« first day (1761 days earlier)      last day (3223 days later) » 
00:00 - 19:0019:00 - 00:00

user55340
12:00 AM
@JimmyHoffa brew.sh
 
user55340
@durron597 I've down voted the ones I haven't already.
 
user55340
 
user55340
Its a nicely packaged and supported WINE for mac
 
user55340
 
user55340
> List Price: $69.99
Price: $39.95
Sale: $24.95 & FREE Shipping on orders over $35. Details
You Save: $45.04 (64%)
 
user55340
12:08 AM
Why? Because you're an adult now and can do these things.
 
user55340
12:19 AM
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
2:09 AM
Anyone around?
 
Telastyn
Telastyn
?
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
2:26 AM
finally got a new PSU for my rig. Been living off a silly little laptop for a couple months. One day my PSU just decided to fill the house with ozone and die. Good thing I bought a decent enough one it did all that without cooking anything in my system, new PSU and everything came back up right as rain
 
Duga
Duga
3:18 AM
I think this question may be better suited at Programmers.SE. — Alpha just now
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
3:52 AM
@JimmyHoffa Mmmm.... Ozone.
 
Duga
Duga
4:13 AM
I'm voting to close this question as off-topic, and I suggest to ask this questions in Programmers — Krumia 41 secs ago
 
Duga
Duga
4:24 AM
I'm voting to close this question as off-topic and suggesting migration to programmers.stackexchange.com as per above and meta.stackexchange.com/questions/165980/… — tripleee 45 secs ago
 
Ampt
Ampt
4:36 AM
@JimmyHoffa yikes... hopefully your Motherboard didn't suffer from bad input voltage. those things can be finnicky.
 
Duga
Duga
5:08 AM
I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because we shouldn't help programmers creating malware or installing things without user permission and hiding them. — Jason Goemaat 59 secs ago
 
 
2 hours later…
Duga
Duga
7:16 AM
Questions like that should most definitely be asked on Programmers.se, because they're way too broad and way to opinion-based to stand SO format. — trejder 37 secs ago
 
 
4 hours later…
MetaFight
MetaFight
11:14 AM
Does anyone here have any experience with MSMQ multicast queues?
 
Duga
Duga
11:30 AM
In addition, I think the question is better suited for programmers.se. You can flag it for moderator attention and ask to move it. — simbabque 7 secs ago
 
Duga
Duga
11:48 AM
@PaulLeBeau Spacing is the distance between two graphical objects. Are you even a programmer? You know this site is for programmers. — Tyler Durden 46 secs ago
 
Duga
Duga
12:12 PM
Btw, seems this question will be more on-topic on programmers.SE — max taldykin 57 secs ago
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
12:53 PM
@Ampt yeah, this is precisely why the only two computer parts I make sure are good quality are the PSU/Mobo. Everything else can be the cheapest model that meets specs, a quality PSU with active PFC and lots of power filtering can take the overvoltage mine got juiced with and cook itself off without ever passing it on to any other components. A good mobo similarly will be able to handle small variations without passing any to CPU/GPU.
This is what I tell myself anyway and have seen in anecdotal personal experience, but frankly I don't know shit about the actual physical media of computers so I could be selling myself a bag of goods... an EE I am not.
oh I just thought of something, there's a dust filter on the case where the PSU fan is (pulling? pushing?) air, I should go in there and pick the new PSU up to clean that, if it's clogged that could explain my PSU popping
Didn't know it was there until I removed the PSU last night
@Ampt that's hilarious
 
Duga
Duga
1:13 PM
Hehe, yes, you are unlucky :) Newbie programmers do have a knack for it, nobody actually writes code like this. Note that this kind of code also easily crashes with this site's name, make the numbers big enough and you'll fall over on a StackOverflowException. Which is not a bug. C++ compilers have many bugs as well, C# holds up well in general. — Hans Passant 41 secs ago
 
durron597
durron597
"You need to go back in time and find the young version of me, and make yourself look like a robot assassin who tried to kill his mommy, so the young me knows who you are. Because he'll definitely trust someone who has haunted his every dream for as long as he's been alive. You'll remind him of the thing he fears most, so he'll want to hang out with you." — Wad Cheber 2 days ago
 
enderland
enderland
@JimmyHoffa I'm not sure if I'm impressed or depressed how many people have already donated to it
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
anybody here used SVN with visual studio with any integration adapters?
 
Ampt
Ampt
1:53 PM
@JimmyHoffa No, that sounds spot on as far as I'm aware. Of course, you probably live in a house where your electricity is very smooth and spikes and droops aren't as big of a concern, but the logic is definitely right
Thats why high end overclocking mobos have all their labeling around their fancy PWMs and high end solid japanese caps
clean power = best power
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
2:05 PM
@Ampt pah, my house was built in '74 and still has the original breaker box. If it weren't for the fact that I have a gas stove, gas oven, gas hot water, gas heat, gas washer, and gas dryer, it would never work.
 
