• billswift (unregistered) in reply to Madox

    Everything is easy for the person who doesn't have to do it themselves.

  • PEDANTJeff (unregistered)

    The last paragraph really made feel like I was watching a cheesy horror movie.

    CAPTCHA: tego (Puerto Rican rapper?)

  • Whiner (unregistered)

    Perhaps this article is overstated because this guy admits he just walked in the door, and on his first assignment he is proposing a re-design. Hey, at least learn the system a little before you start proposing to tear it apart. How do you even know what you're replacing?

    That said, I've seen the scenario over and over. At my current job I am working on a system that everyone agrees is completely screwed up, but we're only allowed to fix the small problems, because if we tried to fix the big problems, management says, who knows what the implications and collateral damage might be, and we just don't have time, etc. In other words, we're so busy bailing the water out of our sinking boat, that we just don't have time to plug the holes in the bottom of the boat.

  • (cs) in reply to John Whittet
    John Whittet:
    TRWTF is that Barb is getting married. Really, who would shackle themselves to that miserable excuse for a human being?

    That, Sir, is my mother-in-law you are talking about!

    You make an excellent point.

  • Franz Kafka (unregistered) in reply to Whiner
    Whiner:
    <...> Hey, at least learn the system a little before you start proposing to tear it apart. How do you even know what you're replacing?

    That said, I've seen the scenario over and over. At my current job I am working on a system that everyone agrees is completely screwed up, <...>

    See, the WTF here is that the guys in charge don't see the architectural CF as a problem, but as an opportunity. At least in your work, people admit that a problem exists. I could give a rip whether they let the noob redesign everything - they at least have to admit that there's a problem.

    /esse

  • SomeCoder (unregistered) in reply to Antihero of Alexandria, VA
    Antihero of Alexandria:
    I've worked in places like this. The elite team are lionized heroes, fighting the technical fires that break out not infrequently in the critical systems. They are admired, praised, rewarded. Slack is cut for them--we don't stop for red lights, we have our sirens and flashers going!

    Of course, any crisis which is prevented is a lost opportunity for glory. So, in theory, the best qualified to prevent fires--the "fire fighters"--have the least incentive to actually prevent fires, as long as they can just knock the fires quickly and cheaply (and heroically) down.

    Many organizations are captive to their heroes. It's sad, but it works.

    One of my previous jobs was like this. The company made bank off of its systems but the systems themselves were steaming piles of crap that barely ran. It took a huge team of heroes (with about 3 or 4 super heroes) to keep the behemoth running. The company gladly continued to hire more heroes as well.

    It was sad, it really was.

  • (cs)
    "You see, these systems have a history," the Senior dev began, "if you go and upset the natural balance of things, everything is liable to fall apart because the sum of all our knowledge and experience will be worth exactly zero. This is just how we write code here, Steven."
    Why the future tense, Senior dev?
  • (cs) in reply to Pauller
    Pauller:
    Jamie:
    Anony-mouse:
    Wayne W.:
    I learned this the hard way. We were being asked about charts and graphs and as a joke I created a dashboard that over used Flash charts to the point of being ridiculous.

    ... I am now support that application and it is forward facing to our company.

    Like they say: Software development is like sex. One mistake and you support it for life.

    Plus they're both wicked fun and involve the messy transfer of fluids.

    ... messy transfer of fluids ...

    Well, for programming, maybe in YOUR case, but for me, I type my code. With my hands.

    Obviously you're using the wrong gooey.

    Depending upon what you're doing with your hands, of course.

