Coding Horror

GreeBo · 28-04-2020 6:43pm

beauf wrote: »

One company I was in the bean counters got control and shut down the RD unit which was probably about 100 people in it. Strong mix of software engineering and creatives.

Within a year or two that company was in trouble and within two or three years asset stripped and consumed by a competitor. Without RD they didn't innovate didn't keep their product fresh and lost their competitive edge. They'd also lost all the problem solvers once RD was gone.

Business and product innovation is typically more valuable than technical innovation.
Your report example in your previous post probably wasnt even a freckle on a wrinkle of the bigger picture for that company.

If your R&D is not being productive it's not being managed properly.

Thats one of the most naive things I've ever read tbh.

GreeBo · 28-04-2020 7:02pm

but we are MILES off coding horror now!

beauf · 28-04-2020 8:03pm

GreeBo wrote: »

but we are MILES off coding horror now!

Coding horrors tend to mirror business and management horrors. I can no longer separate them.

beauf · 28-04-2020 8:26pm

I like the synergy between complaints about layers of bug ridden code built up over years, being too risky to refactor and R&D not being a productive use of company resources.

That's not a personal dig. Because I have sat through hundreds of those exact same meetings. Then added my own layer on top of that 20yr code, wondering where it all went wrong.

GreeBo · 28-04-2020 8:46pm

beauf wrote: »

I like the synergy between complaints about layers of bug ridden code built up over years, being too risky to refactor and R&D not being a productive use of company resources.

That's not a personal dig. Because I have sat through hundreds of those exact same meetings. Then added my own layer on top of that 20yr code, wondering where it all went wrong.

I wouldnt consider refactoring legacy code as R&D or innovation if thats what you are saying?
Its proactive maintenance or resolving tech debt at best.

If I gave some work to a jnr developer and they *didnt* automate it I would be having words. I wouldnt be calling them innovative for doing it.

beauf · 28-04-2020 9:25pm

beauf wrote: »

I like the synergy between complaints about layers of bug ridden code built up over years, being too risky to refactor and R&D not being a productive use of company resources.
...

... both things share a similar "mindset" ...

beauf · 28-04-2020 9:38pm

swampgas wrote: »

It's a good question.

Massive numbers of man-hours have gone into legacy systems, and quite often the original developers are long, long departed. If those systems are mission-critical then anything to replace them has to "just work" - quite a tall order.

I worked for years on a telco platform that had it's own proprietary programming language that ran on custom hardware. It turned out to be easier and more reliable to build a fast emulator for the old hardware using modern CPUs, and keep the old software, than it was to convert the existing code to a new language. (They tried ... and ended up with a different product. But that's another story.)

We did similar, virtualized the old hardware. We bought it though. We are definitely replacing the software next year. Mind you we've said that every year for 20 years apparently.

cryptocurrency · 05-05-2020 10:34pm

Smart Arse gave me this code instead of the number i required. Said it was a direct translation but as I don't have a clue what they are refering too I am wondering if some wiz here at this knows.

Binary is a bit of it. Can anyone advise as I would love to be able to answer this, even though I am not sure where to begin

0b1000 brussels,Belgium 1C20

AlmightyCushion · 05-05-2020 10:42pm

cryptocurrency wrote: »

Smart Arse gave me this code instead of the number i required. Said it was a direct translation but as I don't have a clue what they are refering too I am wondering if some wiz here at this knows.

Binary is a bit of it. Can anyone advise as I would love to be able to answer this, even though I am not sure where to begin

0b1000 brussels,Belgium 1C20

Belgium could be BE. Not sure what Brussels would be although a quick Google says the area code for Brussels is 02 so it could be that. Converting all that from hexadecimal gives you 3113816975875104

cryptocurrency · 05-05-2020 10:52pm

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

Belgium could be BE. Not sure what Brussels would be although a quick Google says the area code for Brussels is 02 so it could be that. Converting all that from hexadecimal gives you 3113816975875104

Thanks, do you have a decent online converter for the letters? or how did you do that?

Brussels Belguim in Hex

Esel · 05-05-2020 10:53pm

I hope it's not your passphrase! :eek:

elvis83 · 05-05-2020 11:56pm

It's no wonder we all get cynical. What's the point improving and learning if you then need to spend far more energy on convincing people who are simply uninformed (which is fine, it's not their role), only for them to always ALWAYS take the path of least resistance. Zero thought about cost. It always baffles me. There's a game being played somewhere that I don't understand.

AlmightyCushion · 06-05-2020 12:26am

cryptocurrency wrote: »

Thanks, do you have a decent online converter for the letters? or how did you do that?

Brussels Belguim in Hex

https://www.rapidtables.com/convert/number/hex-to-decimal.html

I put in 0b100002BE1C20 to get the number I gave you.

RurtBeynolds · 07-06-2020 7:26pm

Was about to sign up to adverts to make an offer on something, until I saw the password field is just a plain text box!!

antimatterx · 07-06-2020 8:58pm

RurtBeynolds wrote: »

Was about to sign up to adverts to make an offer on something, until I saw the password field is just a plain text box!!

That's just ****ing lazy!