Ampt
Ampt
Meh, a fridge here, a microwave there, you're all good. You know what really kills a PSU? A friggin college dorm. You have like 20+ mini fridges always switching on and off, probably 40 TVs, computers, laptop chargers constantly being plugged in and unplugged, all on one massive breaker. The voltage noise is real.
 
ratchet freak
ratchet freak
@Ampt don't forget the daily microwave surge
 
Ampt
Ampt
Ah yes, how could I have forgotten the only cooking method college kids have access to.
 
durron597
durron597
@Ampt Every dorm room is on the same breaker? Who thought of that idea?
 
Ampt
Ampt
@durron597 The lazy ass electrician, and/or the cheap ass school. Duh.
well, every room on the floor was on the same breaker.
 
ratchet freak
ratchet freak
2:18 PM
or the outdate specs
"meh they'll only have their boombox in there"
 
durron597
durron597
 
Ampt
Ampt
well, each floor had it's own breaker. Didn't want to misrepresent lol
 
ratchet freak
ratchet freak
@Ampt bypassed?
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
How many rooms on a floor? Still too many. Imagine one to two dozen power strips connected together, daisy-chain.
@Ampt My PSU is rated "bronze." Does that count?
 
user41796
Likely that each floor had it's own service panel, and blocks of rooms shared breakers. But the noise from the motors kicking in will transfer across the breakers and affect supplies to other rooms.
 
durron597
durron597
2:23 PM
@GlenH7 This, I believe.
 
user41796
Breakers don't provide any filtering. But the noise won't travel "forever" as there is a measure of capacitance within the wiring and appliances that will dampen down the noise.
 
user41796
read: real systems are messy.
 
ratchet freak
ratchet freak
isn't it inductance that will reduce the noise?
 
user41796
Both do
 
ratchet freak
ratchet freak
ah yeah capacitance in parallel and inductance in series
 
user41796
2:29 PM
As the noise can be affecting the voltage level, the available current, the apparent frequency, and the relative power factor. Capacitance and inductance both work to tamp those down.
 
ratchet freak
ratchet freak
but to eliminate it you would need specific filters to purify the 60/50 Hz sine
 
user41796
agreed
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
Do you really think @JimmyHoffa's power supply died due to line noise?
 
user41796
probably not
 
user41796
But I don't consider a power surge to be equivalent to line noise - to me they're different
 
user55340
2:37 PM
2
Q: Does having 2 engines together increase anything?

3kstcIf I have a vehicle (V1) with one 100 kW engine and an identical vehicle (V2) with 2 of these 100 kW engines, will this mean that V2 will have double the torque of V1 and double the top speed of V1? Suspected Answer It's not like in a series circuit in which, when you have two identical batte...

automotive-engineering
 
user55340
Look at the crazy .au pictures
 
Ampt
Ampt
@GlenH7 Nope. We blew the fuse multiple times, and it's the entirer floor all on one breaker
you have one too many fridges turn on at once and it'll blow
and there were 20 rooms on a floor, 2 people per room
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
That's a bit much for a 15 amp circuit.
 
Ampt
Ampt
it wasn't a 15 amp circuit lol
the breaker wasn't labeled, but it had to be quite a bit
 
user41796
@Ampt There's at least two categories of breakers within a service panel - you'll have the main breaker (or sometimes actually a fuse) and then you have the individual breakers for each circuit within the service panel
 
Ampt
Ampt
2:40 PM
yeah, I've been into quite a few breakers, and understand the basic concept. This was not your normal breaker
 
user41796
20 fridges turning on at once may have been okay for the 10 individual circuit breakers for the rooms but would have been too much for the main breaker (fuse) on the service panel
 
Ampt
Ampt
You're assuming the service panel was built to home specs - it wasn't
 
user41796
but if you looked inside the panel and only saw 1 breaker, then I'll take your word for it
 
whatsisname
whatsisname
I have returned
from the wilderness
 
durron597
durron597
@whatsisname and back into your garbage can?
 
whatsisname
whatsisname
2:43 PM
yep
 
durron597
durron597
 
user55340
@durron597 compound interest on that must be nightmarish
 
durron597
durron597
> It seems that the Greeks had engaged in a practice, en masse, in which they pledged themselves as slaves against the debts they were racking up in support of their farms. it had gotten to the point that a huge chunk of the population ended up enslaved, either in-country or shipped off abroad.
> The wiseman Solon was brought in to power in Attica and he began canceling debts, freeing his fellow citizens from slavery and even redeeming some slaves who had been sold abroad. He did this by devaluing the drachma by one-quarter – something his counterparts in modern Greece are currently unable to do.
 
user41796
> To a person with any historical awareness, being told that Greece is on the verge of a default is like hearing Dean Martin is on the verge of a martini.
 
