The Daily WTF: Curious Perversions in Information Technology

Matt Westwood · 2011-03-02 Reply Admin

Fats Geronimo:
Anonymous:
fritters:
C-Octothorpe:
Man, is it really the norm for developers to be worked to the bone, for free, and usually for nothing (customer doesn't see feature or isn't really THAT critical)? If that's so, either I've had really good luck or my bosses could tell ahead of time that I would laugh in their face if they asked me to work for free...

Well, luckily as I said I was being paid 150% overtime (and if I really wanted to I could probably have charged 200% for working on a statutory holiday, but I just took a different day off in lieu after the deadline was reached).

I wouldn't mind working small amounts of unpaid overtime, occasionally -- every company has tight spots and I identify with my company enough to know that if things go well for them, things go better for me too. And frankly sometimes it's my own fault for goofing off during work hours and not getting it done within 7.5 hours. By "small amounts" I mean, perhaps 1-2 hours a week. I feel embarrassed even writing that down on the timesheet.

But if you expect me to work 12+ hour days, 7 days a week, in order to hit an arbitrary deadline that was imposed upon me, then I definitely expect overtime pay, and lots of it. And even then, I only want to do that sort of pace occasionally.

I know guys who worked like that for years on a stretch. The money was good but nobody ever saw them. I could only handle a pace like that for a few months before I decide that the managers here can't schedule anything properly and I start looking elsewhere. Craploads of overtime pay is nice, but I prefer having time for a life.

I flat refuse to work overtime, ever. If I can't get it done within my standard working hours (10:30 - 5:30) then it's somebody else's problem. It's nice to be "irreplaceable" (or rather, the only person in the company who has ever developed one of our flagship products - a close second to irreplaceable).

7 hour days? No wonder the EU has to set up massive trade barriers to preserve their second rate economy.

Yeah well I've worked in a couple of your American "offices" and the staff seem to treat it like one great big social club whose purpose is to eat pizza. Work ... what's that?

2011-03-02 Reply Admin

-Actually, I'm 24 and the first thing I thought of was Smalltalk the OO language, not Smalltalk as in smalltalk. Maybe I'm just damaged.

-Probably... and I bet you speak with a Lisp also... and geeky enough to have a pet Python at home...

-So many perls of wisdom here, I'm just sitting here gawking.

-That's what she sed.

-These are terrific! I'm assembling a list of them. Watfor, I don't know...

STOP! The really depressing thing is that I know all(?) these references! I feel soooo old :-)

Silverhill · 2011-03-02 Reply Admin

Lawrence had a disturbing sense of dejá vu.

<nitpick> That should be "déjà vu" (all over again, of course). </nitpick>

they were now proudly compliant with industry standard X30-Q

I would have preferred the Iludium Q-36 standard!

somedude · 2011-03-02 Reply Admin

WTF. No new article today. Settle for Haiku?

somedude · 2011-03-02 Reply Admin

Bit Head:
some guy:
trwtf:
EatenByAGrue:
chron3:
martiert:
Actually, I'm 24 and the first thing I thought of was Smalltalk the OO language, not Smalltalk as in smalltalk. Maybe I'm just damaged.

Probably... and I bet you speak with a Lisp also... and geeky enough to have a pet Python at home...

So many perls of wisdom here, I'm just sitting here gawking.

That's what she sed.

Groovy.
These are terrific! I'm assembling a list of them. Watfor, I don't know...

I see sharp people.

2011-03-02 Reply Admin

[quote user="Anonymous"][quote user="fritters"] I flat refuse to work overtime, ever. If I can't get it done within my standard working hours (10:30 - 5:30) then it's somebody else's problem. It's nice to be "irreplaceable" (or rather, the only person in the company who has ever developed one of our flagship products - a close second to irreplaceable).[/quote]

To "Anonymous" and others who are on a similar kick, I'll start by quoting an earlier post: [quote user="C-Octothorpe"]...when I'm ready to bust my butt, go for the death march ones. They're usually way more fun and have people with better personalities and tend to be more technically adept. These are the contracts where I learn the most...[/quote]

Several reasons for working our butts off, late hours, etc without extra pay.

They are a LOT of fun.
Learn lots.
Exciting, often/usually doing something new (R in R&D)
... others, like C-Octothorpe's better people ...

"Exempt" positions do not get overtime.

Me? I always kept a record of my time and took comp time. Piled up a great amount of Vacation Time. I would take the yearly vacation time (maybe a week more) but told my boss(es) that it was comp time (maybe a week of real vacation time -- have to keep under the carry-over limit). Only one boss was unhappy about that, and even he didn't actually say anything about it.