  • (cs)
    Besides, we have an image to maintain as being experts of a very complicated system that drives the company," added the director, "and if we upset that boat, production will come to a halt and we'll all be eating breakfast out of a vending machine like everyone else, get it?
    So you mean you want to turn to coding and supporting an obviously obfuscated system then? It just really pisses me off how many devs write crap code just to maintain their job security. Truly a WTF and definitely pathetic.
  • holli (unregistered)

    while working for PEDANT steven had to recant the perceived rock star was really a burglar and code he considered aberrant

  • (cs) in reply to SomeCoder
    SomeCoder:
    Antihero of Alexandria:
    I've worked in places like this. The elite team are lionized heroes, fighting the technical fires that break out not infrequently in the critical systems. They are admired, praised, rewarded. Slack is cut for them--we don't stop for red lights, we have our sirens and flashers going!

    Of course, any crisis which is prevented is a lost opportunity for glory. So, in theory, the best qualified to prevent fires--the "fire fighters"--have the least incentive to actually prevent fires, as long as they can just knock the fires quickly and cheaply (and heroically) down.

    Many organizations are captive to their heroes. It's sad, but it works.

    One of my previous jobs was like this. The company made bank off of its systems but the systems themselves were steaming piles of crap that barely ran. It took a huge team of heroes (with about 3 or 4 super heroes) to keep the behemoth running. The company gladly continued to hire more heroes as well.

    It was sad, it really was.

    I feel your pain.

    However, in the present case, it's difficult to conceive of anybody who routinely uses "ToString" in their day-to-day job as a "hero." Or maybe I'm just reading the wrong comic books.

    Would you prefer to work for a company that "reluctantly" continues to hire more heroes?

    Are you even faintly aware that, in this case, "hero" is a thinly-disguised substitution for "bozo?"

  • Duke of New York (unregistered)

    Let me make a guess at what the senior devs actually said, that Steven paraphrased into a self-serving "job security" speech:

    "Right now we are able to respond to feature requests and effectively maintain a tool that the company values very highly. Our ability to do that is based on our knowledge of how the code is laid out. If we let you start broadly rewriting it, that will slow down our maintenance work, which is what we get paid for. When it comes time for performance reviews, the big boss won't really care that you find the code more aesthetically pleasing. Sorry, we're not going to screw our customers and stick out our necks for the sake of your whims."

    Good call, IMO. "Production coming to a halt" is a serious matter, not something to be dismissed lightly.

  • Cbuttius (unregistered)

    This is just the usual letdown scenario.

    Hey does anyone know a project I can join that actually has well-written code? Or actually a proper green-field one because I really do get totally fed up of getting into stuff like this time and again.

  • Kero Hazel (unregistered)
    the article:
    Usually though, there is an advisor-type person who will review the code, point out "you're doing it wrong", and turn the failure into a learning experience.

    This has to be tongue-in-cheek.

  • (cs) in reply to Jamie
    Jamie:
    Anony-mouse:
    Wayne W.:
    I learned this the hard way. We were being asked about charts and graphs and as a joke I created a dashboard that over used Flash charts to the point of being ridiculous.

    ... I am now support that application and it is forward facing to our company.

    Like they say: Software development is like sex. One mistake and you support it for life.

    Plus they're both wicked fun and involve the messy transfer of fluids.

    Well maybe if it's software to control a pump for something really cool, like one of those Japanese waterfall displays.

  • Tootie (unregistered) in reply to holli
    holli:
    while working for PEDANT steven had to recant the perceived rock star was really a burglar and code he considered aberrant
    Quite good, but I'd change the last work to 'abhorrent'.

    ...

    Captcha: inhibeo

  • Richard W (unregistered) in reply to kastein
    kastein:
    Sad but true. And yet another reason for people to use OS X instead of XP instead of Linux/BSD.

    Nice try Jobs. What the hell are you talking about though? What does the choice of operating system have to do with the GUI exposed by an application? Oh that's right, nothing - which means you are an idiot mac fan boy. Allow me to put you in your place.

    The only people who think Macs are superior to anything are the morons who forked out $500 - $1000 extra for an inferior product, and so have a vested interest in not appearing foolish for wasting their money.

