• (cs) in reply to First 6 months

    mmm, the brillant paula bean bag girl.

     I'd almost forgive her past sins just for that if it were true.

    But back to the task.  Why wasn't this guy fired right away?

     

  • (cs)

    When I first read the title of this piece I thought it said "First Day Foreskin"

    Wow, that would would have been a very different article indeed... probably NSFW....

    I have a similar story, back in late '99 or early '00; project was also VB 6.0. "Experienced Senior Developer" was hired and put on project. His first task was to make a few changes to a page form in an MDI app, and to allow the page to have multiple instances running.... Now for the VB-unaware to create another instance of and display a VB form you had to code this black-belt level bit of OOP:

    Dim myForm as TheForm
    Set myForm = New TheForm()
    myForm.Show()

    Yeah, stunning right (hey I even remembered the "set" statement, remember those!). So anyway since this guy is an "Experienced Senior Developer" and the changes to the form should have taken a normal person a couple of weeks, so this guy goes to it for a week or so, then we had our "weekly status meeting" (daily scrum could have eliminated so many of these issues....). So in front of the 10 person dev team this guy claims the requirements need to be altered, and the changes they want cannot be done. Project Manager starts sweating, envisioning change control processes; Project Architect looks puzzled since he worked on the requirements. Just what part of the changes are causing a problem? Where is he with the work, after a whole week? Turns out, of course, he's blown the whole week on the "multiple copies" problem. He's "researched and confirmed," VB just can't create more than one copy of a form.... He hasn't even started on anything else....

    He spent another week on our project. I showed him some of the technical intricacies of code like the snippet above. He was then moved onto another project, where he lasted another week. After that he was cut loose.

    Furthering the story, the developer that tech-interviewed this guy (and a few more just like him) eventually moved into Sales. By that time it had become common knowledge that this guy couldn't tech-interview to save his life, and would never be much more than a junior developer (his official title was tech lead). His only apparent skill was talking buzzwords and schmoozing the boss...

    -Me
     

  • (cs) in reply to Billy

    Anonymous:
    So the WTF is that people are still using VB6?

    One of my tasks includes maintaining a VB5 program which cannot even be transfered to VB6 for some reasons.
     

  • Alex (unregistered) in reply to un.sined

    I'm surprised that he knows how to do comments in VB, but didn't comment out save_data()...

  • PHB (unregistered) in reply to mbvlist

    In all likelihood, he was promoted!
     

  • mouseover (unregistered)

    OMG! Reminds of the .NET programmer hired to "help me" get a new web app up and running. We had the Beta on test server  w/SC and the usual file checkin/checkout stuff. If the code happened to down the application, we used pcAnywhere to dial in and reboot IIS. I'd set up permissions on the test server so in a pinch I could do remote WTF stuff to bounce the server itself. I set the up the new programmer's box, gave her all the permissions and tools, walked her through the cycle, showed her how to bounce IIS, bla, bla, bla.

    First problem: she couldn't tell the difference between her desktop and the remote desktop. Explained it in detail. Didn't take. (NEVER took). Her code was craptastic (the captcha test for this comment). I mentored. I covered. I wrote her code. Finally on a break one day, she confessed to having paid for the answers to her .NET qualification tests. Question: was I surprised?
     

  • AncientMariner (unregistered) in reply to ammoQ

    Yep, got one of those too. Mission critical app that will only run on Win95 and VB5 using Kermit over dialup for external comms. Sweet.

  • Pasa (unregistered)

    I just can't get this story. Around here anyone's work starts with 1-3 months of "trial" period, that meand the employer or the employee may terminate the contract any minute not even giving an explanation. 

    And the rationale to have such period is exactly to handle situations like this: not the correct guy was employed for the desired task.

    I also recall Joel's selection criteria: 1: smart 2: gets the job done.  The guy here was definitely neither.  Maybe I wouldn't nuke him right the first day, but if he kept that performance, I sure would not want hin around the next week. 

    So keeping him there for a year is other people's WTF.

  • (cs) in reply to Sizer
    Anonymous:

    Boy, it's not like that when you go to work for small companies!