Projects I worked on often did not have enough [prototype] machines for everyone to work 8 to 5, some had to work later. You could get more time late (at lest some). But additionally was a great amount of pressure to hit the final due date (which always was missed anyway). Often the schedule was, in fact, done without too much violence to the engineer's schedules -- but software types tend to underestimate. So pride was also a factor.

Tom Gilb (author of "Principles of Software Engineering Software" -- great book!) said that Hardware Managers know that Hardware Engineers underestimate by a factor of two, so they double the engineers' estimates. Software engineers underestimate by a factor of four, so managers take their estimates and half them!

One of my co-workers said, "I'm having so much fun, I can't believe that they actually pay me for doing this!"

For those who won't work in those conditions, good! I wouldn't want to work with you either. So we are both happy.

Anyway, in the R&D world in the USA, often we don't quit because there are enough side benefits to doing the occasional death march (besides cash) to keep us doing it.

Number One Reason: it is FUN (and exciting).

2011-03-02 Reply Admin

caper:
> Tops, 20.
I almost had a Spitbol when I saw that.

Hah! What a pip!

2011-03-02 Reply Admin

JimTheJam:
Anonymous:
fritters:
I flat refuse to work overtime, ever. If I can't get it done within my standard working hours (10:30 - 5:30) then it's somebody else's problem. It's nice to be "irreplaceable" (or rather, the only person in the company who has ever developed one of our flagship products - a close second to irreplaceable).

To "Anonymous" and others who are on a similar kick, I'll start by quoting an earlier post:

C-Octothorpe:
...when I'm ready to bust my butt, go for the death march ones. They're usually way more fun and have people with better personalities and tend to be more technically adept. These are the contracts where I learn the most...

Several reasons for working our butts off, late hours, etc without extra pay.

They are a LOT of fun.

Learn lots.

Exciting, often/usually doing something new (R in R&D)

... others, like C-Octothorpe's better people ...

"Exempt" positions do not get overtime.

Me? I always kept a record of my time and took comp time. Piled up a great amount of Vacation Time. I would take the yearly vacation time (maybe a week more) but told my boss(es) that it was comp time (maybe a week of real vacation time -- have to keep under the carry-over limit). Only one boss was unhappy about that, and even he didn't actually say anything about it.

Projects I worked on often did not have enough [prototype] machines for everyone to work 8 to 5, some had to work later. You could get more time late (at lest some). But additionally was a great amount of pressure to hit the final due date (which always was missed anyway). Often the schedule was, in fact, done without too much violence to the engineer's schedules -- but software types tend to underestimate. So pride was also a factor.

Tom Gilb (author of "Principles of Software Engineering Software" -- great book!) said that Hardware Managers know that Hardware Engineers underestimate by a factor of two, so they double the engineers' estimates. Software engineers underestimate by a factor of four, so managers take their estimates and half them!

One of my co-workers said, "I'm having so much fun, I can't believe that they actually pay me for doing this!"

For those who won't work in those conditions, good! I wouldn't want to work with you either. So we are both happy.

Anyway, in the R&D world in the USA, often we don't quit because there are enough side benefits to doing the occasional death march (besides cash) to keep us doing it.

Number One Reason: it is FUN (and exciting).

In between some of that I agree (I think - it was a little all over).

I work as a programmer/software engineer/call me what you will because I enjoy the work I do (not always the process or politics involved but meh). I believe in being fairly compensated, but this includes an unwritten (or even unsaid in some instances) agreement that I've had with my employers that I am responsible for getting my work done. This means that although I don't formally have flex time, no-one will complain, provided they think I am doing enough work to justify them paying me 38 hours (Note Well: It is not about the hours per se' it is about the work getting done).

One of my pet peeves in IT (and in the world on the whole, if we're being honest) is the notion of 'Fair Pay' (closely related to 'Equal Opportunities'). People are different. Some differences relate to race, gender, religion, intelligence, work ethic, etc..... The very notion of rewarding people equally irrespective of their ability to get the job done is ludicrous. Employment is an agreement between the employer and an employee that the employee will assist the employer get a particular task done. Because the employer will (hopefully) be making money for this, they agree to pass on some money to the employee. It is only reasonable, then, that the people who can maximise the profit of the employer (or minimise the time it takes for him to make it, thereby maximising the amount that he could potentially make in the longer term) should be best rewarded. While I don't think we should encourage 'cowboy' attitudes (and should acknowledge that sometimes the most significant work goes unnoticed) I would like to think that for the most part, the most valuable people are rewarded well. I guess this has been discussed in the soap box here and on several other sites (there's one about paying IT people like sports stars somewhere). I realise that this industry (probably more than any other) does have a certain arrogance associated with it (often unjustifiably so), however I think part of the reason is that it does tend to require more specialised skills, adaptability and a whole host of other things. That said, I think there are people who could survive with 'most any (programming) language that they encountered, and others that struggle with any (and tend to be the ones who specialise themselves into a specific job). But I guess I'm digressing....