    The sense of smug satisfaction and the air of superiority these losers exude are merely ways of diverting attention from the fact that they got ripped off, and of trying to convince people that what they did was 'good' and 'cool'.

    You may be fooling yourself Steve, but you aren't fooling anybody else.

  • Richard W (unregistered) in reply to holli
    holli:
    while working for PEDANT steven had to recant the perceived rock star was really a burglar and code he considered aberrant

    By the way, this is not a limerick. Not even close. One of my pet peeves is when people post "limericks" where no attempt to even follow the correct structure has been made. You look foolish, please learn what a limerick is next time. Thankyou.

  • db (unregistered) in reply to Antihero of Alexandria, VA
    Antihero of Alexandria:
    I've worked in places like this. The elite team are lionized heroes, fighting the technical fires that break out not infrequently in the critical systems. They are admired, praised, rewarded. Slack is cut for them--we don't stop for red lights, we have our sirens and flashers going!

    Of course, any crisis which is prevented is a lost opportunity for glory. So, in theory, the best qualified to prevent fires--the "fire fighters"--have the least incentive to actually prevent fires, as long as they can just knock the fires quickly and cheaply (and heroically) down.

    Many organizations are captive to their heroes. It's sad, but it works.

    However on the other hand the boss is likely to remember the days when there was a major crisis every week and think very highly of the people that are running things without one. The new employees are going to thing you are a lazy B for not getting them a free copy of photoshop so they can crop baby photos at work - but that's life.

    People that bounce from easily avoidable crisis to crisis have so many ways where they can come unstuck.

  • refoveo (unregistered) in reply to Richard W
    Richard W:
    kastein:
    Sad but true. And yet another reason for people to use OS X instead of XP instead of Linux/BSD.

    Nice try Jobs. What the hell are you talking about though? What does the choice of operating system have to do with the GUI exposed by an application? Oh that's right, nothing - which means you are an idiot mac fan boy. Allow me to put you in your place.

    The only people who think Macs are superior to anything are the morons who forked out $500 - $1000 extra for an inferior product, and so have a vested interest in not appearing foolish for wasting their money.

    The sense of smug satisfaction and the air of superiority these losers exude are merely ways of diverting attention from the fact that they got ripped off, and of trying to convince people that what they did was 'good' and 'cool'.

    You may be fooling yourself Steve, but you aren't fooling anybody else.

    Hey there fanboi.

  • In soviet russia, the brain fails YOU! (unregistered) in reply to Richard W
    Richard W:
    kastein:
    Sad but true. And yet another reason for people to use OS X instead of XP instead of Linux/BSD.

    Nice try Jobs. What the hell are you talking about though? What does the choice of operating system have to do with the GUI exposed by an application? Oh that's right, nothing - which means you are an idiot mac fan boy. Allow me to put you in your place.

    The only people who think Macs are superior to anything are the morons who forked out $500 - $1000 extra for an inferior product, and so have a vested interest in not appearing foolish for wasting their money.

    The sense of smug satisfaction and the air of superiority these losers exude are merely ways of diverting attention from the fact that they got ripped off, and of trying to convince people that what they did was 'good' and 'cool'.

    You may be fooling yourself Steve, but you aren't fooling anybody else.

    Wow, epic reading comprehension fail, douchebag.

    let's examine the part you snipped from the quote, shall we?

    kastein:
    m0ffx:
    Jon E.:
    And we re-learn a lesson: In the eyes of management, a slick GUI potemkin will always trump whatever steaming pile backs it.

    No, in the eyes of ANYONE except programmers, a slick GUI is what matters, because it's what's visible. An application can have the best code structure, the fastest algorithms, whatever, but if the front end is horrible people aren't going to like it.

    Sad but true. And yet another reason for people to use OS X instead of XP instead of Linux/BSD.

    [...snip some disclaimer crap that apparently stepped on your one nut...]