user41796
@durron597 - You gotta go for the good money quotes.
 
durron597
durron597
2:51 PM
@GlenH7 I hadn't gotten that far down yet. That article is amazing. Where's my star
 
Ixrec
Ixrec
iirc Ancient Greece was also one of the first civilizations to use fractional reserve banking
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@Ampt the only big draw is the AC, and you can hear when the thermostat switches it on/off
 
Ampt
Ampt
@durron597 Well the real TL;DR: Anyone who was stupid enough to lend the greeks money had it coming
but I just saw that pop up on my FB feed and thought it was rather funny
I believe a couple of my friends think it's serious
 
durron597
durron597
3:09 PM
So my third party library company gives us a new license key file every quarter
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
And invalidates the old one, probably.
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
And secretly laughs each time.
 
Ixrec
Ixrec
nah, surely they'd be smart enough to make it print warnings for a few weeks before it starts failing hard
no one would screw that up
 
durron597
durron597
I only noticed yesterday that the one that was supposed to expire end of September actually expires July 1
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
@Ixrec "Avast, ye pirate!"
 
durron597
durron597
3:10 PM
Fortunately I caught it and emailed them in a panic and they fixed it promptly
I should say: I copied the CEO and the COO of their company on the email chain and the COO (who lives in the UK) fixed it at like 9PM GMT
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
Heh. The COO has a keygen.
 
durron597
durron597
so today the low level functionary who sends out the license keys emails me, copying the COO, saying:
> After some investigation I can confirm that your refreshed license file was sent on the 13th April 15.

<your boss> responded with a few questions re the terminology on the expiration dates.

Please find attached email thread for context.
The attached email thread contains a license key that expires July 1.
What do I even say?
 
Ixrec
Ixrec
exactly that?
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
@durron597 "The attached email thread contains a license key that expires July 1."
 
Ixrec
Ixrec
not much else you can say
 
durron597
durron597
3:13 PM
> Hi <admin assistant>,

The license file included in the attached email chain expires on July 1.

I am glad <COO> was able to help too.
but still
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
Well, and "Can you please provide a new one?"
 
durron597
durron597
I don't need a new one, the COO handled it yesterday
 
ratchet freak
ratchet freak
@RobertHarvey "that expires a bit later"
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
Oh. Then no response is necessary.
You're done. Thanks for playing.
 
durron597
durron597
Well, I sent that already
(I sent that before I told this story)
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
3:15 PM
I don't engage with clueless peons.
Too harsh?
 
durron597
durron597
I am inclined to punish people who blame "the customer" when they screw up
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
It's like engaging with same on SO in comments. Waste of time.
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
4
A: IoC/DI design for class library

Jimmy HoffaYou want all dependencies to be injected from the absolute top layer, so you should have a dependency graph with a root, and the root has a reference to the concrete implementation of the deps at every node, registers that concretion for the interface in a container, and then grabs just the first...

 
durron597
durron597
I work hard to be a good customer. I don't bother them when things aren't broken, and I work hard to help them fix bugs and file useful bug reports
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
You're always thinking on IoC/DI stuff @RobertHarvey, there's some content for ya
 
durron597
durron597
3:17 PM
I expect and demand competence on their end, too.
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
@JimmyHoffa Thanks.
 
durron597
durron597
We're paying them a lot of money. I deserve better (and the COO agrees with me, that's why he's sending me license keys late at night UK time)
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
@JimmyHoffa You know, I started this new job with every intention of studying FullStack after work. But the weather is so nice in Irvine...
 
user41796
@durron597 They're aware of it
 
user41796
It's not worth your while to intervene in their internal issue.
 
durron597
durron597
3:19 PM
@GlenH7 It's not worth me writing a two sentence email?
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@RobertHarvey haha, I've never been able to force study, IME all efforts end up souring me on learning anything related to the topic, and the learning I end up doing is vastly shallower and lower quality. I read/resarch/study/practice/learn stuff as I'm motivated to do so, and the quality of my grasp on the topic in those cases is always vastly better.
 
user41796
Not so certain it can be done in a way that doesn't make you look like an azz. Which would invalidate your premise of "the customer wasn't wrong" in this case.
 
user41796
But I've become more and more jaded about what's worth my time as I've gotten older.
 
durron597
durron597
@GlenH7 Well that's why I came to the room. I don't know how much of an azz that email came across as. I'm annoyed that we had to get to crisis level
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
I'd say your feelings about the matter have already been adequately expressed to all concerned.
 
durron597
durron597
3:22 PM
My model is up <a lot of money> today. Would they have given us <that money> if we couldn't turn it on this morning?
 
user41796
Yeah, I can certainly feel that pain. Take a day or two to let the emotion of right now pass and then see if you can come up with a constructive way to avoid that problem in the future.
 
user41796
And maybe that's finding a way to eliminate the admin from being involved in their key gen process.
 
