I have no mouth and I must scream

Normalize asking "but why do i need docker" for an app that is literally just an executable + database.

"We're surprised some tasks were getting done faster after you left."

No shit, Sherlock. 3 teams, each having multiple devs waiting with their own support queue, sat in on my handover. If they weren't getting done faster you're in a lot more trouble than you thought and I'd have jumped ship much faster.

Does devrant support any of the fediverse stuff?

If multiple engineers say something about their system design that is so stupid it cant possibly be true, it's gotta be. Holy eff it is.

I might be getting too sassy for this racket.

I must have offended Satan or something, but I'm pulling my hairs out over this client data that feels like a fractal of bad validation invented to torment me. Misspelled field names, improperly combined fields, entries in the wrong column, impossible addresses, non-matching staging and production data / keys, invisible freaking characters that ruin automated matching - every dam thing you fix and the next one hits you in the face like a clown stepping on a rake. Jesus.

Protip: SSDs will help your PC boot up and run programs faster. If your computer doesnt have an SSD, you can always add one or two later.

Being the tech guy in a professional services group be like

Out of nowhere, someone called me from a jobs board and said that they really liked my profile and that they sent me a job invite and they were in a hurry to get someone new - with my profile exactly. I haven't logged into that jobs board for a couple months, but upon checking, I see that their company sent me an invite and that the working environment was great. Remote first, no daily standups, competitive pay, and the site was legit. So okay, I accept their invite.

The next day I got an email back saying unfortunately they would close the application because they were only hiring people with a couple years experience in some tech... which was listed in my profile in the jobs board.

I'm like lolwut you invited me, don't you turn that around like I'm begging you for a job.

In the devrant frontpage I see:
Js bro
Design hipster
Algo sister

Is this really what they look like? I have seen both design hipster and algo sister but Im not that sure about Js bro

The problem with Java errors is you ask for the error of a banana and you get the stack trace of the past 100M years of evolution.

Bonus points if the person asking me to write tests is a direct contributor to the feature and he's low-key asking me to cover his code.

Only wrong because anger comes second. 😂

That moment when your client expects the design mockup to "go live".

I put an end-of-the-universe-grade password in (quadrillions of years to break) which hits all 4 criteria and I cant get it to pass. :O

About half a dozen people have been assigned to do different aspects of the job I left. Things still blow up. People still ask me for help and favors.

Love your sysads.

Let's talk about the cargo cult of N-factor authentication. It's not some magic security dust you can just sprinkle onto your app "for security purposes".

I once had a client who had a client who I did server maintenance for. Every month I was scheduled to go to the site, stick my fingerprint in their scanner, which would then display my recorded face prominently on their screens, have my name and purpose verified by the contact person, and only then would the guards let me in.

HAHA no of course not. On top of all of that, they ask for a company ID and will not let me in without one.

Because after all, I can easily forge my face, fingerprints, on-site client contact, appointment, and approval. But printing out and laminating a company ID is impossible.

---

With apologies to my "first best friend" in High School, I've forgotten which of the dozens of canonicalisations of which of your nicknames I've put in as my answer to your security question. I've also forgotten if I actually listed you as my first best friend, or my dog - which would actually be more accurate - and actually which dog, as there are times in my High School life that there were more tails than humans in the house.

I have not forgotten these out of spite, but simply because I have also forgotten which of the dozen services of this prominent bullshit computer company I actually signed up for way back in college, which itself has been more than a decade ago. That I actually apparently already signed up for the service before actually eludes me, because in fact, I have no love for their myriad products.

What I have NOT forgotten is my "end of the universe"-grade password, or email, or full legal name and the ability to demonstrate a clear line of continuity of my identity from wherever that was to now.

Because of previous security screwups in the past, this prominent bullshit company has forced its users to activate its second, third, and Nth factors. A possibly decade-old security question; a phone number long lost; whatever - before you can use your account.