<off Topic> Too often, the Dilbert principle seems to be applied: "How do you manage High-Performers?" "We reward them with more work until they are so overloaded that their performance drops"

2011-03-02 Reply Admin

Jallongaly:
<snip> <off Topic> Too often, the Dilbert principle seems to be applied: "How do you manage High-Performers?" "We reward them with more work until they are so overloaded that their performance drops"

OOPS!! Not THE Dilbert Principle, but certainly from a dilbert 'strip....

2011-03-02 Reply Admin

C-Octothorpe:
Ting Sao Wu:
C-Octothorpe:
Bryan the K:
Nothing a coders death march can't fix.

Where's Nagesh when you need him...

Offshoring anyone?

Maybe not be starting racism debate again, eh?

Maybe find out what racism actually means before accusing someone of it, eh?

rac·ism –noun

Useless funking Wagnall's definition of a "Dictionary Racist" deleted.

What racism actually means is based upon the results -- the act of giving (or denying) someone a benefit, on the basis of their ethnic group, rather than the actual circumstances.

C-Octothorpe:
As far as I can tell, my comment doesn't meet any of the above criteria... I was replying to Bryan's comment about throwing coders at a problem and the problem will go away, which is a huge misnomer but continues to be very popular among many dim-witted managers.

It would take some hand-waving to construe your comment as meeting the dictionary definition of racism, or the real definition either. You were just suggesting this management could easily compound one of their misconceptions with that other popular foible -- that offshoring will get those runaway projects back on time and under budget. Your words only implied things about cost, not about race.

Bah, who cares... I'm not going to spoon-feed this to you.

If you're going to defend yourself based on the real meaning of a word, you should use the real meaning. Racism is about behavior, not about whatever weird doctrines might drive people to this behavior. Racists tend to hide behind their dictionaries; will you?

2011-03-02 Reply Admin

The Crunger:
C-Octothorpe:
Ting Sao Wu:
C-Octothorpe:
Bryan the K:
Nothing a coders death march can't fix.

Where's Nagesh when you need him...

Offshoring anyone?

Maybe not be starting racism debate again, eh?

Maybe find out what racism actually means before accusing someone of it, eh?

rac·ism –noun

Useless funking Wagnall's definition of a "Dictionary Racist" deleted.

What racism actually means is based upon the results -- the act of giving (or denying) someone a benefit, on the basis of their ethnic group, rather than the actual circumstances.

C-Octothorpe:
As far as I can tell, my comment doesn't meet any of the above criteria... I was replying to Bryan's comment about throwing coders at a problem and the problem will go away, which is a huge misnomer but continues to be very popular among many dim-witted managers.

It would take some hand-waving to construe your comment as meeting the dictionary definition of racism, or the real definition either. You were just suggesting this management could easily compound one of their misconceptions with that other popular foible -- that offshoring will get those runaway projects back on time and under budget. Your words only implied things about cost, not about race.

Bah, who cares... I'm not going to spoon-feed this to you.

If you're going to defend yourself based on the real meaning of a word, you should use the real meaning. Racism is about behavior, not about whatever weird doctrines might drive people to this behavior. Racists tend to hide behind their dictionaries; will you?

Settle down nagesh.... he's not talking about programmers from India....

2011-03-03 Reply Admin

It reminds me something...

2011-03-03 Reply Admin

This is more horrifying than most Horror movies I've seen.

2011-03-03 Reply Admin

these puns are so bad, I no longer C-sharp.

2011-03-03 Reply Admin

Fats Geronimo:
Anonymous:
fritters:
C-Octothorpe:
Man, is it really the norm for developers to be worked to the bone, for free, and usually for nothing (customer doesn't see feature or isn't really THAT critical)? If that's so, either I've had really good luck or my bosses could tell ahead of time that I would laugh in their face if they asked me to work for free...

Well, luckily as I said I was being paid 150% overtime (and if I really wanted to I could probably have charged 200% for working on a statutory holiday, but I just took a different day off in lieu after the deadline was reached).

I wouldn't mind working small amounts of unpaid overtime, occasionally -- every company has tight spots and I identify with my company enough to know that if things go well for them, things go better for me too. And frankly sometimes it's my own fault for goofing off during work hours and not getting it done within 7.5 hours. By "small amounts" I mean, perhaps 1-2 hours a week. I feel embarrassed even writing that down on the timesheet.