Robert Harvey
Robert Harvey
@durron597 Stock trades?
 
user41796
commodity, not stock
 
durron597
durron597
@RobertHarvey Yeah, these guys transform network packets into Java objects for us
@GlenH7 What you have done is talk me out of ranting to my sales rep about this.
My one two sentence email is sufficient, I think.
 
user41796
3:25 PM
Maybe see if they can do something about getting you quarterly license files sooner.
 
durron597
durron597
@GlenH7 They sent me the one that was "supposed" to expire September 30th on April 14th. That's plenty early for quarterly license keys
 
user41796
@durron597 Assuming they're a reasonable shop, they know they have egg on their face. They may not be able to do much about it.
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@durron597 company cultures are so different, "crisis level" may or may not be what you see. In many companies engaging any manager at all instead of a peon constitutes crisis level, and in many companies C-level are regularly engaged in the day to day business activities. In many companies one entire vertical in management may be highly engaged while another is barely, cultures and management styles vary so you don't really know how "escalated" that actually was.
 
durron597
durron597
@JimmyHoffa I know the person who helped me yesterday is the #2 man in the entire company. It's a small company, maybe 100 people.
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
Just like some companies building and deploying hot fixes is like a fire-drill that results in 2 months of post-mortem analysis and punitive / corrective measures, where others just send out hot-fixes on tuesday and if shit's busted until then whatever, they do it every tuesday and they don't worry none.
 
user41796
3:27 PM
@durron597 So he's likely wondering why he had to be involved and if he's smart will be thinking of ways to make sure that doesn't happen again
 
durron597
durron597
@GlenH7 This is actually the second time I had to involve him about a license key issue. I don't remember what happened the first time
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@durron597 small companies it's especially common that the high level managers are engaged in day-to-day business. The COO may be in contact with clients often and could even be one of those loves-to-do-real-work-instead-of-managing people who was giddy at the prospect of replaying his glory days of the 2-am-it-hero
 
ratchet freak
ratchet freak
@JimmyHoffa or he is the guy with the key to the airgapped keygen machine
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@ratchetfreak yep! There's no telling, so I wouldn't worry none on what level of escalation was just invoked
 
durron597
durron597
Oh, there was a screwup when we switched from our "development, new customer trial license" to our "production, real paying customer license". It's not immediately obvious who's fault that was but it could have been mine. The admin was not involved then (two years ago)
Anyway, the COO handled it then, too
@ratchetfreak airgapped?
 
ratchet freak
ratchet freak
3:31 PM
@durron597 not connected to a network
 
durron597
durron597
@ratchetfreak Right, duh.
 
user41796
pretty standard for paranoid companies to keep the key gen service on a completely disconnected system
 
ratchet freak
ratchet freak
@durron597 that would be a case of "new customer! lets make sure he doesn't have a reason to leave!"
 
durron597
durron597
@GlenH7 Yeah that seems obvious / typical, I just didn't think about it but it makes total sense now that I know the word
 
user41796
Obviously doesn't hold up to nation-state level of attack, but pretty good otherwise. :-)
 
ratchet freak
ratchet freak
3:33 PM
@GlenH7 doesn't hold up to a set of black ops sneaking in
 
user41796
@ratchetfreak That's what the automated sentry system backed by sub-machine guns handles.
 
user41796
< insert one of millions of movie references here />
 
ratchet freak
ratchet freak
but the rubber hose took care of that months ago
2
 
durron597
durron597
These guys are in finance, it's probably in a room like this:
 
Ampt
Ampt
@durron597 I'm guessing you pay them for their speed in that effort, not the ability itself?
 
durron597
durron597
3:41 PM
@Ampt It's enough work that paying them 10 grand per year is cheaper than hiring another developer.
 
Ampt
Ampt
Really, it's just the effort itself? I figured with you doing trades via algorithms, speed was the important factor in that purchase decision
brb, making network packet -> Java object lib
 
durron597
durron597
@Ampt They are fast. All they're doing is parsing a FIX/FAST message to a java object
 
Ampt
Ampt
I'll do it for 9k per year, and you get yearly licenses!
 
durron597
durron597
@Ampt It's harder than you think. Plus the exchange changes stuff, and they update their end included in the license fee
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@durron597 I'll do it for $30k one time and give you source rights
 
durron597
durron597
3:43 PM
@JimmyHoffa You are more expensive than them, then.
 
