At the car workshop, the mechanics are trying to print some pdf from the net. It looks like the job is sent to the printer, but nothing comes out. Restart the printer: no luck. Restart the computer: no cookie. Open the pdf in chrome instead of IE: yep.

Hackathon: being a C and embedded dev and everybody like: let's do webz! Or appz!

Rant (that's kind of unusual here these days): can you please stop writing "code" as a rant? It's not witty, it's not original, it's not funny anymore, hasn't been since first year of college, it's not impressing anyone here.

I mean... printf("Happy new year\n");... Does anyone find it funny? Couldn't anyone here come up with that?

It only makes you look like you're 17 and trying to make a statement like "look at me, I'm so fluent at pro9ramm1n9, such a 1337!"

/rant

Chinese co-workers visiting in our European office would just loudly fart in the office, no problem.

Then they'd be VERY embarrassed at someone using a toothpick after lunch.

Interesting cultural differences.

Annoyance in C: using the same keyword for two unrelated things, process-long memory allocation and internal linkage. Looking at you, static.

The latter should really have been called "intern", just like there is "extern". Far more people would use it if it was named correctly.

History says "static" was chosen for compatibility, allowing older compilers to take new source files.

Annoyance with C++: no elegant way to hide private members of a class while exposing its API.

Fail to setup a printer on Windows and it's Microsoft's fault.
Fail to setup a printer on Linux and it's the user's fault.

When you come to work eager to code, and the whole day goes to trying and failing to fix some network shit -_-

Web services that require Windows or MacOS?!?! Why!?
(Why, and also FU)

Comment the "why", not the "what". If your code needs comments to explain what it does, rewrite the code (use good, descriptive identifiers).

Noob advice

Read "Pragmatic Programmer".

Advice to new devs: be open minded and adapt to the way things are done at your new gig. Be humble, things that aren't the way you're used to aren't necessarily bad (even bracing style and editors). Have a guru and absorb all you possibly can. Don't be afraid of showing that you don't know yet.

Advice to new devs: always check function return values. Crash as close to the reason as possible. Make your functions return errors whenever appropriate and check these as well, crashing gracefully.

Advice to new dev:
- if you feel like writing a banner comment, create a new function instead.

Working with a radio chip we selected because it had built-in encryption. Cannot make the encryption work, thus in contact with the manufacturer:
"- I cannot make the encryption work, it's like the chip doesn't want to take a key.
- which key do you use?
- does it matter?
- well yes, you can't just use any key!
- why not?
- you need to get an approved key from us.
- why is that?
- so that your competitors can't read your data!
- ...
- ...
- so the way to get working keys is to get them from you?
- of course!
- keys are 256 bits. Can we potentially use all of them?
- OF COURSE NOT!
- how many can we get from you?
- one! We reserve it from your company.
- are you telling me that all units within a company will need to have the exact same encryption key?
- yes!
- so anyone with our product could eavesdrop another same product?
- well yes, but it's all within your own products.
- ...
- ...
- that's not how encryption is supposed to work.
- but it's safe, your competitors cannot eavesdrop!
- I'm out of here."
(We finally found a satisfactory work-around, but i am still pissed at them)

Detecting platform in cmake (which I hate).
WHY do you display "armv71", yet can't match the string "armv71"???!?

I'll need to post my cmake lists and cli results on stackoverflow.

OK, last try, I'll copy and paste from the terminal into my file.

Ooooh! You weren't saying "armv71"! You were saying "armv7l"! 😥

(And my font does make a difference between l and 1)

Tech literature! Why is it so VERBOSE? I noticed I nearly always start shaking my foot and mutter "to the pooooint". And like 50 pages of acknowledgements.

Come on, C is fun!

C/C++, like they're kind of the same 😒😣
"hey, I know python/lisp! 🙃"

Ok, ok, got it. I guess.

Am I the only to have bad mojo with Android 7? It loses 4g network all the time, restarts, is generally slow... It's like they follow the Microsoft release model, one version stable (4), next one buggy and bad (5), then nice again (6), and now bad (7)...

Trying to book a trip to the sun. Filling in personal info. -> "untranslated error message".
Trying again -> no more room for these dates.
Trying again on another computer -> the date itself does lot appear (but other dates do show up as "fully booked")

IS IT SO DIFFICULT?? WHY CAN'T YOU MAKE YOUR WEBZ WORKZ!!?!

"Apple, it just works"
People, we might have misinterpreted the "just"!
"Apple, it only works [the way Apple meant for it to work]"

First step of using a tarball:
$ man tar

-_-

Favorite gcc extension: ({})
I'm not commenting why.

A number of tech projects use mailman for their mailing lists. Yet, mailman sends passwords in plain text to their users, once a month. Wtf?

This is a beautiful rant, it so fits in here!
https://stilldrinking.org/programmi...

What is wrong with me? I noticed I stopped breathing when I code. Coding apnea, anyone else? How can I train myself to keep breathing?

LED! Please, embedded programmers: STOP blinking LEDs, if you don't require immediate attention!!

That phone that would blink through the night charging, I had to put a blanket on it D:<<