But if you expect me to work 12+ hour days, 7 days a week, in order to hit an arbitrary deadline that was imposed upon me, then I definitely expect overtime pay, and lots of it. And even then, I only want to do that sort of pace occasionally.

I know guys who worked like that for years on a stretch. The money was good but nobody ever saw them. I could only handle a pace like that for a few months before I decide that the managers here can't schedule anything properly and I start looking elsewhere. Craploads of overtime pay is nice, but I prefer having time for a life.

I flat refuse to work overtime, ever. If I can't get it done within my standard working hours (10:30 - 5:30) then it's somebody else's problem. It's nice to be "irreplaceable" (or rather, the only person in the company who has ever developed one of our flagship products - a close second to irreplaceable).

7 hour days? No wonder the EU has to set up massive trade barriers to preserve their second rate economy.

Good lord no, 7 hour days aren't normal, they don't even have days that short in France. No no, my contract specifies a 40 hour week - I just don't bother working it. Remember what I said about being irreplaceable? When you've got your company over a barrel you can pretty much set your own work hours.

2011-03-03 Reply Admin

And how so true

luis.espinal · 2011-03-03 Reply Admin

This wtf brings back painful memories, ugh!

2011-03-03 Reply Admin

Perhaps some sort of Julian date - YYDDD. Or for the moderately evil, YYXDD, with the X being the month, in hex. Or if you want to get into SERIOUS evil, there's always CYYXD, where

C = Century offset from 15 i.e. 0 = 1500's 1 = 1600's 2 = 1700's 3 = 1800's 4 = 1900's 5 = 2000's 6 = 2100's etc YY = year within century (00 - 99) X = month, in hex D = day of month, base 36

There ya go - handles all dates from Jan 1, 1500 - Dec 31, 2499 in ONLY 5 characters. If I spent a few minutes to work out a single-character encoding for base 100 I could get it down to 4 characters!!! BU-WAH-HAH-HAH!!!

Ol' Bob, Evil Master of COBOL

2011-03-03 Reply Admin

If you ask me, someone needs to put a "hard deadline" on new articles.

2011-03-03 Reply Admin

I'm pretty sure I'm going to strangle the penguin if he doesn't post a new article soon.

operagost · 2011-03-03 Reply Admin

Kjella:
fritters:
My fellow developers and I, knowing that we had little more than prototype code at that point, estimated another 2-3 months, easily. (...) "I really need it done in 3 weeks", boss says. (...) At least I got lots of overtime pay.

If my boss is ready to pay me 150%/200% overtime for it, I could easily put in some crazy hours. It's the people that don't get overtime and still do it that confuse me. You have to be very desperate to do that...

No, you have to be VERY DESPERATE to be a salaried exempt worker and do that.

GettinSadda · 2011-03-03 Reply Admin

Time for another site rename.

This time forget fiddling with the "WTF" part, but the "Daily" part seems to be long dead

2011-03-03 Reply Admin

TIWTF (The Incidental WTF)? TOWTF (The Occasional WFT)? TWIFLIWTF (The Whenever I Feel Like It WTF)?

2011-03-03 Reply Admin

operagost:
Kjella:
fritters:
My fellow developers and I, knowing that we had little more than prototype code at that point, estimated another 2-3 months, easily. (...) "I really need it done in 3 weeks", boss says. (...) At least I got lots of overtime pay.

If my boss is ready to pay me 150%/200% overtime for it, I could easily put in some crazy hours. It's the people that don't get overtime and still do it that confuse me. You have to be very desperate to do that...
No, you have to be VERY DESPERATE USEFUL to be a salaried exempt worker and do that.

FTFY

boog · 2011-03-03 Reply Admin

boog (phony):
I'm pretty sure I'm going to strangle the penguin if he doesn't post a new article soon.

I'm pretty sure you already said that yesterday, my mindless mimic.

blah blah not too bright blah...

boog · 2011-03-03 Reply Admin

Alargule:
TIWTF (The Incidental WTF)? TOWTF (The Occasional WFT)? TWIFLIWTF (The Whenever I Feel Like It WTF)?

TLTNWTSWTF (The Let's-Take-Naming-Way-Too-Seriously WTF)?

2011-03-03 Reply Admin

Alargule:
TIWTF (The Incidental WTF)? TOWTF (The Occasional WFT)? TWIFLIWTF (The Whenever I Feel Like It WTF)?

TWTFWTF (The WheneverTheFuckWTF)

2011-03-03 Reply Admin

Hey guys, show some respect. Alex just passed, and we don't know when (if ever) Remy and me will start posting again.