Ampt
Ampt
only for 3 years
then you recoup your cost!
 
durron597
durron597
@JimmyHoffa No, because the exchange changes stuff
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
plus you can resell the product
 
ratchet freak
ratchet freak
@Ampt unless there is a bug and the dev gets tied up for a few quarters
 
durron597
durron597
@JimmyHoffa Who is going to maintain it? You?
 
ratchet freak
ratchet freak
3:44 PM
@durron597 he gave you source rights which I think means you will
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@durron597 at a per-diem cost rather than per-annum, done
 
ratchet freak
ratchet freak
or he as a contractor...
 
durron597
durron597
@JimmyHoffa But your 30k is more than we've given them in the last 2.5 years because they gave us the product for a year free
 
Ampt
Ampt
Sorry, did someone say money?
 
durron597
durron597
also the CME totally rewrote their protocol in between then and now and they've already delivered the new library
 
ratchet freak
ratchet freak
3:46 PM
@durron597 but next year you will have given them more than 30k
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@durron597 short-term gains for long-term costs, short-sightedness is causing no discernible financial troubles at all...
 
durron597
durron597
Plus, I have their product today. @JimmyHoffa how long did you say this would take you?
Tell you what, you send me the product and then I'll decide if I want to give you the 30k
 
Ampt
Ampt
you know, for coming in here to complain about their business practices, you sure do seem to like them.
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@durron597 let me get my brass knuckles, where is that company located? I'll have the product to you tomorrow.
 
durron597
durron597
@Ampt I was actually asking about what do I say in response to an ass-covering email that is clearly false not "I hate this company do you know any alternatives"
 
Ampt
Ampt
3:47 PM
@durron597 Rule number 1 of the whiteboard - you don't always get what you ask for. :)
 
durron597
durron597
@JimmyHoffa Probably down the street from @Ixrec. You can crash on his couch after the flight
@Ampt But if you try sometimes, you just might find you get what you need?
 
user41796
@durron597 If you're still annoyed in a few days, you might mention it in an off-handed manner to the sales rep. "Hey, does so & so always cover their mistakes like that?"
 
ratchet freak
ratchet freak
or it was an honest mistake made in a rush
 
user41796
Then the sales rep can easily let you know if that's a one-off, a recurring issue, or what
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@GlenH7 and put the guy on an improvement plan... ugh
 
durron597
durron597
3:52 PM
@ratchetfreak I have no problem with honest mistakes. They happen all the time. I have problems with ass-covering emails blaming me for their honest mistakes.
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@durron597 you're a client, what the hell do you care. He just made himself look even worse by blaming a client in front of them.
 
Ampt
Ampt
@JimmyHoffa Then he can do self-assessments like me... wait...
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@Ampt O_O damn son, shit's just going down hill fast out there eh? :P
 
Ampt
Ampt
hahaha no, it's a yearly thing
 
durron597
durron597
@Ampt I know a company in the UK that needs help sending license key emails
 
user41796
3:53 PM
@JimmyHoffa SOP for large corps
 
Ampt
Ampt
promotions don't happen til november/december, but the process starts in july
it takes like 6 months to figure out who gets promotions I guess
 
ratchet freak
ratchet freak
@Ampt it takes 6 months for everyone to get their chance at sucking up
 
Ampt
Ampt
Mine is actually looking very favorable right now. Account put me in the highest category, and it's a big account with a lot of weight, so hopefully that will put me higher regionally.
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@Ampt I know, I kid. Best of luck
 
enderland
enderland
@ratchetfreak nah just delay the process and you save the company money
 
Ampt
Ampt
3:54 PM
thanks. Hoping for that promotion, but we'll see.
 
durron597
durron597
@Ampt How many people in your company have your job description and how many of them get promoted (approximately?)
 
ratchet freak
ratchet freak
@enderland but if you hint that the decision isn't final yet then people will get "motivated" to perform better
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@GlenH7 yes, I've done quarterly, semi-annual, and annual reviews at different companies... stack ranking and all of that malarky.
 
user41796
@durron597 job description has nothing to do with it
 
Ampt
Ampt
it's actually done by career level, so lets say I'm at level F, and want to go to level E (A is the highest), they rank EVERYONE in the company at F in one giant list
 
user41796
3:55 PM
It's all about % billable time and how much his managing partner and manager rave about him
 
Ampt
Ampt
then they look at how many spots they need tot fill, or can fill, at level E, and the top X from the list get it.
 
durron597
durron597
Do you know how many Fs there are and how many E spots there are in your region?
 
Ampt
Ampt
but, as glen points out, there are other ways as well. a good word from my managing partner would pretty much guarantee me the raise
umm.... tens of thousands probably
 
enderland
enderland
I got lucky in that I got a double raise this year, since I got our yearly raise and then a promotion only a few months later (if it had been the other order I probably wouldn't have gotten the same thing)
 
Ampt
Ampt
lucky duck.
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
3:57 PM
always pissed me off at my last job; every manager in the org would give glowing "my employees are all super-heroes, so amazing 5 out of 5 out of 5 for everyone, you're amazing!" reviews, fighting to get the best for all their employees even though outside my team everyone was terrible. Then my boss took the stance that "We must be very very good, that's what's expected of you. If you do fantastic high quality work, you'll get a 'Meets expectations'" so our team always had the lowest perf
 
Ampt
Ampt
ugh, that also sucks.
 
enderland
enderland
@Ampt yes, it was a small compensation for 1 year of career uncertainty :)
 
Ampt
Ampt
that's kind of what I'm hoping for as well haha
 
ratchet freak
ratchet freak
@JimmyHoffa those managers probably got a bonus for each employee that got a raise
 
Ampt
Ampt
Really, at the level I'm at, having a heartbeat is pretty much "Meets expectations".
 
