Chocolate. Practically it's sugar but i prefer it in the form of chocolate.

I can work without pretty well, but it really helps in high pressure situations.

I sound like a drug addict. 😱

No one in my family had a computer or worked with computers, so i was totally undigital until i got to work with a computer at school. Win 3.11 made me think "okay, i wanna do that all the time".

Stackoverflow #1
Me posting question about how to prevent error.
User1: You answered your question. Its because of the error.
Me: I know. And want it gone.
User1: Proposes working yet somehow horrible workaround.
Me: Yes, that works, already did that. But i want to know why it happens.
User: Your question says you want a solution and it is one.
Me: One that doesn't solve the problem.
User2: Just give up. Don't try to find a better one.

Stackoverflow 2:
UserQ: Question how to...?
Me: Use this and that.
UserR: That is not an answer, so i downvoted and requested review.

I don't know a second community that is anti-encouraging like SO.

Many years ago two foolish young men found together to make an game with an old game making tool. The project didn't succeed, but the person stayed since. A good result i think ❤️

So made this component that my colleagues also use.
Today i checked source control...

What did they do to my creation?

Lines commented out here and there. Features destroyed by rewriting it, instead of just using it. Related unit tests broken of course. It had everything. And why not ask me?

According to Source control they helped each other. Working together as a team, desecrating my code.

OH MY GOD, MY TEACHER DOES NOT TEACH MY FAVORITE LANGUAGE!

I've seen a lot of rants about teachers who use an outdated language, or don't accept the preferred framework or library of the ranter, or even force students to use a technology or even worse an OS they don't prefer.

Whats with that attitude?

I absolutely encourage young people to learn technology in their free time and it absolutely helps at building a career and become good at programming. I don't think being around 18 and never having worked in a real job is the time to select "the most superior language and technology".

Actually, that time is never.

Technology is evolving all the time and different tech evolves in different paths for different purposes. Get rid of the idea, that there is a "best" and get rid of the idea, that you will always be able to work with what you think is best.

If you're really really really awesome, you can chose to do what you like most. Not awesome as in "i learned programming in my free time, now i'm better than my programming-for-beginners-course teacher" but awesome as in "start my own company and can afford to only take the jobs i feel like doing", that awesome. Most likely, you're not (yet).

In the real world, you will very likely sometimes be required to work with technology you don't prefer. Maybe with something you think is really bad. Probably, it's not that bad. More likely, you read it on the internet from someone whose self-image is based on on loving TechA and hating TechB. A lot of much hated technology is at least okay for it's intended use. Maybe not the most pleasant time you will ever have, but no reason to jump out of the window. Hey, and if you get used to it, you may even start to like it. At least, learn to retain some dignity when confronted with things you don't like.

You can still think that one thing is better than another, but if you make a huge drama out of it, you just make it harder for yourself. The best programmer is the one who get's shit done, not the one with the saltiest tears.

Had a problem.
Heard the errorsound a few dozen times too often.
Replaced it with Hitler screaming "NEIN NEIN NEIN".

Solved problem.
Let the sound stay.

Someday it will make a bad situation slightly brighter.

I'm a practical learner. Usually i get myself a simple example from codeproject and play around with it.

I constantly switch between tutorials, documentation and doing it. Doing it makes me find questions and i can remember things better if i care about them, which happens if they are the answer to a question.

Within those experiments i build working example code and document it in a way that fits my needs. When i haven't done the stuff for some time, this self-made examples, help me continue where i was.

The future of devrant:

Thanks for the ++ !
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Look at my ++ count!
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Actual rant
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Help me get ++!
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Lets have a ++ party!
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Actual rant
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Lets share ++
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Actual rant
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Help me get ++!
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9gag/Reddit repost
Thanks for the ++ !
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Help me get ++!
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9gag/Reddit repost
Thanks for the ++ !
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I installed linux, celebrate me!
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Lets increase X's ++ counter!
Thanks for the ++ !
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Actual rant
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Where do i get the ++ script?
Thanks for the ++ !
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9gag/Reddit repost
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Help me get the tiger!
Thanks for the ++ !
Thanks for the ++ !

You don't need to be a developer to ++like others and collect ++likes and show how much you are liked and shit. Everyone can do it. Thats what facebook and instashitsocialcrap is for: People making a thing about how they like and plus and hug and follow each other and how much they are liked and ++ed and shit. It has no substance.

It's what i love about devrant. It has substance. People talk about real stories. Things that matter, things that are interesting and funny. And people talk to each other.