     At my previous company, on the first day I was there I was asked to find a crasher bug in the ethernet drivers because they were too busy to show me anything. Custom OS on a custom alpha chip platform before we moved it all to Linux.

    On the first day at my current company I was given responsibility for completely replacing all the myriad incompatible custom config scripts on the device with a single manageable script and put in co-charge of the wireless drivers (I had never worked on wireless before in my life, and they knew this, but I had some linux driver experience and plenty of embedded driver experience).

    I rather prefer it like this - it's never boring.


    Sounds familiar.  My first task was to figure out how their installer system worked -- the guy who wrote it had left some time before -- and then unify the application and plugin installers into a single package that could generate either a plugin installer, or an application+plugin installer.
  • (cs) in reply to ParkinT

    ParkinT:
    I am surprised The New Guy could find his way to the bathroom!!
    Did he need instructions to "open the door first, before entering"?

     Door?  What's a door?  Oh, this thing?  (zzzzzzzzzip!)

     

  • EV (unregistered) in reply to Hit

    Anonymous:

    Oh, and before anyone starts, the language used is NOT the WTF.  Alright?

     

    The real wtf is you saying the language is not the wtf...

  • (cs) in reply to Marak

    Anonymous:
    Give the guy a break! The first day at a job is always hard! Plus the syntax that VB 6 uses is VERY complicated. I don't think I could have added those features in a week, let alone one day.

    What is so complicated about save_data()?!  He doesn't have a clue.  He figured out the hardest part--what character starts a comment.  If he doesn't under stand how a function is a block of code statements in VB 6, he doesn't under stand it in any other languages either.  That isn't even ok for an entry-level position.

  • (cs)
    Alex Papadimoulis:

    Private Sub Form_Close()
        'why is this still saving?
        save_data()
    End Sub

    Assuming this was a standard VB6 form rather than some third-party form (WTF if it was, and the only other form designer I know if is MSO's UserForms which don't have a Form_Close either IIRC), the real WTF is that they dedicated a whole subroutine to just calling save_data instead of just shoving the save_data call in Form_Unload with the rest of the on-close stuff.

  • phx (who forgot to login) (unregistered) in reply to Hopeful, or possibly scared
    Anonymous:

    What if Paula looks like Bean Bag Girl?

    What if BBG is Paula?

    *shivers*

    So what if?

     Paula can code better than my current girl. If she looks like BBG then I'd hit it, coding ability aside.

  • (cs) in reply to phx (who forgot to login)

    The solution to this one is simple: VB eats your brain. Unless you've through years of devoutness have mastered Discipline of Structure and Resistance to Enfeeblement the mere visage of Visual Baseness can be enough to shatter your synaptic connections. Have no-one but me ever noticed the greater zombie-to-human ratio at VB-infested workplaces?!

     If you didn't know, "Visual Basic" is really a really an anagram for "The Umbrella Corporation".
     

  • Erik (unregistered)

    Seriously, when you're interviewing us programmers, lay off the "tell me about a time when..." questions and replace with "write a piece of code that does this".

  • Erik (unregistered) in reply to Mikademus
    Mikademus:

    The solution to this one is simple: VB eats your brain. Unless you've through years of devoutness have mastered Discipline of Structure and Resistance to Enfeeblement the mere visage of Visual Baseness can be enough to shatter your synaptic connections. Have no-one but me ever noticed the greater zombie-to-human ratio at VB-infested workplaces?!

    While all technically true, with what other language can you cange code WHILE you're stepping through it???

  • (cs) in reply to Erik

    Erik:

    with what other language can you c[h]ange code WHILE you're stepping through it???

    C#?

  • PHP hater (unregistered)

    its a trap!

    everyone knows that if you work too hard the first day, you will expected to work that hard for the rest of your career!

  • (cs) in reply to Erik
    Anonymous:
    Mikademus:

    The solution to this one is simple: VB eats your brain. Unless you've through years of devoutness have mastered Discipline of Structure and Resistance to Enfeeblement the mere visage of Visual Baseness can be enough to shatter your synaptic connections. Have no-one but me ever noticed the greater zombie-to-human ratio at VB-infested workplaces?!