Ixrec
Ixrec
3:58 PM
@JimmyHoffa and fundamentally, all ranking systems are defined in terms of meeting or not meeting someone's arbitrary expectations, so it's always messed up
 
ratchet freak
ratchet freak
@Ixrec and someone always games the system
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@ratchetfreak of course! Joel wrote well about what's wrong with stack-ranking. It incentivizes all the worst behaviours you could get from management, and disincentivizes otherwise.
 
Ixrec
Ixrec
at least when you use human opinions rather than code metrics it's harder to game it
 
enderland
enderland
Depends on the opinions
 
Ixrec
Ixrec
I'm assuming semi-competent managers
 
ratchet freak
ratchet freak
4:00 PM
@Ixrec buying a few beers at the right time will put the opinion in a better light
 
enderland
enderland
@Ixrec well that's your mistake ;)
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@Ixrec moreover they're defined in terms of being perceived to have met or not met. It's all too hand-wavey and nonsense.
 
ratchet freak
ratchet freak
@Ixrec a dangerous assumption to make
 
Ixrec
Ixrec
wow, that got a lot of replies
 
user41796
@Ixrec I was about to add mine too. :-)
 
user41796
4:01 PM
All of us could share horror stories where that assumption fell flat
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
Instead of stack-ranking, the best I can figure on is: No reviews. Fire people who consistently fail to perform, and give everyone the same raises. No favorites and no knuckledraggers.
 
enderland
enderland
@ratchetfreak most managers aren't competent, since for many people they mainly want more money and are terribad managers rather than wanting to do good work as a manager
@JimmyHoffa my company sorta works like this, except we still have reviews - but raises push everyone in the same position to the same pay over time (you have to do REALLY well to get above that point)
 
Ixrec
Ixrec
I probably should've added the axiom that if the manager is incomptent, the promotion/raise procedure they use is largely irrelevant
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@enderland reviews are fine, it's the ranking that shouldn't happen. Realistically there should be no need for a review, if employees and managers are communicating often and plainly, they'll know everything worth knowing about expectations and perceived performance. There's no other reason to do a review.
 
ratchet freak
ratchet freak
@enderland and people that just don't make good managers get promoted to the position because they did well in what they will manage
 
Ampt
Ampt
4:03 PM
@JimmyHoffa lol, I see my manager once, maybe twice a month
 
Ixrec
Ixrec
@JimmyHoffa we have reviews, and around my first review I was told many times that nothing in it should be a surprise (and indeed, none of it was)
 
user41796
@ratchetfreak Or they went into management because that was the only way to earn more money.
 
enderland
enderland
@ratchetfreak yup. I had a previous manager like this, he was a great guy personally but not really the best manager
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@Ampt you're in a position that causes reviews to make more sense. But really you're beholden to someone you work with/for every day in the office more than your line-manager. Your line-manager should be speaking with your project stakeholders once in a while to conduct a review and communicate with you etc
 
Telastyn
Telastyn
thankfully, managers made less than developers at my last few jobs.
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
4:05 PM
@Ixrec yeah, this is typical for me as well, I always have a lot of open dialog with my manager as a rule, very helpful.
 
Ixrec
Ixrec
I just wish my TL wasn't so overworked so we could have the 1-on-1s more than once every...I'm honestly not sure what it is now, a month or two probably
 
enderland
enderland
it turns out frequently talking with your manager makes reviews NOT a surprise, I don't know why everyone doesn't do this
 
Telastyn
Telastyn
because they're "too busy"
which is short hand for "too busy to do a good job" or "this politics is more important than the success of my team"
 
Ixrec
Ixrec
now for a highly subjective question to all of you: I often feel that now that I'm basically competent and can process most technical tasks assigned to me, there's sort of a ceiling of performance beyond which I can't really go without working more hours or getting very lucky (unless you count certain tasks like designing greenfield projects where the experienced guy has a big edge); does anyone else feel that way?
 
Telastyn
Telastyn
1 on 1's are priority #1 for any people manager.
@ixrec - I don't.
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
4:08 PM
@Telastyn or "just go away, I'm making money, money-o-money woo woo! PeonBegone!"
 
