbers were measured in milliseconds and less. Like a service that took 2ms, now takes 1ms, they claimed a 50% performance improvement and completely justified the 6 months it took them to re-write the service.

Example?

@Lensflare > "the importance of zodiac signs"

Overheard one of our FS accountants telling another one her dog with cancer was going to be OK because she (the dog) was a <insert zodiac sign I don't remember>.

The other said "Oh yes...she's going to be fine."

> When everything works, but nothing feels right.

Yes, we migrated a 15+ year SharePoint "app" (heavily modified sharepoint aspx files, custom XML templates, and lots and lots of javascript) to Blazor. We had very minimal end-user testing (a VP, her subordinate, and another manager). The app had been central to company planning (think of it like Jira, but in SharePoint) and at one point had 4 dedicated developers working on it seemingly 365 days a year. Continuous 'add a field' here, 'change the label' there, 'change the label back' wash-rinse-repeat requests.

We used Jira for the project mgmt and after all the cards were 'done', the VP said "Looks good, release it then disable the sharepoint site. Good job guys."

Its been about a month, no complaints from the owner, CEO, other VPs, and end users who are usually obsessed over trivial details are quiet.

I'm afraid.

> "we want to have our cake and eat it, too."

When we ran into that, the devs added an 'Override All' button that disabled any+all validation because they were tired of the constant back and forth of VPs/SLTs dictating business rules for apps they never use.

Headphones/earbuds everywhere.

> "leave for office at 7.30, reach office at 9.30"

Two hour commute? Yikes.

If I were a young single buck, I would either move and find a residence closer, request work-from-home, or quit and find a job closer to me.

I know being married+kids makes that a difficult choice, but it's worth your own sanity to explore all options.

@retoor > "DevRant not your diary, idiot"

Um...yes it is. Its for ranting...it's in the name.

What do you think a diary is used ... wait...name calling? Ahh...you're one of the internet trolls I read about, never mind.

Shoo..shoo...back to under the bridge or I'm getting my spray bottle.

@devux-bookmark > "I still don't get why Microsoft has constantly changed their windows UI"

Ironically, the Microsoft Shell is completely customizable. Since, I think, Windows 7, the Shell hasn't changed, they've just applied a different theme/skin ever since. There used to be a huge 3rd party market that updated the Windows skin/theme. Wanted Windows to look exactly a Mac? There was a theme. Wanted a Linux theme? Windows 8, Windows 95? It was out there. Until our networking dept dictated a 'standard' desktop, I used a minimalist theme (no desktop icons, very thin start bar docked at the top, only the clock in the system tray), with everything I needed+used tucked away in Windows 3.11 style folder groups. Perfection.

> "How is MSSQL so popular?"

#1, its from Microsoft (nobody ever gets fired when choosing a product from Microsoft)

#2, its not Oracle

#3, Bill's nearsighted grandma with dementia can create a table with as much skill as MS Certified DBA.

I've been using MSSQL since 6.5 and like any legacy 'enterprise' product, its become so bloated with nonsense nobody but niche edge cases every use its 'enterprise' features.

@jestdotty > "she builds a universe of stringent details."

That is brilliantly accurate.