    While all technically true, with what other language can you cange code WHILE you're stepping through it???


     

    Well, not VB. Running code is marked as read-only and cannot be edited. (I just checked with VS 2003.)


  • RockinJack (unregistered) in reply to Sizer

    Custom OS?!?!

     
    Wow, now THAT's a WTF... 

  • (cs) in reply to aquanight
    aquanight:
    Alex Papadimoulis:

    Private Sub Form_Close()
        'why is this still saving?
        save_data()
    End Sub

    Assuming this was a standard VB6 form rather than some third-party form (WTF if it was, and the only other form designer I know if is MSO's UserForms which don't have a Form_Close either IIRC), the real WTF is that they dedicated a whole subroutine to just calling save_data instead of just shoving the save_data call in Form_Unload with the rest of the on-close stuff.


    There may be other contexts in which you want to save the data, so factoring it out into a subroutine reduces the amount of copy-and-paste you'll need to do.
  • chrxs (unregistered) in reply to dj_axl
    dj_axl:

    Erik:

    with what other language can you c[h]ange code WHILE you're stepping through it???

    C#?

     
    Java? 

  • (cs) in reply to KattMan
    KattMan:

    But back to the task.  Why wasn't this guy fired right away?

    Because that would be admitting to a mistake.

  • Renan renan_s2 (unregistered)

    This is what happened to a Linux sysadmin that I used to talk to on a newsgroup. He hired a guy to help him doing maintenance on the Linux systems (servers, and some desktops).

     But the guy that he had hired didn't know ANYTHING about Linux servers. He didn't even know how to use 'vi' for that matter.

     

    Captcha = chocobot. Not that I care.  


     

  • (cs) in reply to chrxs
    Anonymous:
    dj_axl:

    Erik:

    with what other language can you c[h]ange code WHILE you're stepping through it???

    C#?


    Java? 

    Lisp?

     

  • (cs) in reply to First 6 months

    Yeah it seems like that would be a lot of wasted money. But hey it might be worth it just to let other employees get entertainment out of him.

  • (cs) in reply to themagni
    themagni:
    Anonymous:
    Mikademus:

    The solution to this one is simple: VB eats your brain. Unless you've through years of devoutness have mastered Discipline of Structure and Resistance to Enfeeblement the mere visage of Visual Baseness can be enough to shatter your synaptic connections. Have no-one but me ever noticed the greater zombie-to-human ratio at VB-infested workplaces?!

    While all technically true, with what other language can you cange code WHILE you're stepping through it???


     

    Well, not VB. Running code is marked as read-only and cannot be edited. (I just checked with VS 2003.)


    Set a breakpoint, and when you hit the break, try editing the code then. 

  • (cs) in reply to Joe H.
    Anonymous:

    Worst first day that I ever had at a new company was actually the following:

    I was asked to start on a Wednesday to get a head start on the following week.  I show up, get badged in, sign forms etc... and then shown to my office.  There is a desk, a chair and... thats it.  Actually there were three desks and three chairs.  Oh, and a phone that wasn't connected.

    No, keep in mind that I was hired as a software engineer consultant and I didn't have a computer for 3 full days.  Useful, really.

    I had a similar first week once. It was a summer job, and the area where me and the other summer students were assigned had *just* been converted from warehouse to office space. We had lights, but no other electricity for three days. We had computers from day one though, but that just added to the torment. Luckily that area was pretty isolated from the rest of the office, and there were about six of us there, so we spent most of that time shooting the breeze, and pretending to read manuals when someone came to check on us.

  • Eam (unregistered) in reply to un.sined

    Edit and continue was (re-)added in VS2005.

  • noname (unregistered) in reply to webzter
    webzter:

    Anonymous:
    Give the guy a break! The first day at a job is always hard! Plus the syntax that VB 6 uses is VERY complicated. I don't think I could have added those features in a week, let alone one day.

    We really need a standard of colorizing the sarcastic comments with orange

     

     

    It would have been so much funnier if your comment had been in orange.