Telastyn
Telastyn
@JimmyHoffa - also plausible!
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
used to know a guy who got a job as a VP of marketing. He said he and the other VPs literally just spent all day messing around with and competing with eachother in airline miles programs. He said he wasn't really sure what his job was because nobody else there did anything and they never told him to do anything. They all just dressed up and messed around all day, and occasionally when to meetings where they had no idea what the meeting was about, so they just sat there and looked important.
 
user41796
@Ixrec Hard to say. There's certainly aspects where I know I could be more proficient and therefore knock things out faster. OTOH, there are domains where I would flounder because I haven't really done anything in them. Language or compiler creation is an example. I'm sure I could pick any of those domains up, but I don't worry too much about them until I need to.
 
user41796
But there's no one who can do "everything" and do it well. The field is simply too broad.
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
It's not a majority of companies that have teams of roving-moochers, but it definitely happens...
 
user41796
4:11 PM
@JimmyHoffa that's bad, right?
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@GlenH7 iduno, he was a VP, very important smart people right? I'm certain he was just, you know, doing important stuff by osmosis
 
Ixrec
Ixrec
makes you wonder how much money they could save by simply not having them
 
Telastyn
Telastyn
@ixrec
bah stupid chat
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@Ixrec I'm sure they wondered too, but the people wondering were busy checking their airline miles and didn't really feel like running an analysis
 
Ixrec
Ixrec
presumably all the shareholders are also checking their airline miles
 
user15026
4:15 PM
@JimmyHoffa oh boy.
 
Telastyn
Telastyn
@Ixrec - the best way I've heard of that transition described is the concept of a force multiplier. As a good developer, you can do X work. As a great developer, you make your entire team better, causing N people to do N*Y more work (as a whole) - by training, by good design, by organizing the people, by building the processes, by implementing good tools, and/or by shielding them from bullshit.
More work than you could ever do alone.
 
Ixrec
Ixrec
that actually makes a lot of sense, thanks
 
user55340
Given recent close votes and reviews, I would hazard a guess that some people are summer time active only.
 
enderland
enderland
@Telastyn careful, this is the pathway into management too :P
 
Telastyn
Telastyn
I am most of the way there already.
 
enderland
enderland
4:28 PM
@Ixrec I think what matters is if you are continually learning, you can always learn more effective/efficient ways to do things
 
Telastyn
Telastyn
mostly because I cannot stand working for garbage managers.
 
enderland
enderland
That's why I figure I will become a manager someday lol
 
Ixrec
Ixrec
@enderland maybe it has something to do with the fact that I'm working at the application level, so a lot of constraints on my efficiency come from all the infrastructure teams I'm dependent on
eg it'll never be possible to run our unit tests at the press of a button until infrastructure adds/unlocks more features (or at least more ways of accessing the existing features)
 
enderland
enderland
@durron597 that article about Greece is awesome
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
@Ixrec so get on the infrastructure team and turn never into no time
 
Ixrec
Ixrec
4:35 PM
we are gradually leaning in that direction
 
durron597
durron597
My boss's boss's monitor just broke and I didn't delegate dealing with it to the new guy
@enderland How do I learn how to delegate grunt work to the new guy?
 
Ixrec
Ixrec
were you supposed to?
 
durron597
durron597
@Ixrec He works for me
 
user41796
@durron597 put a sign on your desk that says: Sh!t flows downhill
 
durron597
durron597
It's one of those things where we're supposed to be developers but we have no IT staff
there isn't enough IT work to have dedicated people so we have to do it ourselves
the other problem is that he's currently being trained in how the market works by my boss
and I didn't want to interrupt them
 
enderland
enderland
4:39 PM
@durron597 do you have actual defined "grunt work" at all?
 
durron597
durron597
@enderland Swapping out one of the partners' monitors?
 
enderland
enderland
Hmmm....
 
user41796
@durron597 You probably made the right decision in that case then.
 
durron597
durron597
@GlenH7 Our new strategy broke awhile ago and I'm trying to debug it
 
user41796
If uber boss needed it swapped out immediately, then doing so yourself was the right thing. If it could have waited, then maybe wait until underling is done with training and hand it off
 
durron597
durron597
4:42 PM
on the other hand, my boss goes on vacation tomorrow so we won't be able to try a new version until monday
@GlenH7 Yeah, I think that's right
 
enderland
enderland
heh the company I interviewed with last fall just emailed me and said they are expanding and my name keeps coming up with them...
 
durron597
durron597
@enderland What was the result of the interview?
 
user41796
@enderland Did they ever follow up after the interview?
 
enderland
enderland
(which is weird since we had like a 30 minute interview which felt half assed on their part)
@GlenH7 yeah, they gave me a lot of positive feedback and even tried to get my salary requirements
I never bothered trying to initiate with them since I wasn't 100% convinced lol
and getting married kinda happened around then too, so..
 
user41796
details, details, right?
 