    It appears, then, from this more complete thread, that kastein is actually lambasting OS X for having a "slick GUI" and not much more. XP, kastein continues, sits slightly further down the scale away from slick but worthless GUI, towards "better code structure, faster algorithms", [more functionality] (extrapolating, now). And even further towards the [difficult to learn, shit GUI, lots of functionality] end of the scale, sits, in kastein's opinion, linux/BSD.

    I might disagree with kastein, but i'd be a douchebag for missing the point completely, and then browbeating everyone about it with a fanboi monologue.

    Fortunately, you already fill that niche quite nicely.

    Have a great day, and don't forget to rinse after every use.

    :D

    Critics are calling it: "A ... Comment!"

  • In soviet russia, the brain fails YOU! (unregistered) in reply to Richard W
    Richard W:
    holli:
    while working for PEDANT steven had to recant the perceived rock star was really a burglar and code he considered aberrant

    By the way, this is not a limerick. Not even close. One of my pet peeves is when people post "limericks" where no attempt to even follow the correct structure has been made. You look foolish, please learn what a limerick is next time. Thankyou.

    Heh! I get it, now! you weren't itching to deliver a fanboi monologue, you were just itching for any old fight because you: [are constipated/can't get laid/got laid off/were dropped on your head/ate paint chips/got sand in your vagina].

    You really should get that cleaned out, it's not healthy to leave sand in there.

  • Buell (unregistered)

    Some of you may have missed a very important part of this article. This wasn't just ANY steaming pile. This had field names that were very VERY descriptive, like FIELD23. I'm sure that FIELD23 was the 23rd field in that table and that the field's name adequately described the field's location in that table. However, I am quite sure the suggestion, "recreate the table layout to have meaningful column names," would improve the application to the point where a new coder could at least understand what the database had in it. So the mantra "If it ain't broke don't fix it" is very ignorant. Programs are generally meant to handle variable input and therefore at some point it will break and each time it does the fix will increase in complexity.

    As others have said I would probably strive to keep my assigned portions clean and attempt to add views with better column names, as I came to understand them, so as not to break parts of the program dependent on the old field names. Doing a clean sweep on old system-critical type code is nearly impossible, but through a process of deprecation and careful augmentation the system-critical code can be cleansed of the degenerate code.

  • W drahciR (unregistered) in reply to Richard W
    Richard W:
    holli:
    while working for PEDANT steven had to recant the perceived rock star was really a burglar and code he considered aberrant

    By the way, this is not a limerick. Not even close. One of my pet peeves is when people post "limericks" where no attempt to even follow the correct structure has been made. You look foolish, please learn what a limerick is next time. Thankyou.

    There once was a douchetool named Richard, Who loved nothing more than to bitch hard. He bit off too much, Complaining and such, And was ridiculed out of the picture!

    Welcome [back] to TDWTF, asshat.

    ;)

  • (cs)

    Sounds like my job, only with perks to make it bearable.

  • mbe (unregistered) in reply to Dmitriy

    As always, never change what works and users like without very good reason. When a new screen is developed take the opportunity to come up with a more structured way to do it, but going back and changing working screens should come long after the new model has proven itself. A couple of views to properly name the fields in the database would have been plenty in the interim to solve the main complaint and allow new code to be clearer.

    Also, formatting in the database? Why would this be a priority?

    Also:

    Dmitriy:
    Also, what program is that in the image for this article? The one on the right monitor looks like it might be Norton Commander.
    Looks like a Bloomberg terminal. Which is appropriate since that's another one of those system that is very old and crufty, but which makes more money in that state than most people can imagine.
  • Buell (unregistered)

    Oh, and one more thing! The team who ran the overwhelmingly visible status displays was the team that everyone worshiped? This is so annoyingly common! Why can't they worship the team that created the multi-threaded, heuristic, and processor optimized data import software with support for both the Boyer-Moore and the Rabin-Karp algorithms? (or the high-precision pi calculator in a dos-batch script)

    Not that I've created such a software or one exists.