  • noname (unregistered) in reply to noname
    Anonymous:
    webzter:

    Anonymous:
    Give the guy a break! The first day at a job is always hard! Plus the syntax that VB 6 uses is VERY complicated. I don't think I could have added those features in a week, let alone one day.

    We really need a standard of colorizing the sarcastic comments with orange

     

     

    It would have been so much funnier if your comment had been in orange.

     

    Dangit, it was orange in the preview.  Nice to see the forum's still the biggest WTF. 

     

  • (cs) in reply to un.sined
    un.sined:
    themagni:
    Anonymous:
    Mikademus:

    The solution to this one is simple: VB eats your brain. Unless you've through years of devoutness have mastered Discipline of Structure and Resistance to Enfeeblement the mere visage of Visual Baseness can be enough to shatter your synaptic connections. Have no-one but me ever noticed the greater zombie-to-human ratio at VB-infested workplaces?!

    While all technically true, with what other language can you cange code WHILE you're stepping through it???


     

    Well, not VB. Running code is marked as read-only and cannot be edited. (I just checked with VS 2003.)


    Set a breakpoint, and when you hit the break, try editing the code then. 

    I just checked with VS 2003. Seriously.

    Just. Checked. 

  • (cs) in reply to Marak

    Anonymous:
    Give the guy a break! The first day at a job is always hard! Plus the syntax that VB 6 uses is VERY complicated. I don't think I could have added those features in a week, let alone one day.

    Of course, very hard day indeed... The guy surely knows about "First Days", because something makes me think he had plenty of those... :rolleyes:

  • Imposter! (unregistered)

    Pretty good anonymizing!  I'm thinking that Devin and the New Guy are the same person.  Like, "Hey Doc, I have this friend with this problem.  Could you help me, uhhh, him out?"  Here's my take on the story with a few minor changes:

    Alex Papadimoulis:

    At most places of work, the First Day is pretty lame. It usually starts off with a boring orientation meeting that's devoid even of bagels, let alone an assortment of danishes and other wholesome pastries. Next up is the insurance forms, the W-2's, and all sorts of other paperwork. And then it's generally topped of with an overworked supervisor plopping down a stack of outdated and mostly irrelevant documentation with the instructions "read through these and I'll show you around later this week." But Devin's company is a little different -- they think it's a bit demoralizing to start out like that, so they make sure that new programmers have an actual, real assignment on their first day. It doesn't have to be big; it just has to be something.

    Devin was responsible for ... the First Assignment. It was a pretty easy one: the client requested that a "Save" and "Cancel" button be added to a form instead of having the form save changes whenever it was closed. Devin walked ... through opening the project up in VB6 and even ... confirmed that all he'd need to do is have the "Save" button close the form after calling the save function and have the "Cancel" button simply close the form. He seemed to understand what needed to be done and Devin figured it'd take ... thirty minutes, tops.

    Five hours later, ... He was having some trouble.
    "I can't figure this out, ... when the form is closed, it automatically saves the data. I don't see how or why it's doing that."

    Devin thought that was a bit odd since the code from that project was ... what he had been working on for the bulk of the day:

        Private Sub Form_Close()
            'why is this still saving?
            save_data()
        End Sub

    "See," ..., "right there, whenever the Form_Close() function executes, the data gets saved!"

    (thinking to himself) "Errr, ... try removing the line that's right below the comment you added?"

    "Ooooh, I see" ...

    Devin left ... and returned the next day ... still "working on getting those buttons added." Now Devin might have found this whole First Day experience a little funny, had he not repeated it with similar "problems" throughout the following year.

    bonzo.captcha("bedtime") = true; 

  • James Schend (unregistered) in reply to newfweiler
    newfweiler:
    Anonymous:
    dj_axl:

    Erik:

    with what other language can you c[h]ange code WHILE you're stepping through it???

    C#?


    Java? 

    Lisp?

     

    Python?

    (Looks like a lot of languages can do this.)

