The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

C-Octothorpe · 2011-06-17 Reply Admin

gs:
C-Octothorpe:
Yeah, I totally agree about number of years != developer skills, but I do watch out for some red flags. Technical ability is great, but if they're going to lie to me before even starting, then show them the door. I wouldn't, however, pass someone over if they claim on their resume that they have 5+ years of WPF, and it's only been our for 4.5 years. I tend to round "up" when it comes to experience as well... :)
It's not even about rounding up... But now I'm really interested to find out:
Picture yourself interviewing a candidate (a seasoned C++ and C#/.NET developer) who, in his role as MS MVP, obtained early access to pre-release versions of ".NET FX"... Which includes "Avalon", as early as May 2005. Immediately recognizing the potential of the new platform, he starts experimenting with XAML and code-behind right away. In July 2005, MS makes the name "WPF" official. Subsequently, your interviewee publishes articles and hold speeches about the future technology. A publisher approaches him for a book about WPF. In September 2005, he is hired for his first real-world project involving WPF. Since then, and up to today, he has been working exclusively on WPF projects, and particularly as an expert of that technology - so in fact and every effect, as of today, your candidate has ~6 years of solid, in-depth, everyday, hands-on experience with WPF.

Now, my question for you, dear valued interviewer: What exactly would you expect your candidate to put in his resume under the item "WPF experience", if not "5+ years", without you accusing him of "lying" or even "rounding up"? Isn't he rather modestly rounding down already? ;-)

Really curious to know...

Wow, this is really bothering you, isn't it? I didn't mean to jar your apparently fragile ego, but here is what I meant as I wasn't really clear with my original post. If an interviewer comes to me and says that he's got 5 years of, lets say SQL experience, and I can see he's only got 4 years and 7 months, I'll let it slide, especially if he shows he knows his stuff. But if he comes to me and tells me he was on the SQL development team, and he obviously wasn't, then his ass is out the door.

BTW, do you often post your resume on forums to make yourself feel better?

Addendum (2011-06-17 05:08): Also, I don't hire self-aggrandizing douche bags...

2011-06-17 Reply Admin

Non-A:
C-Octothorpe:
Matt Westwood:
ben:
dgvid:
Under the category of code smells, repeated calls to activate, redraw, set focus, etc. would be the "smell of fear."
Oh, and 1,890 lines of code for a single screen -- I don't think that's really unusual for WPF, from what little I've done with it so far. WPF has the smell of job security.

I didn't even click on the link and knew it was some fag linking Wikipedia. It's not clever. It's not funny. Just the word "smell" with a link under it and the short, useless, one sentence post was all I needed to know that you were linking the cartoon where the editor iteratively one-up each other on how they input an article.

It was great to read when it came out. It's even great when clicking on the Random Article button on the site and seeing it. It's NOT funny when someone links to it from a one-sentence post and thinks they're so fucking clever to have discovered Wikipedia.

You probably still use lmgtfy and think you're so damn clever.

It means in real life, you're an unoriginal hipster doofus.

Got anything to do with sanitizing inputs to a SQL database, etc.? Link to Secure input and output handling. Got a nerd-project slow-ass turing machine? Like a minecraft logic circuit from redstone? Link to the one where it's some guy alone in the world making Stonehenge out of rocks. Got a story about password security or encryption? Link to the one where they broke RSA cryptography with brute force attacks.

Fuck off. You're not clever.

Well, you're a fucking offensive cunt, aren't you, shithead?

Yep, that was the sound of the joke going over your head...

woosh

... actually, I'm not being fair. There was this douchebag ted who flamed on the fact that people link to old xkcd articles, and this was a parody of it... I would link to it myself, but it may create a rift in the space-time continuum, and because I'm lazy.

No no! We should link to it so then someone can flame me for linking to a Daily WTF comment!

I didn't even click on the link and knew it was some fag linking a TDWTF comment ...

2011-06-17 Reply Admin

C-Octothorpe:
Wow, this is really bothering you, isn't it? I didn't mean to jar your apparently fragile ego [...]

Yes, it does bother me - but it is not about ego. What really bothers me is the idea that there are interviewers out there in the recruitment process in our industry who apparently base their hiring decisions on "knee-jerk reactions" and premature assumptions.

C-Octothorpe:
[...] but here is what I meant as I wasn't really clear with my original post.

I agree - your original post was indeed unclear, then. To me, it sounded rather like you're discarding anything like "5+ years WPF" as impossible, and (in your subsequent posts) insulting anyone making such a claim as being a liar.

C-Octothorpe:
BTW, do you often post your resume on forums to make yourself feel better?

What made you think it is in any way related to my resume? Ah, right - just another assumption... Of course.

2011-06-17 Reply Admin

C-Octothorpe:
Addendum (2011-06-17 05:08): Also, I don't hire self-aggrandizing douche bags...

