Dev related: To actually finish my projects instead of working on different ones, and end up finishing nothing.

I said I was going to create my own operating system. I started it, but barely. I haven't touched the compiler I was working on for months. Oh, and I'm working on an android app related to writing. I started it a while back, and never got to finish it.

My need to stop starting new projects, because if I keep doing this, I'll never finish anything.

Non dev related: To get my manuscript out of the slush pile, and finally published. It's currently in the dreadful querying process.

Actually finish a proj.... Oh I'm sorry I got distracted and started a new projec... Oh look a bird...

*my friends wanted to learn how to use linux*
My friend: "So, how do you edit this file ?"
Me: "Use Vim" *sadistic smile*

Does your article require me to click "next page" 8 times to read the whole article?
if yes, then fuck you.

Goes to sleep.

Wakes up.

"OMFG WHY WAS I SO STUPID!?"

*has code epiphany*

Happened with anyone?

Bro, I want to hack Facebook. I have learnt HTML. what to do next?

Too common. :D

Client: My mouse is working backwards
me: *rotates mouse 180 degrees*
Client: Thanks! You even brought the buttons back!

I changed the HTML of my school website to say 'MR. DAVIES SMELLS'. Having seen the ensuing havoc that I caused, I knew this was for me.

so I was at primary school and our homework was: "what do you want to do when you grow up". my dad took me around town for inspirations. that's when I saw that famous ad that led me to do IT.

when I was first started out, I was trying to test out a file delete and renaming program I made. it deleted itself. never even knew how it happened. it was effective in deleting though.

First day at my first workplace as a dev. waiting for my laptop to load up, nothing happens, black screen. waiting sitting patiently and silently for approx. 20 minutes.

the monitor was off.

Coolest project: I once worked for a customer who hosted an exhibition for a few thousand visitors in a big event arena in Stockholm.

They didn't want to use the existing ticket reading system on the arena so I had to build my own application compatible with barcode scanners (they said this about one week before the event).

It wasn't a complicated application to dev but with the tight deadline and no time to actually stress test it, it was the coolest thing to see hundreds of people streaming through the ticket station flawlessly.

Day 2 of the event I built a simple web application so I could see the flow rate of read tickets while I sat in the arena pub with a beer.

Everyone nowadays :p

When you use a new technology without reading the documentation first.

Me: I have been working for you for almost 12 years now, and I feel that my current pay is not comparable to the work I currently produce. Therefore, in order to secure my future as your employee, I must request an immediate raise in pay to a level that is acceptable.

Boss: I can't afford it. If you want more money, you need to bring in more clients, plain and simple.

Me: I'm serious. If I don't get a raise, I will qui---

Girlfriend: Babe, stop talking to yourself and come to bed...

Me: Okay... [looks in mirror] This isn't finished...

Dear junior programmers:
You will never get hired from what you learned at University

You have to study on your own, update your knowledge, practice at home and fail

The most important is to know which field to focus on

My boss is like: Can we use blockchain to fry an egg?

Let's use blockchain in everything, investors like that.

We all know that guy that resolve all the conflicts with a "push --force"

4am

"I need to brush my teeth before going to sleep 😵"
*goes to bathroom*
*washes hands*
*goes to bed*

1minute of heavy processing later

"FUCK"

As a developer, sometimes you hammer away on some useless solo side project for a few weeks. Maybe a small game, a web interface for your home-built storage server, or an app to turn your living room lights on an off.

I often see these posts and graphs here about motivation, about a desire to conceive perfection. You want to create a self-hosted Spotify clone "but better", or you set out to make the best todo app for iOS ever written.

These rants and memes often highlight how you start with this incredible drive, how your code is perfectly clean when you begin. Then it all oscillates between states of panic and surprise, sweat, tears and euphoria, an end in a disillusioned stare at the tangled mess you created, to gather dust forever in some private repository.

Writing a physics engine from scratch was harder than you expected. You needed a lot of ugly code to get your admin panel working in Safari. Some other shiny idea came along, and you decided to bite, even though you feel a burning guilt about the ever growing pile of unfinished failures.

All I want to say is:

No time was lost.

This is how senior developers are born. You strengthen your brain, the calluses on your mind provide you with perseverance to solve problems. Even if (no, *especially* if) you gave up on your project.

Eventually, giving up is good, it's a sign of wisdom an flexibility to focus on the broader domain again.

One of the things I love about failures is how varied they tend to be, how they force you to start seeing overarching patterns.

You don't notice the things you take back from your failures, they slip back sticking to you, undetected.

You get intuitions for strengths and weaknesses in patterns. Whenever you're matching two sparse ordered indexed lists, there's this corner of your brain lighting up on how to do it efficiently. You realize it's not the ORMs which suck, it's the fundamental object-relational impedance mismatch existing in all languages which causes problems, and you feel your fingers tingling whenever you encounter its effects in the future, ready to dive in ever so slightly deeper.

You notice you can suddenly solve completely abstract data problems using the pathfinding logic from your failed game. You realize you can use vector calculations from your physics engine to compare similarities in psychological behavior. You never understood trigonometry in high school, but while building a a deficient robotic Arduino abomination it suddenly started making sense.

You're building intuitions, continuously. These intuitions are grooves which become deeper each time you encounter fundamental patterns. The more variation in environments and topics you expose yourself to, the more permanent these associations become.

Failure is inconsequential, failure even deserves respect, failure builds intuition about patterns. Every single epiphany about similarity in patterns is an incredible victory.

Please, for the love of code...

Start and fail as many projects as you can.

Natural Language Programming

Forgot lastpass password.

Bam!

The time my sister dropped the external HDD with every single picture of our family between 2000-2009.
I was 16 at the time, and it made me paranoid like I am today.

Three offsites backups, and three local ones currently and always trying to do expand.

Click Edit > Copy, click Edit > Paste.

Every. Single. Time.

Worst thing you've seen another dev do?

Not adding node_modules to gitignore.

code in word

Mistyping one character wrong in a password and hitting backspace until I am sure I’ve deleted the entire Wikipedia.

Then starting all over again.

Murdering 4 innocent children