2011-03-03 Reply Admin

The Crunger:
bunch of words, etc.

I think it was a language barrier thing, because exactly as you said, I wasn't inferring anything race related in my comment(s).

Also I see and won't bite on your cheap and childish attempt at "calling" me out on being a racist. I grew up in a very diverse community, work with people of many different races, religions, creeds, colors, etc., and have many friends (and some relatives) from all over the world. I don't need some anonymous wanker on the intertubes to try and call me racist.

2011-03-03 Reply Admin

ray10k:
these puns are so bad, I no longer C-sharp.

Everyone around here knows that's actually pronounced "C-Pound."

And I think the puns are brillant.

2011-03-03 Reply Admin

Mark Bowytz:
Hey guys, show some respect. Alex just passed, and we don't know when (if ever) Remy and me will start posting again.

Are you serious? What happened?

2011-03-03 Reply Admin

Seriously? This is not something to joke about, would like to hear for sure from a reliable source.

2011-03-03 Reply Admin

C-Octothorpe:
Mark Bowytz:
Hey guys, show some respect. Alex just passed, and we don't know when (if ever) Remy and me will start posting again.

Are you serious? What happened?

That happended:

Mark Bowytz (unregistered):
...

2011-03-03 Reply Admin

Scott:
Seriously? This is not something to joke about, would like to hear for sure from a reliable source.

How can you doubt the word of Mark Bowytz(unregistered)? What more reliable source could there be?

2011-03-03 Reply Admin

Mark Bowytz (unregistered):
Hey guys, show some respect. Alex (unregistered) just passed, and we don't know when (if ever) Remy (unregistered) and me (unregistered) will start posting again.

So maybe in the meantime the memorable Scott Selikoff (registered) can replace you?

Nagesh · 2011-03-03 Reply Admin

Akismet, you moron, this is a registered user (Nagesh) posting. That's why we should have registration for everyone.

2011-03-03 Reply Admin

Nagesh:

Akismet, you moron, this is a registered user (Nagesh) posting.

[ b ]
[ color=green]T[/color]
[ color=red]h[/color]
[ color=blue]a[/color]
[ color=silver]t[/color]
[ color=black]'[/color]
[ color=navy]s[/color]
[ color=#47D238] [/color]
[ color=#47D238]w[/color]
[ color=navy]h[/color]
[ color=black]y[/color]
[ color=silver] [/color]
[ color=#B1DF27]w[/color]
[ color=red]e[/color]
[ color=green] [/color]
[ color=red]s[/color]
[ color=blue]h[/color]
[ color=silver]o[/color]
[ color=black]u[/color]
[ color=navy]l[/color]
[ color=#47D238]d[/color]
[ color=#47D238] [/color]
[ color=navy]h[/color]
[ color=#7CD92F]a[/color]
[ color=#96DC2B]v[/color]
[ color=#B1DF27]e[/color]
[ color=red] [/color]
[ color=green]r[/color]
[ color=red]e[/color]
[ color=blue]g[/color]
[ color=silver]i[/color]
[ color=black]s[/color]
[ color=navy]t[/color]
[ color=#47D238]r[/color]
[ color=#47D237]a[/color]
[ color=navy]t[/color]
[ color=#7CD92F]i[/color]
[ color=silver]o[/color]
[ color=#B1DF27]n[/color]
[ color=#CBE223] [/color]
[ color=green]f[/color]
[ color=red]o[/color]
[ color=blue]r[/color]
[ color=silver] [/color]
[ color=black]e[/color]
[ color=navy]v[/color]
[ color=#47D238]e[/color]
[ color=#47D237]r[/color]
[ color=navy]y[/color]
[ color=#7CD92F]o[/color]
[ color=#96DC2B]n[/color]
[ color=#B1DF27]e[/color]
[ color=#CBE223].[/color]
[/b]

So when you colorise your whitespaces, what exactly do you expect?

2011-03-03 Reply Admin

C-Octothorpe:
Jay:
I'm reminded of a job where I was assigned to convert one of our company's applications from assembly language under MS-DOS to C that would work on both MS-DOS and Unix. It was a small company so the project team consisted of: me. It took me about 9 months.
A little later the boss came by and asked how long it would take to do a similar conversion on another product. I was reluctant to commit because I didn't know that much about the other product. So he said, "Well, just roughly. Would it be 2 days? 3 days?"

Lest you worry: I said, "No, the question is how many MONTHS." He then walked away muttering to himself.

I don't think the project was ever even started.

But wait, are you implying that you DON'T work nights, weekends, and through your honeymoon? Wow, then what do you do with your time?

