What's wrong with this code?

std::pair<float, float> foo() { return { 0, 0 }; }

"Nothing," would you say.

That's because you're normal.

But the most stupid C++ compiler ever (M$ VS)
issues an ERROR that converting 0 to float incurs possible "loss of data". So you have to write "0.f".

BTW, "0." is a double, so you really have to write "0.f". Or "static_cast<float>(0)" if you like ugly, impossible-to-read code.

Java's System.out.println because it's too effing long to write!
And in general, all of Java because you need an MB of code just for Hello World.

Not just a rant, also a call for help.

After 10 years using Git, I'm constrained to use Mercurial (company policy). It effing feels like playing tennis with one arm tied to my back.

Please, who knows a good GUI for Linux, or at least a command line tool to show a decent log?

Kill Mercurial!

Somebody please kill Pinterest!

Pinterest is a cancer that has turned searching by image into a pointless effort. If you search by image, you want to discover the image's original source. Instead you get 1000 Pinterest boards with the image in it.

Donald Knuth. TeX. Also, pioneer of fundamental algorithms.

My start at one of the Big Four (accounting firms).

The first two days of each month they organise "onboarding days" for the new starters of that month. (I so hate upper management buzzwords!) They sent me a formal invitation that looked like I was being invited to a ball with the royals, and they included the following super-smarty-pants line: "Dress code: would you wear jeans and t-shirt when you meet a client?"

And I thought: "I'm an effing hardware and software engineer for internal services. I will never meet a client." But I dressed formally nonetheless, and I went to the onboarding, and I hated every second I spent in those effing high heels, and don't get me started on how I managed to get a run on my stockings in the first hour.

The first day of the onboarding we sat through eight hours of general talks from senior employees who wanted to explain the "culture" and "values" of our company, but the worst of all was the three-hour introduction to IT services where they "helped us set up our new laptops" and taught us how to send e-mails and how to use the Company Portal.

On the second day, they divided us into groups depending on our speciality (assurance, taxes, legal, etc) and exposed us to further 8 hours of boredom related to our speciality. However, since the "digital services" thing was still new to them, we didn't have a category of our own, and we had to attend the introduction to one of the other categories, and I didn't understand one word of what was being said.

On the third day I finally went to my office and they provided me with a second laptop. It turns out that we engineers got different laptops and were allowed to manage it ourselves instead of letting central IT manage it for us. So I simply returned the laptop they had given me the first day and started working. However, for some reason, the laptop I returned was not registered, and two weeks later they started pestering me with emails asking where was the laptop "I had stolen". It took me 3 weeks of emails and calls to make them understand that I had returned the laptop immediately.

Also, on the two onboarding days we had to sign attendance, and since I forgot to sign the paper list on the second day, they invited me to the event the next month again. I explained to them that I had already attended the onboarding and didn't go, so they invited me again on the third month, and they threatened me with "disciplinary action" if I didn't go. After a week of lost time writing emails and calling people, I ended up going to the onboarding again just to sign the effing list.

In the end, I resigned during the probation time. That company was the worst experience of my life. It was an example of corporate culture so absurdly exaggerated that it sometimes reminded me of Kafka's Trial. I think they have more "HR representatives" than people who do actual work.

Don't you hate it when politicians and newscasters talk about Google's, Facebook's, whatever's algorithms without really knowing what the word "algorithm" means?

A few years ago, only few people knew the word existed, and now you find people going around, saying things like:

"I don't know why YouTube recommended that video to me. 'Their algorithm' must be mad."

I'm sick of the tyranny of websites who say your password must include at least one shady character, one special agent, and a number of other filthy things. Only makes your passwords impossible to remember, hard to type, and not a bit more secure.
"mynameisronalddumpandimanorangehairedorangutan" is a million times more secure than "P4$$word".

No such thing as a productive meeting.

Why can't Eclipse save non-project-specific customisations somewhere centrally? Why do I have to customise my editor fonts, colours and hotkeys again every time I open up a new work space? Why would they think I could want different editor fonts, colours and hotkeys on every different project I work on?
I so hate Eclipse!
I so hate IDEs!