  • Stupid Coding Trick (unregistered) in reply to Buell
    Buell:
    Oh, and one more thing! The team who ran the overwhelmingly visible status displays was the team that everyone worshiped? This is so annoyingly common! Why can't they worship the team that created the multi-threaded, heuristic, and processor optimized data import software with support for both the Boyer-Moore and the Rabin-Karp algorithms? (or the high-precision pi calculator in a dos-batch script)

    Not that I've created such a software or one exists.

    I prefer the XSL ray-tracing algorithm...

    ingenium, indeed.

  • Edward Royce (unregistered)

    Hmmmm.

    Needs to be integrated with Microsoft Excel and VBA!!

    Das improvement!

    lol.

  • Addison (unregistered)

    What a horrid realization. I shudder thinking about it.

  • (cs) in reply to Richard W
    Richard W:
    holli:
    while working for PEDANT steven had to recant the perceived rock star was really a burglar and code he considered aberrant

    By the way, this is not a limerick. Not even close. One of my pet peeves is when people post "limericks" where no attempt to even follow the correct structure has been made. You look foolish, please learn what a limerick is next time. Thankyou.

    A loser called Richard Was pretty uptight and embittered some coal up his ass it soon came to pass that he ended up shitting a diamond.

    Has that peeved you too because of the missing syllables in the first line? Good.

    I bet you scan then interweb for badly formed haiku too...

    :(

  • (cs) in reply to Buell
    Buell:
    This wasn't just ANY steaming pile. This had field names that were very VERY descriptive, like FIELD23. I'm sure that FIELD23 was the 23rd field in that table and that the field's name adequately described the field's location in that table.
    Incorrect. The name of the column is actually descriptive of what it contains; in this case, the string value "skidoo". As another example, FIELD42 contains the answer to life, the universe and everything.
  • ath (unregistered) in reply to Jamie
    Jamie:
    Anony-mouse:
    Wayne W.:
    I learned this the hard way. We were being asked about charts and graphs and as a joke I created a dashboard that over used Flash charts to the point of being ridiculous.

    ... I am now support that application and it is forward facing to our company.

    Like they say: Software development is like sex. One mistake and you support it for life.

    Plus they're both wicked fun and involve the messy transfer of fluids.

    ... and you can do both late at night, in the dark and on your own. Thank you internet!

    Captcha: eros (!)

  • (cs) in reply to Mr B
    Mr B:
    A loser called Richard Was pretty uptight and embittered some coal up his ass it soon came to pass that he ended up shitting a diamond.

    Has that peeved you too because of the missing syllables in the first line? Good.

    I bet you scan then interweb for badly formed haiku too... :(

    Don't be too hard on Dick. Consider the title of the topic.

  • (cs) in reply to ath
    ath:
    ... and you can do both late at night, in the dark and on your own.
    Once upon a midnight dreary, While I pondered, weak and weary, Over many a new and curious volume of computer lore...
  • Elvis (unregistered)

    The thing is, that from the business's perspective the application works. No one is ever going to approve a budget to "fix" what they don't think is broken. They'd rather spend the money building more reports and could give a monkeys arse about the plumbing involved in producing the report.

    Also, if the core architecture is fucked then you'll never un-fuck it without taking off and nuking the thing from orbit.

  • NeoMojo (unregistered) in reply to Miguel Fernando Sanchez
    Miguel Fernando Sanchez:
    Hah! Is funny because first letters of company name spell "pedant"!
    Well the middle 7 letters of my company's name spell pedant.
  • (cs) in reply to Code Dependent
    Code Dependent:
    Mr B:
    A loser called Richard Was pretty uptight and embittered some coal up his ass it soon came to pass that he ended up shitting a diamond.

    Has that peeved you too because of the missing syllables in the first line? Good.

    I bet you scan then interweb for badly formed haiku too... :(

    Don't be too hard on Dick. Consider the title of the topic.