  • (cs) in reply to Carnildo
    Carnildo:
    aquanight:
    Alex Papadimoulis:

    Private Sub Form_Close()
        'why is this still saving?
        save_data()
    End Sub

    Assuming this was a standard VB6 form rather than some third-party form (WTF if it was, and the only other form designer I know if is MSO's UserForms which don't have a Form_Close either IIRC), the real WTF is that they dedicated a whole subroutine to just calling save_data instead of just shoving the save_data call in Form_Unload with the rest of the on-close stuff.


    There may be other contexts in which you want to save the data, so factoring it out into a subroutine reduces the amount of copy-and-paste you'll need to do.

     

    He's not talking about the contents of save_data(), he's talking about the call to save_data() being wrapped twice (Form_Unload -> Form_Close -> save_data) rather than once (Form_Unload -> save_data) with the middle layer adding nothing useful.

     

    newfweiler:
    Anonymous:
    dj_axl:

    Erik:

    with what other language can you c[h]ange code WHILE you're stepping through it???

    C#?


    Java? 

    Lisp?

     

     

    ProvideX.  Okay, it's a niche language compared to the above, but still.

     

    BrownHornet:
    Anonymous:

    Worst first day that I ever had at a new company was actually the following:

    I was asked to start on a Wednesday to get a head start on the following week.  I show up, get badged in, sign forms etc... and then shown to my office.  There is a desk, a chair and... thats it.  Actually there were three desks and three chairs.  Oh, and a phone that wasn't connected.

    No, keep in mind that I was hired as a software engineer consultant and I didn't have a computer for 3 full days.  Useful, really.

    I had a similar first week once. It was a summer job, and the area where me and the other summer students were assigned had *just* been converted from warehouse to office space. We had lights, but no other electricity for three days. We had computers from day one though, but that just added to the torment. Luckily that area was pretty isolated from the rest of the office, and there were about six of us there, so we spent most of that time shooting the breeze, and pretending to read manuals when someone came to check on us.

     

    How many extension cords would you have needed?

     

  • natitfj (unregistered) in reply to GoatCheez

    How can a company Hire someone able to do 'the job' (and learn), yet be Humble enough to ask questions to show that they are open to outside input.  Bust ass, take out the trash because he's the 'new guy' in the company. Take every new task, and complete them on time, or early. (one last note: And admit when wrong, or when something will occur that will cause delay in results) Only to be told 40 days into his 90 trial period, that the owners' have decided to let him go, without reason.

    Fortunately, I still have inside contacts, the company hired a sales person to take the position.  To this day that person hasn't finished a project, nor provided results for the company.  But is on a full time salary pay w/o trial period.

    It Baffles me sometimes.

  • (cs) in reply to Carnildo
    Carnildo:
    aquanight:
    Alex Papadimoulis:

    Private Sub Form_Close()
        'why is this still saving?
        save_data()
    End Sub

    Assuming this was a standard VB6 form rather than some third-party form (WTF if it was, and the only other form designer I know if is MSO's UserForms which don't have a Form_Close either IIRC), the real WTF is that they dedicated a whole subroutine to just calling save_data instead of just shoving the save_data call in Form_Unload with the rest of the on-close stuff.


    There may be other contexts in which you want to save the data, so factoring it out into a subroutine reduces the amount of copy-and-paste you'll need to do.

    In this case, save_data is already a subroutine, and the factored out subroutine is all of one line - a call to another function. In that situation, it would be more appropriate to "unfactor" it out.

  • (cs) in reply to Erik
    Anonymous:
    Mikademus:

    The solution to this one is simple: VB eats your brain. Unless you've through years of devoutness have mastered Discipline of Structure and Resistance to Enfeeblement the mere visage of Visual Baseness can be enough to shatter your synaptic connections. Have no-one but me ever noticed the greater zombie-to-human ratio at VB-infested workplaces?!

    While all technically true, with what other language can you cange code WHILE you're stepping through it???

    C++ (if you are using Visual Studios or any other decent environment)

  • Pig Hogger (unregistered)

    I don’t know VB at all, but I suppose programming it is conceptually similar to Delphi (Visual Pascal?), which I know more, so I’ll assume some kind of similarness.