gnat
gnat
4:57 PM
call me paranoid, but pair of rather senseless off-topic questions from this new user has gotten suspiciously consolidated pair of answers from another new user...
 
enderland
enderland
@gnat oh there were two of those?I thought it was weird a new user got an answer on a terrible question from another user when I DVed the one, but two seems quite coincidental ;)
 
Ixrec
Ixrec
the two questions are also suspiciously similar
the answerer does have one good-looking post on another SE, the asker has nothing but those two Qs
 
gnat
gnat
...I don't know, they might be all honest, but it... just doesn't smell right
 
user41796
@gnat I'd flag for a mod to look into. Definitely doesn't seem right.
 
user41796
A quick check of the IP addrs should answer it
 
user41796
5:01 PM
And surprisingly, we don't have any Progs mods in the room today.
 
Ixrec
Ixrec
the one at -4 is still open, we can at least fix that
I suppose it's conceivable that the answerer was following powershell (can mods see people's tag prefs?)
 
enderland
enderland
@Ixrec he's a brand new user too
 
user41796
@Ixrec I don't believe so, no. Possibly if they go in to edit things about the account, but that takes several steps to do.
 
Ixrec
Ixrec
yeah, it's highly unlikely, that's just the only thing I could think of that might form part of a legitimate explanation
 
user41796
very low rep users like that are unlikely to be aware of the fact that they can subscribe to tags
 
Ixrec
Ixrec
5:10 PM
exceedingly unlikely
 
durron597
durron597
@gnat all these blue names around and none of them are actually for this site
@gnat i mean, who cares though? neither have enough rep to upvote.
 
user41796
@durron597 better to catch socks before they get established
 
gnat
gnat
@durron597 2 accepts bring 30 to answerer and 4 to asker; after that answerer can boost asker by 2 upvotes, and add 10 to what they already have, so that asker gets 15 and can boost answerer with two upvotes. Total: asker at 15, answerer at 50, questions aren't eligible for roomba because of accept
note that whatever downvotes you folks cast on them so far, won't matter in this schema, since these were at rep 1 and didn't deduct anything
gee am I paranoid
 
durron597
durron597
downvotes should send people to negative rep. I'm sure there's an MSE post about it.
 
gnat
gnat
 
Ixrec
Ixrec
5:24 PM
technically, you need 1 rep to answer, so negative rep might be bad for that reason (no second chances for first-timers is a bit harsh)
but if one removed that caveat it might be helpful
then again people who post crap over and over are probably better banned than neg-repped
 
durron597
durron597
@Ixrec i don't think downvotes should necessarily stop people from posting an answer but I do think that people shouldn't be at 16 rep after three downvotes followed by an accept
they should be at 10.
 
Ixrec
Ixrec
totally agreed with that
they can easily delete all the bad posts once they get the idea so there's no real risk of overpunishing then
 
enderland
enderland
6:13 PM
-7
Q: Am I failed in life by choosing PHP development as a career?

0____________0See, I have work experience in PHP of total 2 years. I got recruited thru campus interview by my company. I was in 8 people selected out of 467 students. Then my company assigned me PHP(core OOP php, frameworks, REST api, wordpress, magento and client side coding I learnt there). I am one of th...

career-development careers career-switch
doesn't yannis do php?
 
durron597
durron597
@enderland huh? what does that question have to do with Yannis?
 
enderland
enderland
@durron597 I thought yannis does php development
 
durron597
durron597
Anyone know how to turn off notifications for additional comments to one facebook post
I don't want all the person's posts to stop appearing in my notifications, just additional comments to that one
 
user15026
@durron597 There should be an option to stop notifications for hte post in the little dropdown (top right corner of hte post?)
 
user15026
and then you won't see any comments or replies to that one post but anything else that person does should show as normal.
 
durron597
durron597
6:22 PM
@AshleyNunn That only offered to turn off all notifications for that person
 
Jimmy Hoffa
Jimmy Hoffa
Programming across a multitude of languages and platforms is a career. Programming in one language is a skill, maybe a job at most. — keshlam Jun 9 at 4:25
Well said.
 
André
André
I do PHP and Java development. I find difficult to express "my creativity" with it. Java is verbose, sure, but I find it more fluent.
 
enderland
enderland
> Am I failed in life by choosing PHP development as a career?
 
user55340
Knowing perl and having dabbled in php- php is just badly designed knock off of perl.
 
enderland
enderland
uh oh! :)
 
user15026
6:33 PM
@durron597 Huh, weird.
 
user15026
I swore there was an option for turning it off for the post.
 
durron597
durron597
@AshleyNunn me too
@MichaelT agreed
 
enderland
enderland
6:45 PM
@gnat probably the only people who read tag descriptions are those who write them
 
00:00 - 19:0019:00 - 00:00

« first day (1761 days earlier)      last day (3223 days later) »