Note: not "view sensitive data" about the account, like full name, billing address, and contact info. Not "change settings" of the account, such as changing account info, email, etc. Apparently all those are the lowest tier of security meant to be protected by mere "end of the universe"-grade passwords and a second factor such as email, which itself is likely to be sold by a company that also cargo cults N-factor auth. For REAL hard info, let's ask the guy who we just showed the address to "What street he lived in" and a couple others.

Explaining this to the company's support hotline is an exercise in...

"It's for your security."

"It's not. You're just locking me out of my account. I can show you a government ID corroborating all the other account info."

"But we can't, for security."

"It's not security. Get me your boss."

...

"It's for security."

Realtalk: I LOL when I read corporate BS that talks up product, skillz, or tech. But when I fix something in the background, and I read the manager's client email saying something like "our marvellous technical team has found the issue and resolved it" I gotta say I wanna strut for a bit. <_<

*looks at job posting*
*more than half of the first sentence are tech buzz acronyms*
*closes tab immediately*

I thought this was a joke. D:
https://docs.spring.io/autorepo/...

Client: I just want a very basic modification, something a skilled developer could do in a couple hours.

Me: sounds great, can I look at your requirements?

*sees user-defined fields, workflows, navigation, roles, styling, customization everywhere*

D:

"Container design patterns" don't depend on containers

Some people like to spring clean, rearrange their house, wash their car, build shelves, or some other chore.

Me? I just spent a couple or so days manually "syncing" the packages on my 2 laptops. That is, making sure that `apt-mark showmanual` and `dpkg-query -l` shows the exact same output on both of them, by manually apt-marking / apt-get installing / removing the exact same set of packages as manual/auto and ensuring the exact same set of "recommended" / "suggested" packages are pulled as dependencies on both.

The end result is a sysad's ideal - I have wasted countless hours making sure absolutely nothing has changed. But hey, my package list is clean, and if aliens from a software dimension abducted one laptop... I have an exact clone ready.

If they followed my suggestion and went straight to debugging the server issues they would have been solved it from week 1 and everyone would have thought the migration had a minor performance hiccup. In fact, we have already done such at least twice before and nobody batted an eye.

Instead they self-labelled the migration a failure on first error, setting the stage for apologizing to the client, and put themselves on the spot for a whole staging / production signoff, replication / backup worfklow, almost a blue-green "seamless" deployment reminiscent of DigitalOcean.

Well they're not DigitalOcean, and anyone who has spent any time understanding users knows they will not participate in "new system" tests long enough to find or report issues.

So of course the migration stretched out to almost three months up until the whole reason for the migration - the rapidly escalating risk of the old provider disappearing - hit like a freight train and now they have to go through the problem of debugging the server like I told them to on week 1. Only this time they've set the client mindset against it, lost any chance of reverting, have had grave risk for data loss, and are under pressure to debug other people's code in real-time.

This is why I don't trust devs to do ops. A dev's first solution to any problem is to throw tech at it.

So i just joined the "dropped my thinkpad and it made a sickening noise" club.

It lives.

To those who think the kernel "lacks diversity": http://remword.com/kps_result/...

There are more COMPANIES contributing to the kernel than most github projects have stars. There are more COUNTRIES contributing to the kernel than most software projects have active developers.There are more COMMITS going through the kernel per day than most software projects have in their entire lifetime.

So an old friend (high school classmate) asked me recommendations on several older/second hand laptop ads he saw online. He listed several items with detailed specs sheets and I replied with

Ctrl+F thinkpad
Search term not found

and linked him to a thinkpad ad in the same price range but better specs.

I... still swear Im not a fanboy.

Sometimes I wonder if actors who play wizards or superbeings feel stupid waving their hands for CG lightning bolts

Then I remember all the kung fu poses and punches and shrieks I do when I solve a hard bug

On the feedback form of a new app I started using, I gave several suggestions of features I'd really like to have. As a joke, number 6 was "hire me and Ill write them".

They didn't take it as a joke. Im now 3/4 of the way through their hiring process and they like me the best of all applicants.