    I did consider that, but his response was too insulting to be a pun/jest/jape around the concept of pedantry.

  • (cs) in reply to Richard W
    Richard W:
    kastein:
    Sad but true. And yet another reason for people to use OS X instead of XP instead of Linux/BSD.

    Nice try Jobs. What the hell are you talking about though? What does the choice of operating system have to do with the GUI exposed by an application? Oh that's right, nothing - which means you are an idiot mac fan boy. Allow me to put you in your place.

    The only people who think Macs are superior to anything are the morons who forked out $500 - $1000 extra for an inferior product, and so have a vested interest in not appearing foolish for wasting their money.

    The sense of smug satisfaction and the air of superiority these losers exude are merely ways of diverting attention from the fact that they got ripped off, and of trying to convince people that what they did was 'good' and 'cool'.

    You may be fooling yourself Steve, but you aren't fooling anybody else.

    ???!

    Perhaps you missed the part where I was rating those systems on ease of use... any fool can use an OS X system because it's designed as a point-and-drool interface, XP just gets in EVERYONE's way (too confusing for the fools, not informative enough and too slow for the wizards), and linux/BSD/others are still pretty much the domain of gurus and wizards, though that is changing (as it has been for the last fifteen years.) Maybe you also missed the part where I noted I use FreeBSD on my systems at home. I really hope I'm being trolled here, because otherwise you're a bit of a dim bulb.

  • (cs)
    after all, the code-burglar had already left his copy-n-paste stash in the app.
    For the life of me, I cannot figure out what the hell this is supposed to mean.
  • (cs) in reply to Zylon
    Zylon:
    after all, the code-burglar had already left his copy-n-paste stash in the app.
    For the life of me, I cannot figure out what the hell this is supposed to mean.

    You've never left your copy-n-paste stash in the app before? What did you do on the weekends in college?

  • (cs) in reply to Buell
    Buell:
    Some of you may have missed a very important part of this article. This wasn't just ANY steaming pile. This had field names that were very VERY descriptive, like FIELD23. I'm sure that FIELD23 was the 23rd field in that table and that the field's name adequately described the field's location in that table.
    Unless they used zero index in which case FIELD23 is actually the 24th field in that table.

    I think the portion of the story that was left out was the time-honored stock footage of calendar pages flying off one-by-one to show time passing while he reviewed the system and made his presentation to improve it.

  • (cs) in reply to Zylon
    Zylon:
    after all, the code-burglar had already left his copy-n-paste stash in the app.
    For the life of me, I cannot figure out what the hell this is supposed to mean.
    I'm pretty sure it is a phrase meaning "some idiot used google to find highschoolers writing bad code, then copy and pasted it into the app alongside code similarly lifted from other areas of the existing mess". See also: cargo cult programming; voodoo debugging.
  • blindman (unregistered) in reply to John Whittet
    John Whittet:
    TRWTF is that Barb is getting married. Really, who would shackle themselves to that miserable excuse for a human being?
    Hell, Lundberg did her!
  • Miguel Fernando Sanchez (unregistered) in reply to NeoMojo
    NeoMojo:
    Miguel Fernando Sanchez:
    Hah! Is funny because first letters of company name spell "pedant"!
    Well the middle 7 letters of my company's name spell pedant.

    Hah! Is funny because it's true!

    (but seriously, I can think of No Words that have "pedant" in the middle. apart from asspedantic, which isn't a word (yet). supedantic? crapedantation? thisplaceisfullofpedantswholiketocorrectgrammer? those are all terrible, terrible names for a company)

    Sincerely yours,

    Miguel Fernando Sanchez (MSc CITP MCSA)

  • v.dog (unregistered) in reply to Pauller
    Pauller:
    Jamie:
    Anony-mouse:
    Wayne W.:
    I learned this the hard way. We were being asked about charts and graphs and as a joke I created a dashboard that over used Flash charts to the point of being ridiculous.