Tell me you didn't just tuck you tail between your legs and say "yes boss, I'll work nights, weekends, and through my honeymoon. And since I'll then be divorced, I'll be able to put even MORE time in" (sorry, judging from some of these posts, it seems to be a trend). Or did you refer him to the last conversion project timeline just before excusing yourself for a liquid lunch?

2011-03-03 Reply Admin

Sorry, I accidentally put my reply inside the quote on that previous post. Too late to edit.

2011-03-03 Reply Admin

Design Pattern:
Nagesh:
Akismet, you moron, this is a registered user (Nagesh) posting.
<snip>
[ color=silver] [/color]
<snip>
So when you colorise your whitespaces, what exactly do you expect?

Reliable and hard-working Indian coder always make code defensive. If whitespace is redefined as letter, Indian coder's program still works. This is why you Americans give so much code to Indians - code is future-proof.

2011-03-03 Reply Admin

operagost:
Kjella:
fritters:
My fellow developers and I, knowing that we had little more than prototype code at that point, estimated another 2-3 months, easily. (...) "I really need it done in 3 weeks", boss says. (...) At least I got lots of overtime pay.

If my boss is ready to pay me 150%/200% overtime for it, I could easily put in some crazy hours. It's the people that don't get overtime and still do it that confuse me. You have to be very desperate to do that...
No, you have to be VERY DESPERATE to be a salaried exempt worker and do that.

In theory at least, salaried workers are supposed to have some flexibility in their work schedule. When things are busy, you're exected to put in extra hours to get it done. When things are slow, you can arrive late, leave early, and take a long lunch and your boss doesn't object.

Also, salaried workers are generally paid more than hourly workers. i.e. the hourly worker may get, say, 10 foobars per hour which would come to 20,000-some-odd foobars per year. The salaried worker might bet 30,000 foobars per year, but he might also be expected to average more than 40 hours per week, so his hourly rate may or may not come out to more than the hourlay rate of the hourly worker.

How all this works out in real life depends, of course, on the employer. I've worked places where they say, "Because you're salaried, your schedule is flexible. When things are buy, you may have to work 60 hours a week to get the job done. When things are slow, it's no problem if you only work 50 to 55 hours."

I have fond memories of the time I came to work one day at 9:00 am. A major customer had some crisis and I spent all day working on it, literally worked all night, until 5:00 am the next morning, without leaving the building. Then finally I had it all fixed and went home, got a few hours sleep, and came back to work about noon. My boss's boss then yelled at me for coming in late. He told me that it didn't matter how late I worked, I was supposed to be in on time every day.

2011-03-03 Reply Admin

Matt Westwood:
xntriq:
Matt Westwood:
Bit Head:
some guy:
trwtf:
EatenByAGrue:
chron3:
martiert:
Actually, I'm 24 and the first thing I thought of was Smalltalk the OO language, not Smalltalk as in smalltalk. Maybe I'm just damaged.

Probably... and I bet you speak with a Lisp also... and geeky enough to have a pet Python at home...

So many perls of wisdom here, I'm just sitting here gawking.

Cobol together a stand-up-comedy routine.

That's what she sed.

Groovy.
These are terrific! I'm assembling a list of them. Watfor, I don't know...

I guess you're CLU-less?

Put together a document for tran-ing purposes.

I wish I could do better, but I don't C how.

2011-03-03 Reply Admin

Nagesh:
Design Pattern:
So when you colorise your whitespaces, what exactly do you expect?
Reliable and hard-working Indian coder always make code defensive. If whitespace is redefined as letter, Indian coder's program still works. This is why you Americans give so much code to Indians - code is future-proof.

We do not "give code to Indians", we are at the receiving side!

And what we receive appears to be a lot of code that simply has no reason to exist!

And giving no color to whitespace ensures our programming secrets will still be undecipherable when whitespace should be redefined as letter.

Our advanced technology is encrypted by writing all programs in Whitespace!

2011-03-03 Reply Admin

Jay:
operagost:
Kjella:
fritters:
My fellow developers and I, knowing that we had little more than prototype code at that point, estimated another 2-3 months, easily. (...) "I really need it done in 3 weeks", boss says. (...) At least I got lots of overtime pay.

If my boss is ready to pay me 150%/200% overtime for it, I could easily put in some crazy hours. It's the people that don't get overtime and still do it that confuse me. You have to be very desperate to do that...
No, you have to be VERY DESPERATE to be a salaried exempt worker and do that.

In theory at least, salaried workers are supposed to have some flexibility in their work schedule. When things are busy, you're exected to put in extra hours to get it done. When things are slow, you can arrive late, leave early, and take a long lunch and your boss doesn't object.