LOL! Yeah - that's exactly the kind of arrogance that would probably have made you reject candidates like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg. // To name just three well-kown, self-aggrandizing, extremely successful genius douche bags. :D

Good thing none of them ever needed to depend on being "hired" by a narrow-minded "recruiter". <whew!>

2011-06-17 Reply Admin

ben:
dgvid:
Under the category of code smells, repeated calls to activate, redraw, set focus, etc. would be the "smell of fear."
Oh, and 1,890 lines of code for a single screen -- I don't think that's really unusual for WPF, from what little I've done with it so far. WPF has the smell of job security.

I didn't even click on the link and knew it was some fag linking Wikipedia. It's not clever. It's not funny. Just the word "smell" with a link under it and the short, useless, one sentence post was all I needed to know that you were linking the cartoon where the editor iteratively one-up each other on how they input an article.

It was great to read when it came out. It's even great when clicking on the Random Article button on the site and seeing it. It's NOT funny when someone links to it from a one-sentence post and thinks they're so fucking clever to have discovered Wikipedia.

You probably still use lmgtfy and think you're so damn clever.

It means in real life, you're an unoriginal hipster doofus.

Got anything to do with sanitizing inputs to a SQL database, etc.? Link to Secure input and output handling. Got a nerd-project slow-ass turing machine? Like a minecraft logic circuit from redstone? Link to the one where it's some guy alone in the world making Stonehenge out of rocks. Got a story about password security or encryption? Link to the one where they broke RSA cryptography with brute force attacks.

Fuck off. You're not clever.

And you're not funny. It wouldn't surprise me if you had no friends IRL. You certainly don't deserve any. Maybe you should try going outside once in a while.

C-Octothorpe · 2011-06-17 Reply Admin

gs:
C-Octothorpe:
Addendum (2011-06-17 05:08): Also, I don't hire self-aggrandizing douche bags...
LOL! Yeah - that's exactly the kind of arrogance that would probably have made you reject candidates like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg. // To name just three well-kown, self-aggrandizing, extremely successful genius douche bags. :D
Good thing none of them ever needed to depend on being "hired" by a narrow-minded "recruiter". <whew!>

LOL, now I know you're a self-aggrandizing douche bag if you put yourself on the same page as any of the industry setting juggernauts/geniuses you mentioned.

Also, as I tried to explain but you failed yet again to understand is that the only place I had the "knee-jerk" reaction was while reading your post, but you keep misunderstanding and coming to your own conclusions.

Addendum (2011-06-17 08:01):

gs:
C-Octothorpe:
Addendum (2011-06-17 05:08): Also, I don't hire self-aggrandizing douche bags...
LOL! Yeah - that's exactly the kind of arrogance that would probably have made you reject candidates like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg. // To name just three well-kown, self-aggrandizing, extremely successful genius douche bags. :D
Good thing none of them ever needed to depend on being "hired" by a narrow-minded "recruiter". <whew!>

LOL, now I know you're a self-aggrandizing douche bag if you put yourself on the same page as any of the industry setting juggernauts/geniuses you mentioned.

I tried to explain but you failed yet again to understand is that the only place I had the "knee-jerk" reaction was while reading your post, which I may remind you is on an anonimous forum of no consequence.

2011-06-17 Reply Admin

C-Octothorpe:
gs:
...Bill Gates, Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg...
...industry setting juggernauts/geniuses...

None of these are geniuses. Zuckerberg is a complete idiot who got lucky. Kind of like Mark Cuban.

2011-06-17 Reply Admin

is .NET

2011-06-17 Reply Admin

Well played.

TheCPUWizard · 2011-06-17 Reply Admin

Jiminy:
Before that, I was having 20+ years solid Java experience - and all before I'm 30!!

Consider. a man-year is generally considered to be 2000 hours. I have been developing software an average of 60 hours per week (and I actually have the logs for most of them) since June 1975, or 36 years * 52 weeks * 60 hours. This is (approx) 112 thousand hours or 56.6 man years.

Since I am younger than that (not by that many years, but still), my "years" ofprofessional experience actually do exceed my age.

2011-06-17 Reply Admin

ted:
eVil:
Olius:
If you are an Enterprise Architect, are you going to have them change the "Active" function to "Engage" ?

MakeItSo();

Number riker = new Integer(1); riker.makeItSo();

The real WTF ? neither Picard nor Riker were Enterprise Architects... they were end-users...

Try Doctor Leah Brahms instead.

( Or Andrew Probert, who was himself building on the earlier work of Matt Jeffries... )

2011-06-17 Reply Admin

How else are you supposed to activate your Wonder Twin Powers?!?!? >;->

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_PtEybEQzLf4/SbZ3cWLum5I/AAAAAAAAAw4/Ml8Ug3XCT8U/s320/Wonder+Twins.jpg

2011-06-17 Reply Admin

Sarah Jane Smith:
sad, but I read this in a Dalek voice...

+1 This is exactly how I read it the first time as well.

2011-06-18 Reply Admin

The real WTF is that you're called an Enterprise Architect.

If you're looking at code, you aren't doing Enterprise Architecture.