    ... I am now support that application and it is forward facing to our company.

    Like they say: Software development is like sex. One mistake and you support it for life.

    Plus they're both wicked fun and involve the messy transfer of fluids.

    ... messy transfer of fluids ...

    Well, for programming, maybe in YOUR case, but for me, I type my code. With my hands.

    Wait, wasn't he taking about the Liquid Nitrogen module?-

    Remind me never to share a keyboard with him. Just in case.

  • (cs) in reply to mbe
    mbe:
    As always, never change what works and users like without very good reason. When a new screen is developed take the opportunity to come up with a more structured way to do it, but going back and changing working screens should come long after the new model has proven itself. A couple of views to properly name the fields in the database would have been plenty in the interim to solve the main complaint and allow new code to be clearer.

    Also, formatting in the database? Why would this be a priority?

    Also:

    Dmitriy:
    Also, what program is that in the image for this article? The one on the right monitor looks like it might be Norton Commander.
    Looks like a Bloomberg terminal. Which is appropriate since that's another one of those system that is very old and crufty, but which makes more money in that state than most people can imagine.
    Ah, yes, Bloomberg.

    I applied for a job with Bloomberg. (I've got a track record with multiple-window support for financial applications, but that's by-the-by.)

    Their systems are old, and crufty, and make money by default.

    Their reception area is like something out of Star Trek, except that the girls at the desk in front of you are even more gorgeous. And, twenty feet away from you, there's free food. Including bananas.

    Twenty years ago, I would have given my soul for access to blinking lights, pert-breasted women with expensive coiffeurs, and bananas on demand.

    But this is now. (Well, two years ago.)

    Just say no. If you need more reason to resist temptation, listen to Tom Waits.

  • (cs) in reply to Miguel Fernando Sanchez
    Miguel Fernando Sanchez:
    NeoMojo:
    Miguel Fernando Sanchez:
    Hah! Is funny because first letters of company name spell "pedant"!
    Well the middle 7 letters of my company's name spell pedant.

    Hah! Is funny because it's true!

    (but seriously, I can think of No Words that have "pedant" in the middle. apart from asspedantic, which isn't a word (yet). supedantic? crapedantation? thisplaceisfullofpedantswholiketocorrectgrammer? those are all terrible, terrible names for a company)

    Sincerely yours,

    Miguel Fernando Sanchez (MSc CITP MCSA)

    More generally, I can't think of any company where the middle 7 letters spell a 6-letter word.

  • (cs) in reply to Tootie
    Tootie:
    holli:
    while working for PEDANT steven had to recant the perceived rock star was really a burglar and code he considered aberrant
    Quite good, but I'd change the last work to 'abhorrent'.
    You must have a cloth ear.

    Pedant ... aberrant = tonally matched Pedant ... abhorrent = not matching at all

  • (cs) in reply to Antihero of Alexandria, VA
    Antihero of Alexandria:
    Of course, any crisis which is prevented is a lost opportunity for glory. So, in theory, the best qualified to prevent fires--the "fire fighters"--have the least incentive to actually prevent fires, as long as they can just knock the fires quickly and cheaply (and heroically) down.

    And bonuses and raises are given on this basis. Those who do their job well enough that fires are rare are generally ignored. When applications interact in disastrous ways, the stable applications are considered most suspect, because "they're due". When a maintainer of the stable application finds the problem and reports it, instead of being given the honor of a fire fighter, the maintainer may be castigated for maligning the more established fire fighters. Note this has happened even when the problem cause was reported entirely passively, with no mention of either actors or adjectives. All it took was a situation so clearly the fault of the maintainers of the poorly implemented golden calf that even a VP was able to understand it.

Leave a comment on “I Wish I Worked for PEDANT”

Log In or post as a guest

Replying to comment #:

Log Out

« Return to Article