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Oldest comments (124)
Not sure if it counts, but one of my ex managers suggested writing JS, CSS and HTML using SQL Stored Procedures to serve web pages.
Obviously we told this is a terrible idea and this monstrosity never saw a daylight.
Can you tell me more about the context, like what language, framework, infrastructure, and business objectives led to this kind of thought process?
It was Microsoft stack. SQL Server, .NET.
Company has been rebuilding one of the core features - rendering statistical data in a grid. It had to render lots of different datasets dynamically with 10s of thousands of rows per page.
Frontend team at that time was struggling with the implementation and that's where the suggestion came from.
Reality being that different managers wanted their departments being feature owners and make changes themselves using tools they know. Basically SQL Server and T-SQL became a hammer and every feature or an issue started looking as a nail.
So far I am good.
I've met a lot of people who are convinced security through obscurity is a good thing. IMHO, it's a huge waste of time, and sometimes the cure is worse than the disease.
Totally agree. It's like draping a curtain in front of a combination lock that has its code written on a sticky note, and hoping no one will look behind the curtain.
Can't agree more!
Learn Flash, it's the future!
Learn Silverlight, it's the future.
βsaid no one ever, except the Microsoft sales team.
:)
I had one flash class in college and I struggled so hard with it! I am glad that it died.
In fact I think it was not so bad π ActionScript was a pretty good language and the Flash IDE was a good tool for quick animations. It just shouldn't have tried to take the place of HTML imho π
I have to agree, Flash as a concept was good, and ActionScript was solid, but the implementation was a complete β but avoidable β shambles.
Just imagine how heavy built in flash components were. I worked with a guy and we rewrote the library. Made it extremely light weight and scalable.
That's what puzzled me β Flash used vector graphics, so it should have been ultra lightweight, but for the most part the heft of each file was ridiculous.
A lot of it was boilerplate, bitmap skins, additional libraries, etc. When I tore into the inner workings, only certain core libraries were actually needed to render something by the flash player. Oh the days of OO AS3 π€Έ. We basically used vectors drawn with code.
I won a global bronze Lester Wunderman award for a Flash based microsite which advertised the Ford C-Max car.
I did flash. Would you believe it's still in use by many gambling tech companies who having switched over?
The Future cost me $800 and 3 years of work.
Fun fact: I found out from an Adobe insider that they'd officially decided to discontinue Flash in 2012. Adobe sold me a license in 2013. That's what we call "a scam", boys and girls.
Hey now! Talented thespian Brendan Fraser's website runs on Flash... and you're telling me that it's a thing of the past?!
Around 2010, when I was in high school, my best friend tried to get me to learn flash and make games in it. Even gave me some pirated tutorials. XD
Stop writing code and do some real work
Do not learn C++ in school .. because is old and nobody uses it.
Years after, my first job was a corporate, full-time C++ job for 5yrs.
C++ is my first language, I think C++ should be mandatory in school (that teaches tech) as it is a gateway to any programming language you want.
Fully agree with you!
The worst advice I ever received (in programming, at least) was something to the effect of "leave programming to the educated professionals; stop invading/infecting our world". It was 20 years ago when I went to a forum asking for help on something basic, yes, I was clearly a novice, and I expressed that my only interest was as a hobbyist to give them an idea of how to help me and he commenced to go on a page long rant about all the "idiots" wasting valuable data storage space and bandwidth (these were bigger issues back then). This is why I always pre apologize for wasting forum posts (if it seems like something I should know already) on the rare occasion I do need help anymore. Old habit, hard to break. The pretentiousness of experienced programmers was far worse than it is today (though we still have the Stack Overflow :().
If I had taken his advice and given up I never would have built all the utilities on my machines and on the net that make my "hobbyist" life happy. I'm addicted to anything programmatic/problem solving. Just comes naturally and makes me feel amazing. Truly helps me with lots of issues, not just in computing.
I can agree, some people can be very toxic to a community as a whole, on the other hand its great that you didn't let it get to you and kept up what you want to do.
Some people spend way too much time interfacing with a computer that they forget how to interface with other humans lol
Hahaha! It's funny because I find it to be true nowadays! We need HumanDebugInterface HDI for them to do a life-boot rescue π.
I've had countless experiences like this throughout the years with these types and lots of them are frustrated they spend all the money on an education and expect everyone else to have to do the same.
I love helping people and do it regardless if I get anything out of it or not and I pay the help I've received forward any time I can.
Who said that? Cause many "educated professionals" don't know much
Although some of the devs get to be like that in my opinion, as they did a lot for something and should have an excuse SOMETIMES (hey we all get in bad mood and make misstakes), most of these behave as they are affraid that people who didn't waste their lifes reading all books ever written about it, are gonna take their jobs and the only thing they were good at will be taken away and they will be exposed that it's not so hard to do their job. I guess it's not only devs but a lot of things connected somehow to sinence or actual science. Take for instance doctors, if you eve think that there might be a different way to solve your health issues automatically tag on a forehead as conspiracy theorists. I had some bad cases with medical professionals were they made wrong calls because tests indicated something. It's like if people see them as other human beings who also makes mistakes world will end
Anything that mentions just doing something.
"Just get hired at a startup. You'll learn so much!"
"Just apply anyway!"
"Oh that's easy! You just...."
The 4-letter-word word that makes my blood boil
Marcus Blankenship γ» Feb 9 '17 γ» 3 min read
Yes, a mentor once suggested that I completely remove this word from my vocabulary! (I try, but sometimes it slips)
I've been trying to reduce my use of that word as much as possible over the last year+. It really is a verbal crutch.
That language matters in programming. Fun fact, it almost doesn't. unless it is a specific case, or a language isn't 100% able to take on the majority of a task, the language doesn't matter.
B-b-b-but C++ iS bEtTeR π‘π
Tutorials give you the information for you to know the syntax. Stackoverflow everything else.
Mine had to be the advice for looking for a bug by a tech lead. Down into the rabbit hole I went.
This was direction on the basis that another developer couldn't have made a mistake. Which they had and admitted a week later.
Why can't people be more fourth coming. In short the Dev who introduced the bug was the Dev who fixed it.
One guy I use to work with constantly told me to choose shorter variables names, even if it was clear there were harder to understand afterwards. It would go to extreme length to cut a variable name a few characters to make it more readable. Thanks, I hate it now... I guess comprehension is subjective, but as a junior, choosing long and very clear variable names were helping me a lot. To him, it was a distraction.
And also, never learn X because Y... I'll never understand the concept behind telling someone to never learn something. There are always different perspectives, concepts, paradigms to be learned. It might click for someone in a different language or framework, so I've always got a bit sad when I was told never to learn something...
I like to say we write code for the future reader (could be you, could be him, could be someone else). We should judge readability based on the future reader and not the person reading it today.
Using a shorter name might be more readable today, but completely unreadable in the future.
PHP is dead
π―
Yeah, any advice I've gotten with regards to a technology being dead has always proven pretty useless :P
I was surprised to find out a few months ago just how alive the PHP ecosystem is. Lots of good work being done to bring modern development and deployment paradigms to the language.
"Learn the theory before diving in deep".
While it might work for some people, I'm a big fan of learning 'on the job'. In my experience, a lot of starting developers (including me from the past) get stuck in an endless cycle of just learning, and never bring it in practice.
I'd say "Learn the theory WHILE diving in deep." In my experience, that's the only thing that works; theory without practice is noise, practice without theory is useless.
Very well put. There is a sweet spot in the middle for and that spot is different for most of us.
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