• (nodebb)

    What's wrong with this kind of approach?

    Evolution is using a very similar approach successfully for several billion years already, and still going on!

    Besides that, Nature uses the very same approach as those managers for example with the Ratchet Screwdrivers, according to the Hitchhiker's Guide.

  • (nodebb)

    Btw, is there a dictionary Boss -> English / English -> Boss?

    (For German, there exists such a thing: https://www.langenscheidt.de/Langenscheidt-Chef-Deutsch-Deutsch-Chef-Buch/978-3-468-73112-9 )

  • anomalous (unregistered)

    Without a frist post, can there be a second post?

  • Ron Fox (google)

    http://assets.amuniversal.com/3c9aa7b06d5101301d7a001dd8b71c47

  • Roflcopter (unregistered)

    Okay, now you've introduced the characters, introduced the contrasting viewpoints, and our protagonist has been assigned some work.

    Cool, now where's the actual WTF, you know, the thing that goes wrong?

  • Quite (unregistered)

    Wondered how long it would be before the management structure of the company I work at featured as a WTF in its own right. It's great fun here.

  • My Name (unregistered)

    Wow, that was some pointless story. These articles have been going downhill for some time, but ... et tu, snoofle? That was the last straw for me, I'm out.

  • JustSomeDudette (unregistered)

    So James is building the ultimate module for the ultimate application?

    function ultimateAnswer () { return 42; }

  • George Gonzalez (unregistered)

    Been there, several times. At one place the bosses and "program manager" called us to an important meeting. They said we had to come up with an exact estimate of how long it would take to do something. Literally, something. Nothing specific. They insisted they needed an exact number from each of us. Bewildered looks all around, then we went back to our desks and did the only thing we could do, make up a number. Clueless bosses.

  • (nodebb)

    Was it just me who was expecting a Star Trek anonymisation theme based on the protagonist's name?

  • Joe (unregistered)

    what about an module that takes the extra decimal places that just get rounded off and's rounded them all down, drop the remainder into an account.

    The managers there are so clueless that they will never find it / can be said done as the specifics where very vega about what to due with them where vague and I wanted to save them somewhere.

  • Jerepp (unregistered) in reply to Joe

    Then we stomp on a photocopier?

  • James (unregistered) in reply to Roflcopter

    The part that went wrong was the timeliness to produce and deliver anything meaningful. Epic struggles there indeed...

    This is the shop that would deploy production code from local boxes too. Now I could leave that statement at that, and you should be able to guess the multitude of things that blew up... Or I could specifically mention DLL hell, performance issues from programmers who built in "Debug" not knowing about release, etc... But it's a WTF because we all know the horror stories that happen when those practices are made.

  • D-Coder (unregistered) in reply to PWolff

    Yes, well, evolution's approach ("try everything and kill the 99% that doesn't work") has resulted in a billion-year collection of kludges (see "knees") with a limited lifespan (see "old age"), bugs everywhere (see... everything), and complete spaghetti code (see "DNA / RNA / mitochondria / epigenetics").

    Just because a lot of companies emulate that does not mean that it's a good idea.

  • EatenByAGrue (unregistered) in reply to George Gonzalez

    You missed your chance! Since you weren't told what it was you were estimating, what your team needed to do was:

    1. Make up a giant number.
    2. If they don't specify more detail about the "something", then do some of your pet projects, change the colors and the version numbers, and spend the rest of the time in your giant number goofing off.
  • Sham (unregistered)

    What was the point of this? I read through it waiting for a punchline.

  • Blakeyrat (unregistered)

    This website........................................................................................................ sighhhhhs..........................................................................................................

    .

    . .

    ok where to begin. alex, i kno ur trying 2 make a god website and its a lot of hardd work but

    u h avv no quality controll u have 2 start philtering stupid unfunny artikles like 2days and b adamjant about meking shur that no1 just uplodes random shit evrywer. fire sno00fle first of al, he is a jigantic doushbag and hes teh king of d1cks n he suxor . i mean l00k at 2days """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""QUALITY"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" update?? how can u just s9t on ur ass and b a king of faget al day and not fire hiM??!

    next u need 2 hire me as a ful tim mod. u can pey me $40/hr 2 fix ur website i have certz in runescape im a pmod.

    lastly ?? this website lay out SUCK. remove disckscours and git rid of shitty wat.thegailywtfuck.com and put in reel coment sistem like proboard or somethin g0ddamn.

    i know u hav a lot of werk to dew 2 fix ur syte butt i tink if u apply urself u can phix it an get sum axual vews again.