Creamy Goodness · 07-06-2020 9:07pm

The only thing starring out password is to stop someone shoulder surfing it. The form is still sent over https. I’ve seen this becoming more popular.

tricky D · 08-06-2020 2:02am

In a signup, the placeholder is better used providing password advice. Nor should a placeholder be a substitute for a form label, unless there is a particular UX requirement - unlikely here though.

the-island-man · 08-06-2020 3:22am

In a major multinational medical devices company. About 6 documents required to make any change to existing "validated" systems in production. Even more documents to introduce new systems. Absolutely zero documents that will give any idea to future developers about how the f*** the code is structured. No input on assignment of work and no influence on timelines.

How the f*** did I end up here!

L.Jenkins · 12-06-2020 11:34pm

the-island-man wrote: »

In a major multinational medical devices company. About 6 documents required to make any change to existing "validated" systems in production. Even more documents to introduce new systems. Absolutely zero documents that will give any idea to future developers about how the f*** the code is structured. No input on assignment of work and no influence on timelines.

How the f*** did I end up here!

Worked in the manufacturing end of a well known multinational before it split into 2 companies. The Software I had worked on, was managing the flow of data from manufacturing equipment to an enterprise level DB, contributed to by multiple regions/countries the company operated in.

The code had no structure, no documentation, no other developer working on it or developers who was still employees of the company, sections of it were up to 20 years old and it was comprised of at least 4 programming languages.

Now, when I say it had no structure, that's an understatement. Unlike your usual Linux/Unix app that might have a user account or its own directory, this living nightmare was spread among as many as 7 to 10 random folders. I spent 1 month, yes, 1 month tracing my way through the code to figure it out and document the mess, before putting a plan in place to clean it up.

As for languages, it comprised of C, C++, Python, Perl and of all the languages you could use for data flow from manufacturing equipment, the hideous hell beast that is Javascript. When I discovered that mess, you could imagine I wanted to tear anyone's hair out besides my own.

So about 3 months later when all was done and in testing on live machines, I could eventually get stuck into condensing all that **** into something cleaner and more efficient.

bpmurray · 15-06-2020 10:09pm

the-island-man wrote: »

In a major multinational medical devices company. About 6 documents required to make any change to existing "validated" systems in production. Even more documents to introduce new systems. Absolutely zero documents that will give any idea to future developers about how the f*** the code is structured. No input on assignment of work and no influence on timelines.

How the f*** did I end up here!

Presumably a medical device company uses formal methods to prove the code: I would be rather concerned if this was not the case, but it explains the red tape to make any changes.

Capt'n Midnight · 28-06-2020 2:31pm

L.Jenkins · 01-07-2020 9:30pm

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

That's just some lad now taking the absolute piss.

Capt'n Midnight · 02-07-2020 12:43am

L.Jenkins wrote: »

That's just some lad now taking the absolute piss.

From 2005 https://en.uncyclopedia.co/wiki/AAAAAAAAA!

14ned · 07-07-2020 2:46pm

L.Jenkins wrote: »

That's just some lad now taking the absolute piss.

You can do some truly evil with the C preprocessor. You can examine the source code for:

100% conforming C preprocessor, both of them!

Niall

handofdog · 07-07-2020 4:26pm

This perl camel code is also pretty cool: https://gist.github.com/cgoldberg/4332167

Capt'n Midnight · 07-07-2020 9:58pm

Reminded me of this

Worst Abuse of the Rules:

early every year, one or more people would submit what they claimed
was the world's smallest self reproducing program. While the sizes
of these submissions varied, a quick glance would reveal that they
were too big, until this entry came along.

...

Selected notes from the author:

The world's smallest self-replicating program. Guaranteed.
Produces a listing of itself on stdout.

Wombatman · 30-09-2020 6:01pm

"one line (of code) out of 50,000 lines had a mistake in it."

So most of the application was correct.......yeah. What a wonderful way to evaluate software quality.

Works every time, 70% of the time.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-40057475.html

iLikeWaffles · 30-09-2020 7:09pm

Would be way more than 1 line of code!

The system was meant to draw on the core subjects of Irish, English and Maths and their two strongest non-core subjects, instead, it combined the weakest non-core subjects.

It would have had to find the minimum grade and the second second minimum grade. These functions are separate lines of code! Further more the minimum grade would likely be stored somewhere removed from the array of grades in order to find the second minimum.

Reasonable and likely speculation would be that the company responsible were given the wrong instructions from the DoE. As in: combine the 2 minimum grades instead of the 2 maximum non-core subjects!

Wombatman · 30-09-2020 7:35pm

iLikeWaffles wrote: »

Would be way more than 1 line of code!

It would have had to find the minimum grade and the second second minimum grade. These functions are separate lines of code! Further more the minimum grade would likely be stored somewhere removed from the array of grades in order to find the second minimum.

Reasonable and likely speculation would be that the company responsible were given the wrong instructions from the DoE. As in: combine the 2 minimum grades instead of the 2 maximum non-core subjects!

I donno. I sometimes mix up my greater than and less than symbols or my ascending and descending sorts.

In any case it is more of a testing failure than an implementation one. I mean it would have been so easy to unit test assuming the functional spec was correct.

30-09-2020 7:43pm

Begs the question was there any testing at all. Seems trivial

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