Also, salaried workers are generally paid more than hourly workers. i.e. the hourly worker may get, say, 10 foobars per hour which would come to 20,000-some-odd foobars per year. The salaried worker might bet 30,000 foobars per year, but he might also be expected to average more than 40 hours per week, so his hourly rate may or may not come out to more than the hourlay rate of the hourly worker.

How all this works out in real life depends, of course, on the employer. I've worked places where they say, "Because you're salaried, your schedule is flexible. When things are buy, you may have to work 60 hours a week to get the job done. When things are slow, it's no problem if you only work 50 to 55 hours."

I have fond memories of the time I came to work one day at 9:00 am. A major customer had some crisis and I spent all day working on it, literally worked all night, until 5:00 am the next morning, without leaving the building. Then finally I had it all fixed and went home, got a few hours sleep, and came back to work about noon. My boss's boss then yelled at me for coming in late. He told me that it didn't matter how late I worked, I was supposed to be in on time every day.

This sounds like a cry for help and exactly why I'm going contract now.

2011-03-03 Reply Admin

Sudo:
trtrwtf:
ping floyd:
Slicerwizard:
Hey Remy, Smalltalk is an object-oriented, dynamically typed, reflective programming language. It is not a form of chitchat or idle banter.

There's a Snobol's chance in hell that the younger folks got that...

Ada minimum, I'd say fifteen percent got it. Tops, 20.

Congratulations! You are officially turning into your parents.
Now say something about the music and fashion that those "young folks" have these days. Ooh, and rant a while about how they all take drugs and go around stabbing each other in their hoodies. For bonus points, use the phrase "in my day".

OK. <ahem> "In my day" "young folks" didn't "all take drugs and go around stabbing each other in their hoodies".
We all took drugs and went around screwing each other like sex-crazed weasels. And we liked it like that!

Oh, and gas was like $0.33 a gallon. <sigh> Ah, nostalgia...

Ol' Bob, child of the '50's

2011-03-03 Reply Admin

Design Pattern:
Nagesh:
Design Pattern:
So when you colorise your whitespaces, what exactly do you expect?
Reliable and hard-working Indian coder always make code defensive. If whitespace is redefined as letter, Indian coder's program still works. This is why you Americans give so much code to Indians - code is future-proof.
We do not "give code to Indians", we are at the receiving side!
And what we receive appears to be a lot of code that simply has no reason to exist!

And giving no color to whitespace ensures our programming secrets will still be undecipherable when whitespace should be redefined as letter.

Our advanced technology is encrypted by writing all programs in Whitespace!

One minor correction: the code should exist, but often times it's "it just works" code. You know, the brute-force, 1500 line method (copy and pasted 14 times) which can be refacted to 12, kind of code.

2011-03-03 Reply Admin

Jay:
operagost:
Kjella:
fritters:
My fellow developers and I, knowing that we had little more than prototype code at that point, estimated another 2-3 months, easily. (...) "I really need it done in 3 weeks", boss says. (...) At least I got lots of overtime pay.

If my boss is ready to pay me 150%/200% overtime for it, I could easily put in some crazy hours. It's the people that don't get overtime and still do it that confuse me. You have to be very desperate to do that...
No, you have to be VERY DESPERATE to be a salaried exempt worker and do that.

In theory at least, salaried workers are supposed to have some flexibility in their work schedule. When things are busy, you're exected to put in extra hours to get it done. When things are slow, you can arrive late, leave early, and take a long lunch and your boss doesn't object.

Also, salaried workers are generally paid more than hourly workers. i.e. the hourly worker may get, say, 10 foobars per hour which would come to 20,000-some-odd foobars per year. The salaried worker might bet 30,000 foobars per year, but he might also be expected to average more than 40 hours per week, so his hourly rate may or may not come out to more than the hourlay rate of the hourly worker.

How all this works out in real life depends, of course, on the employer. I've worked places where they say, "Because you're salaried, your schedule is flexible. When things are buy, you may have to work 60 hours a week to get the job done. When things are slow, it's no problem if you only work 50 to 55 hours."

I have fond memories of the time I came to work one day at 9:00 am. A major customer had some crisis and I spent all day working on it, literally worked all night, until 5:00 am the next morning, without leaving the building. Then finally I had it all fixed and went home, got a few hours sleep, and came back to work about noon. My boss's boss then yelled at me for coming in late. He told me that it didn't matter how late I worked, I was supposed to be in on time every day.