    My initial reading was that whenever one closed the form, it called a method, say like "FormCloseRequested()", which did the actual saving of data, so whenever you closed the form, by whatever mean (click on the [x], control-w, control-F4, etc.), it automagically saved the data. So the newbie’s job would be to ferret out the saving code from "FormCloseRequested()", excise and shove it in "SaveFormData()" which would be called whenever one clicked [SAVE]…

    (Captcha: awesomeness)

  • (cs) in reply to Pig Hogger

    Anonymous:
    I don’t know VB at all, but I suppose programming it is conceptually similar to Delphi

    Nuh-uh, Delphi is just uncommon but actually pretty nice (C# uses a lot of its ideas). By all accounts, VB (I'm talking pre-VB.net here for the most part) is a bit of a WTF.

    I think the Real WTF here is that the guy lasted longer than a couple of weeks ... there's no excuse for being that crap if he was hired at a programmer.

  • Adrian (unregistered) in reply to themagni

    Yeah edit and continue was VB and !C# in 2003.   Not sure if they were trying to make a comment about VB programmers,  but personally I thought it stank.  After all VC 6 had it.

     

  • rob_squared (unregistered) in reply to ParkinT
    ParkinT:

    Anonymous:
    Seems to be yet another great iteration of Mrs. Bean.

    Oh, and before anyone starts, the language used is NOT the WTF.  Alright?

     

    THAT WOULD BE MS. BEAN, if you don't mind!

    Let's be Politically Correct

     

    </sarcasm>

     

    Thank you!  I cringe at the idea of that woman reproducing. 

  • Brady Kelly (unregistered) in reply to First 6 months

    Anonymous:
    We don't really know the capacity in which this person was hired. Was he a literature major that got an entry-level programming position (no skills might be expected)?

     

    This is something I've noticed ever since the OP.  Everyone is talking about this feeble minded idiot's level of coding skill and nobody has questioned why, even with zero practical coding ability, he couldn't figure out that in some way the word 'save' in the text he commented was doing something!

  • (cs) in reply to Brady Kelly

    Maybe he was the only one willing to get a job doing VB programming.

    Otherwise my guess is he was hired by Human Resources because he had great "interview technique". The fact he couldn't actually program is irrelevant because getting a job is based on interview ability not programming ability.

    btw, it's not always feasible to simply convert an application to a modern system so you can't expect the company to switch everything from VB to .NET and C#.

    It might be that this was the aim and the reason the programmer was hired, and that he had ".NET and C# experience".

     

  • Niels (unregistered) in reply to Hassan Voyeau
    Anonymous:

    Alex Papadimoulis:
    had he not repeated it with similar "problems" throughout the following year.

     I surprised he lasted that long...
     

     

    I'm surprised they didn't 'let go' of him right away. That's what trial periods are for.

  • Kiss me, I'm Polish (unregistered) in reply to rob_squared
    Anonymous:
    ParkinT:

    Anonymous:
    Seems to be yet another great iteration of Mrs. Bean.

    Oh, and before anyone starts, the language used is NOT the WTF.  Alright?

     

    THAT WOULD BE MS. BEAN, if you don't mind!

    Let's be Politically Correct

     

    </sarcasm>

     

    Thank you!  I cringe at the idea of that woman reproducing. 

    That would be actually a funny idea to get Paula and The New Guy together and see what happens when they reproduce. 

  • Baggy McBagster (unregistered)

    (To the tune of the 'numa numa yay' song)

    Beanbag Girrrrrl

    Beanbag beanbag girl

    Beanbag beanbag girl

    Beanbag beanbag beanbag girl

    Beanbag Girrrrrl

    Beanbag beanbag girl

    Beanbag beanbag girl

    Beanbag beanbag beanbag girl

  • (cs)

    Well, well, that surely is not what my first day looked like at the job I'm at right now ;)

     It was like: "Here's the hardware and the CD that came with it, just find the right tools, create a development platform, and start developing, we need a finished product within a few months!"

    It was like getting tossed into a black hole. Well, I like that approach :)

     

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