Other social media is empty bullshit. Please don't let devrant become another stupid internet shitplace.

Already ranted about it. A superior did not provide required information, screamed at me and a colleague.

Of course we got blamed for it. In a meeting with me on one n and all bosses and superiors on the other side of the table, i had to explain my and apologize for my misbehavior.

I had made up a good diplomatic plan, because i know my bosses and how they think of themselves and their roles in the company so it was not that hard to get out of the situation without harm to me and my job.

It felt disgusting. It worked and was a good solution, but it felt so unjust.

Last week i couldn't use a website to download a product because it failed on every browser and even with addons deactivated. The error said "please input the version" and version is a checkbox.

Wrote to support.

Me: "Download does not work! It gives error xyz. How can i get the product?"
Support : "Oh, you can easily get it from our download page."

Do you even read your mails?!?

For me it was something within me. I often felt super demotivated and as a result unproductive when i had to do things i didn't like or that i thought were very bad ideas and plans .

Over time i got used to it and while I'm still better when I'm personally convinced that I'm doing something of value, i can now better handle shitjobs.

Aww SwiftKey, after two letters youre suggesting the right password, that's so nice of you...

Wait a minute... WHY DO YOU EVEN KNOW THAT?

You're not a password manager and you don't do that with other passwords, what's wrong with you?

Someone was not telling important details which lead to a lot of work leading in the wrong direction.

Asking that someone why he hadn't shared that earlier was seen as complete disrespect against all management.

The worst technology i had to deal with was probably a piece of hardware. It was a mini-pc combined with sensors and digital IOs and thus, it should have been able to do process control all by itself.

At that time, there was hardware that did that, but this one had an intel cpu, windows embedded and some powerful libraries pre-installed.

Sounds good, didn't work. The thing was so unstable and buggy and crashed on everything. The sensor part had lots of parameters and the right order was trial and error, documentation didn't match behavior, fixes promised but never delivered.

Lucky for us: it was just a demokit, no real project.

I still remember it with a smile. We got in contact to that company at a trade fair and they had most impressive booth. I also remember their companies image movie from their homepage with developers in dark labs with holographic monitors and the boss in his shiny bright office as he looked out of the window and quoted a famous german author.

Hilarious and sad. :-)

Customer :Can you build a system that rates our product by XYZ standard?
Us: Sure!

*time passes*

Us: Ta-da!
Customer: Okay, here are some good and some bad products!

*products get rated shit to supershit*

Customer: No, that's wrong. Some of these are as good as we can, they should be rated best!
Us: okay, we offset the results.

*products get rated good to barely okay*

Customer: Great! Can you sign that the system rates by XYZ Standard?
Us: No.
Customer : But we paid you to rate by XYZ standard!
Us: By XYZ standard your products are bad, you can either have your products rated by standard or pass the test.
Customer: Unacceptable!
Us: Improve production?
Customer : Not possible, the job is done when you rate the products good by XYZ standard.

Pre 2k i startet making levels in UnrealEd, which changed the way i saw the world. Suddenly i could look at things, buildings, architecture for long times, just thinking how i would build something like that from simple polygons.

As a coder i started to analyze the way processes are controlled in logic.
And now after some years in automation technology and image processing, other things come to my mind like "give me 50k€ in hardware and some weeks and i could replace that persons job with a system".

"Errors? Won't happen to me!"

One of my first jobs was to finish and maintain a program, that was made by a guy who had a real genius image among others. Years later, people said "oh him, that smart guy."

I never met him, but that's what i heard.

However, he was not only smart, but it seems he was also very confident. That's what i deduct from his code.

He didn't use catch-blocks. They were all empty. Not even logged.

If errors appeared , it was not possible to see what happened and where and why. The program would continue it's execution and if following steps could not work, because there had been an unnoticed exception, it would just throw another unnoticed exception and at some point, end in an undefined state.

"For me, it means..."

For me it was not one specific meeting, but rather a series of meetings with a customer over some years.

It was like the movie "groundhog day", it was the same all over again.

We had this technical term, and our customer had his own definition of what it meant and what it's supposed to be. No need to say that his definition did not match the one the engineers and developers of the world had agreed on.

At least a dozen times, i convinced him, but as soon as the meeting ends, it's all reset and we start at zero next time with his new or old definition of what a definition should mean. Sometimes i was just sick and tired of it so i let him explain how it is while i just stared into the void. Didn't matter he told me once, it will happen again next time again, like it never happened before.