If it was in the employment contract that you were to be there by 9 AM, then the boss would have some ground, but I don't think they generally include anything like that (maybe a minimum hours/week before it becomes unpaid vacation), they just expect you to put the time in.
My (salaried) job is similar, though I've been fortunate to avoid long days and weekends (other developers have had to endure such, but I haven't been involved in those projects). My wife regularly expresses concern when I'm "late" for reason or other e.g. a "snowstorm" hits, slowing traffic and it takes me an extra 30 min to get in; but there really is no such thing as late (aside from 8:30 is later than 8:00) - so long as I put the expected time in.

2011-03-03 Reply Admin

Jay:
operagost:
Kjella:
fritters:
My fellow developers and I, knowing that we had little more than prototype code at that point, estimated another 2-3 months, easily. (...) "I really need it done in 3 weeks", boss says. (...) At least I got lots of overtime pay.

If my boss is ready to pay me 150%/200% overtime for it, I could easily put in some crazy hours. It's the people that don't get overtime and still do it that confuse me. You have to be very desperate to do that...
No, you have to be VERY DESPERATE to be a salaried exempt worker and do that.

In theory at least, salaried workers are supposed to have some flexibility in their work schedule. When things are busy, you're exected to put in extra hours to get it done. When things are slow, you can arrive late, leave early, and take a long lunch and your boss doesn't object.

Also, salaried workers are generally paid more than hourly workers. i.e. the hourly worker may get, say, 10 foobars per hour which would come to 20,000-some-odd foobars per year. The salaried worker might bet 30,000 foobars per year, but he might also be expected to average more than 40 hours per week, so his hourly rate may or may not come out to more than the hourlay rate of the hourly worker.

How all this works out in real life depends, of course, on the employer. I've worked places where they say, "Because you're salaried, your schedule is flexible. When things are buy, you may have to work 60 hours a week to get the job done. When things are slow, it's no problem if you only work 50 to 55 hours."

I have fond memories of the time I came to work one day at 9:00 am. A major customer had some crisis and I spent all day working on it, literally worked all night, until 5:00 am the next morning, without leaving the building. Then finally I had it all fixed and went home, got a few hours sleep, and came back to work about noon. My boss's boss then yelled at me for coming in late. He told me that it didn't matter how late I worked, I was supposed to be in on time every day.

In my experience hourly workers in the IT area (i.e. contractors) are paid more than salaried workers, as the work is not perceived as being as steady. When I was a contractor, however, I got paid more AND worked steadily (15 years on one contract, for example), plus I got incentive pay for just showing up regularly AND got stock options and other perks. In the end, though, a few less bucks for a LOT less time in the car led me to an in-house position.

hoodaticus · 2011-03-03 Reply Admin

ray10k:
these puns are so bad, I no longer C-sharp.

I think at least one of the puns gave me Mono.

hoodaticus · 2011-03-03 Reply Admin

Anonymous:
Fats Geronimo:
Anonymous:
fritters:
C-Octothorpe:
Man, is it really the norm for developers to be worked to the bone, for free, and usually for nothing (customer doesn't see feature or isn't really THAT critical)? If that's so, either I've had really good luck or my bosses could tell ahead of time that I would laugh in their face if they asked me to work for free...

Well, luckily as I said I was being paid 150% overtime (and if I really wanted to I could probably have charged 200% for working on a statutory holiday, but I just took a different day off in lieu after the deadline was reached).

I wouldn't mind working small amounts of unpaid overtime, occasionally -- every company has tight spots and I identify with my company enough to know that if things go well for them, things go better for me too. And frankly sometimes it's my own fault for goofing off during work hours and not getting it done within 7.5 hours. By "small amounts" I mean, perhaps 1-2 hours a week. I feel embarrassed even writing that down on the timesheet.

But if you expect me to work 12+ hour days, 7 days a week, in order to hit an arbitrary deadline that was imposed upon me, then I definitely expect overtime pay, and lots of it. And even then, I only want to do that sort of pace occasionally.

I know guys who worked like that for years on a stretch. The money was good but nobody ever saw them. I could only handle a pace like that for a few months before I decide that the managers here can't schedule anything properly and I start looking elsewhere. Craploads of overtime pay is nice, but I prefer having time for a life.

I flat refuse to work overtime, ever. If I can't get it done within my standard working hours (10:30 - 5:30) then it's somebody else's problem. It's nice to be "irreplaceable" (or rather, the only person in the company who has ever developed one of our flagship products - a close second to irreplaceable).

7 hour days? No wonder the EU has to set up massive trade barriers to preserve their second rate economy.

Good lord no, 7 hour days aren't normal, they don't even have days that short in France. No no, my contract specifies a 40 hour week - I just don't bother working it. Remember what I said about being irreplaceable? When you've got your company over a barrel you can pretty much set your own work hours.

This works until your attitude spreads to enough of your colleagues and brings down the company.

Hard Deadline

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