2011-06-18 Reply Admin

Activ8(); //!!!!!!!!

CAPTCHA: cogo - I wanted to try out my cogo stick, but my pants got caught on the gears.

2011-06-20 Reply Admin

All this talk about what several means... Just use the Heroes III labels of course:

Few 1-4 Several 5-9 Pack 10-19 Lots 20-49 Horde 50-99 Throng 100-249 Swarm 250-499 Zounds 500-999 Legion 1000+

So see several is actually more than 5 and less than 9 :D

2011-06-20 Reply Admin

It's clearly an Activate per power ranger but they forgot the string in the signature and the fact that there is only 7 colours!

Activate("Red"); Activate("Blue"); Activate("Yellow"); Activate("Pink"); Activate("Black"); Activate("Green"); Activate("White");

2011-06-20 Reply Admin

Wonder twin powers Activate(); Activate(); Activate(); Activate(); Activate(); Activate(); Activate(); Activate();

kabelo · 2011-06-28 Reply Admin

Wondering in Motion:
Without knowing what Activate() does how would I know this is a legitimate WTF?

I would assume it activates something --- 1 thing at that, since the function doesn't have any parameters...

2011-06-30 Reply Admin

Yohann:
It's so obious he shall have writed ;
for(i=0;i++;i<8) { activate(); }

so we have a better readability maintenance is easy (want 50 activate just change the number)

for (i=0;i++;i<100) { comment(); }

This code is a prime example of the old saying "Doing something over and over again expecting different results each time is the definition of insanity"

>sarcasm< Good thing we live in a crazy world or this wouldn't fly. he could write an adapter class that makes the calls for him - that way if he needs to do it in other parts of the code - he can just call the adapter classes method - heck; he can even go so far as to use this loop in his adapter.>/sarcasm<

2011-06-30 Reply Admin

kabelo:
Wondering in Motion:
Without knowing what Activate() does how would I know this is a legitimate WTF?

I would assume it activates something --- 1 thing at that, since the function doesn't have any parameters...

Maybe he's using the magic of polymorphism to switch what each call to the Activate method does - there could be an observer with a counter behind the scenes that tracks which call it is on and uses the strategy pattern based on the number of calls to said method to load different blocks of code behind the scenes based on how many times it gets called.

Or he's just plain crazy...

hoodaticus · 2011-07-12 Reply Admin

.Net Guy:
nobulate:
I'm so sick of seeing code implementing the wrong technology for the right solution!
Speed up your code, responsive UI and great UX, on multi-core CPU's; The right solutions is this:
    System.Threading.ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem(
    new System.Threading.WaitCallback(Activate), 8);
Just make sure you deactivate crossthread exceptions...

8 calls to BeginInvoke would have ruined the elegance of his "solution".

hoodaticus · 2011-07-12 Reply Admin

Matt Westwood:
C-Octothorpe:
Just a Commenter:
The blacked words and thinking of the Nagesh character involved made me shoot hot coffee out of several orifices simultaneously.

I can understand the first 3 orifices, but anymore than that and you should probably see a doctor.

Mouth, nostrils, eyes, ears, urethra, anus, belly-button, nipples and sweatglands - where's the problem?

The belly button is an artery - not an orifice. You sick fuck.

2011-07-13 Reply Admin

MicrosoftDev:
But why 10 time?

To annoy the user who is desperately trying to do something in another window.

Seriously, adding Activate() calls as a workaround for failed activations that fail when the CPU load is high - this is just going to lead to an arms race and more CPU load as more apps add Activate()s.

tgape · 2011-08-08 Reply Admin

C-Octothorpe:
gs:
Seems weird, indeed, at first glance... But as an experienced (5+ years) WPF developer,

I figured someone with 5+ years of WPF experience would notice that it hasn't been around for even 5 years yet... Hmm...

Reminds me of an interview I did back in 2000. The resume we got claimed 35 years of unix experience. So, when the guy came in, one of my coworkers led with the question, "So, how's Brian doing these days?"

The candidate was a bit confused by this, until we mentioned that his resume claimed 35 years of experience, so he'd know Brian. He asked to see the resume, and gave us a copy of his real, undoctored resume to look at while he checked out what lies the headhunter had put on the resume she shipped us. His actual resume only claimed 25 years of experience, and didn't list any of his OS experience before that.

Unfortunately, as with many older computer people, he hadn't really kept up with the times; he still wrote exclusively in Bourne shell for anything that didn't rise to the level of needing C programming. As I was working at a PHP and Perl shop at the time, and neither were listed on his real resume, he dismissed himself from the interview, saving all of us about 55 minutes.

Between this and a few other major resume 'touch up' blunders, we shortly thereafter gave that headhunter notice, and did not use them again, at least while I was still working there.

2013-01-26 Reply Admin

I shudder to think what the destructors looked like.

Exterminate(); Exterminate(); Exterminate(); Exterminate();

That'll learn them for hiring Darleks as software developers!

Activate!!!!!!!!

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