    --blakentyrattt

    ps: this website SUCKS

  • Developer Dude (unregistered)

    Welcome to my world.

    When I interviewed I wasn't as diligent as the OP in asking questions (I asked about unit tests, and they said yes - they had unit tests. To them, "unit tests" are taking a unit of functionality at the user/app level and doing a hands on ad-hoc test of an app feature using the UI - not a single unit test was to be found in the codebase), but you would think working for a corp that is in the largest 50 in the world, they would have some idea of how to write software correctly.

    Right?

    Nope.

    Worst software dev practices I have ever seen, worst code I have ever dealt with, no idea of what a unit test is, spaghetti code, ball of mud code, every anti-pattern I can think of and then some, no idea of what structured or modular programming is, much less OOP is. When a project falls behind (usually because of the terrible code) their solution is to throw more people at it.

    On top of all of this, they lip service to and buzz words about quality, agility, etc., with little to no idea of what is actually involved and a culture that actively and openly discourages any attempt to work towards better quality.

  • TenshiNo (unregistered) in reply to Developer Dude

    At my current position, I was hired to work on a project that was just getting started. The fact that they said they were using agile methodology, and had scheduled two "1 year long sprints" should have been a giant red flag.

  • snoofle (unregistered) in reply to TenshiNo

    I'm convinced there is not a single higher level manager that understands the meaning of the word "agile".

    "We'll clear the blockades"

    "We'll get you past the bureaucracy"

    "We'll get you the resources you need when you need them"

    "Trust us"

  • Definitely a Robot (unregistered)

    "... his management advises him that the details are unknown at that point, but that he should forge ahead, and they'll figure out what it's supposed to do after he delivers it and they see if it's useful to the end users in production!"

    I see they also use an "Agile" methodology.

  • Joseph Osako (google)

    Jeez, who did Word of Blakey piss of this time?

  • (nodebb)

    They all seemed intelligent. They talked a good game about best practices and doing things right. They hit all the right buzzwords during the interview.

    Reminded me of Life in the Fast Lane, Eagles:

    "Eager for action and hot for the game "The coming attraction, the drop of a name "They knew all the right people; They took all the right pills "They threw outrageous parties; They paid heavenly bills"
  • DocMonster (unregistered)

    What in the holy fuck is going on above? Somebody call an exterminator or something to kill that rat.

  • JG (unregistered) in reply to JustSomeDudette

    But what question is that the answer to?

  • Quite (unregistered) in reply to D-Coder

    It's worked for billions of years. Whose to say that your approach is superior? Has your code been running for billions of years?

  • bvs23bkv33 (unregistered) in reply to TenshiNo

    you know, in cobol sprints are still 10 years long

  • What's with the dig at engineers? (unregistered)

    "Software engineer" and "developer" are synonymous these days, so surely the OP doesn't mean those. What kind of rigid-minded code-writing engineer does one encounter at a huge financial firm?

  • Lerch98 (unregistered) in reply to George Gonzalez

    Square root of negative one.

  • Blakeyrat (unregistered)

    penis

  • James (unregistered) in reply to What's with the dig at engineers?

    It wasn't "software engineer" this was referring to, but other engineers... Electrical, petroleum, etc... It was financial and business experts as well. They had blended roles as both "developers" and their SME which meant trying to incorporate a bunch of Excel and Python. Not to mention blended roles for their DBA's too, or what they thought constituted a DBA. I had a "DBA" tell me one time the difference between a unique column and a primary key was semantics... So there were a large amount of pseudo-developers who knew enough to be really dangerous and influence development.

  • (nodebb) in reply to Developer Dude

    Do you work for the supplier I work with? (Used to do all our development but we've semi-insourced so now me and a few other guys work with a bunch of their guys).

    I couldn't attest to its position in a list of the world's largest companies but it is a pretty big one, and that all sounds sadly familiar.

  • SomeName (unregistered)

    Just use rand() to generate random .exe and claim that eventually it will generate best software in the world. I wonder how many years it'll take for them to grow brains and turn it off?

  • SomeName (unregistered)

    Just use rand() to generate random .exe and claim that eventually it will generate best software in the world. I wonder how many years it'll take for them to grow brains and turn it off?

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