There are tools i use more often, but a place in my heart is reserved for ILSpy.

It shows IL code as c# code and it helped me so much at understanding how components work.

Best moment was when a support guy from a company told me stuff that wasn't correct according to the code...

...no need to tell him. Hope it stays unencrypted :-D

Instant understanding and memorizing of everything i read.

Better ideas:
I love building stuff and when i have something that I'm really into, it's hard to concentrate on the boring stuff i need to finish first.

Sometimes i just need to do what i feel like doing, doesn't matter. No, i won't go to bed, no i can't do the other stuff, i need to do that!

Did you say "go to hell" to your project manager?
No, i would not use gogo.
So what's it with you and him?
I think he implements IDisposable.

Great week, been super productive and very happy about.

*wild junior boss appears*

"You should have done it differently! You didn't know it and it's your fault for not asking me about stuff you didn't know existet. I often screw things up and blame others, but i made the boss like me so it's okay. And since i lost my spine some time ago, i will now go suck my own dick and feel awesome . "

Not sure that is exactly what he said, but he meant it.

Hey, i want to make a game and i need some help, so I'm looking for a team.

What i need is:
2 programmers
3 graphics artists
2 level designers
1 music composer
2 dialog writers
1 web designer for page and forums
5 testers

What i will do, you ask? Well, I've got some really good ideas. I think the game should be like Final Fantasy, but bigger and better. I worked with RPG Maker for two months, but I'm best with ideas. I think my ideas would make some incred...

GO SHOVE YOUR IDEAS INTO YOUR ASS! The idea means nothing. I got an idea for the best game ever, right this morning while i was taking a SHIT!

Hobby teams need people who create content. And people who can do stuff will more likely work with someone who does stuff as well and has proven that he is able to get things done.

Messenging with a friend about me working with VBA on a side project.

Me: VBA brings back bad behaviour
Him: Like?
Me: I_AM_KONSTANT and this is a _globalVariable.
Him: Hahaha^^
[...]
Me: Mister O. ...
Him: Mister M. ?
Me: Should i use goto?
Him: I think we need to break off contact.
Him: If you had said you killed someone. Ok.
Him: But GOTO?
[...]
Me: I did it. And then a cold shiver ran down my back.
Him: You deserve that!
____________________
( translate from German )

"Hey, about that matter from yesterday..."
"Yes, what about that?"
"We need to talk about that again! How often do you trigger that system?"
"Once."
"You sure?"
"Yes, but i can check it, if you like."
*find references*
"See, only once."
"Can it happen at a random point later one?"
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes"
"Can you check it?"
"Okay."
*shows code"
"Look here, as you can see, it will not happen at other times."
"Do you have an idea why it could happen anyway?"
"Maybe that system does the action without my software telling it to do so, wasn't that specified that way?"
"Yes, but it normally does that roughly 10 seconds after you give the command the first time, so we thought maybe you could say what makes it do the action at other points maybe."
"Did you check that systems sourcecode?"
"No not yet. But did that happen with the older version?"
"No. But we didn't try."
"Did you change something between the versions?"
"Yes, the new feature."
"Could that make a change in behaviour?"
"I don't see how."
"Can you remove that feature for test?"
"We can take the old version."
"No, we need the new version, but without the feature you added."
"That IS the old version, there is no other difference!"
"Are you sure?"
"Would you like to see it in source control?"
"No, ~ okay. What do you think causes the problem?"
"I haven't had any new ideas since we talked yesterday."
"Okay. Mhhh,...okay. Lets talk again later."

YES SURE! BRING IT ON! I'M LOOKING FORWARD TO THAT! PLEASE COME BY OR CALL ME AGAIN! AND BRING THE BOSS WITH YOU, TO SHOW HOW SERIOUS THE MATTER IS! LET ME TELL HIM THE STUFF I TOLD SEVEN TIMES LAST WEEK!

Step 1: Create and deploy feature. Get feedback: It works fine!

A year passes...

Step 2: Add another small feature that is completely independent from previous feature.

Step 3: Notice that feature #1 is broken.

Why the HELL did it stop working?!? I didn't change anything related to that feature. I can't explain that!

Step 4: Examine bug and find out something unknown about the technology used in feature #1.

Why the HELL did that ever work in the first place?!?

Step 5: Get time to fix it. Don't get time to find out why it worked for a year...

The problem is solved, the mystery remains...