fap
double fap

People who care too much about things that don't really matter.

Sorry about that :(

But does that mean you grind your own gears then?

Amen. I wish that everyone in marketing would just die

do marketing ask the end users?

as an 'end user' of a particular application that has just been'upgraded' we are all tearing our hair out at the combination of old bugs not fixed and new bugs, and really stupid usability issues that indicate no one bothered to to any fucking requirements analysis/ user requirements whatsoever.

I could write a small novel on the bugs in it, and the stupid user-unfriendly crap

except its taking me so long to work around them all I cant do my actual job, let alone theirs.

They ask the end users managers, who are easily impressed with flashy demos and big, technical sounding words.

If it makes you feel any better (probablly not), there are customers who are the same way, although I'm sure you know this already.

i.e. Trying to explain to a client why taking "a couple of days" to refactor the code is a good thing, if they want their future enhancements to be easy (read: cheap) to add.

Not kidding, I wrote a fucking awful Skip Tracing (i.e. tracking down debtors) web based program in .NET in two weeks. I'd never worked in .NET, and I'd never written a web app, and never used ASP.NET either.

It worked (because the Coding Guru who I was working with spent 3/4s of an hour finishing it off for me on Christmas Eve, which was basically a) correcting my usage of a library he had written and b) using the correct .NET objects for what I was trying to do, reducing 30-40 lines of code to 5) but it only just worked.

After this horrible experience I had to convince the client that despite apearances, I hadn't quite done a bang up job, and could REALLY use some time to get things sorted out (like removing hard coded SQL statements from the code base and introducing objects to represent debts/debtors/leads) before doing any furure work.

They didn't believe me:

"We've got serious time constraints from upstairs..."
"I don't think we can factor those changes into our costs..."
"If I ask you for this tiny little change along with the other ten tiny little changes, none of which were in the spec, it couldn't possibly cause problems downstream, could it?"

Jesus, trying to explain to clients that Little Change A + Little Change B = big fucking bug further down the track that we cannot see yet because it was never factored into the change requests and planning we did, so can we please leve those changes until I've finished the current changes you want... is not fun :(

p.s. NEVER EVER EVER FUCKING WORK FOR A BASTARD WHO TELLS CLIENTS THAT YOU HAVE MUCHO EXPERIENCE IN A BRAND NEW TECHNOLOGY THAT YOU'VE NEVER EVEN SEEN BEFORE, LET ALONE FUCKING IMPLEMENTED ANYTHING USEFULL IN. Ah yeah, now that grinds my gears :D

p.p.s. Web development sucks arse, until you get your mind around stateless programming (which doesn't take that long I guess, but its still a mind shift). Then you go out and start learning LISP, and then your brain melts.

That sort of stuff is supposed to be done by Software Analysts - people who actually understand the technology, and the impacts of whatever might be promised, and if it might actually be feasable. Marketing people read the glossy industry magazines, and spout all the flash new jargon and buzzwords at clients, without any regard for if it might be possible (or even a good idea) to do. They then say it can be done in a week, when 3 months is a more realistic figure.

I hate marketing.

What grinds my gears is when im doing something (development, writing a document etc), and my boss says 'lets catch up now' so i stop what im doing, and prepare for the catch up, then he fucks around for ages doing his own shit, talking to other staff members....whatever.

so i just sit here, not wanting to start what i was working on again, cause im basically on red alert for this meeting....it could happen ANYTIME....

sigh

LISP and I wave big angry sticks at each other but otherwise stay in our respective corners and leave each other alone. I find it is better that way.

I didn't have that much troubles with LISP, but then again I've not had to interact with it in anyway in a production environment and maybe my memories are making it seem much easier than it really is.

Heh, I'm only at the

(defun add1 (n)
(+ 1 n) )

and go woo! cos it works stage. Have been learning very slowly, i.e. when I can be bothered to boot into Linux when I have some spare time at home.

Have done enough reading to start seeing how functional programming could be cool, and love the idea of code as data (my old boss used to rave about something similar when he was using Clipper, never quite saw what the big deal was until recently.)

At work we use SISC, which is an implementation of scheme, a dialect of LISP. It rules hard.
Definitly worth a look at.

People who bitch about spam, ffs its just email, DELETE IT. It's not like you have to physically get up and run down the street to get rid of it. Hell, I'm the laziest fucker about and I can press a key without stressing out about it.

Spam does get to be a pain when you're getting 150-200 a day. You have to use filtering, and then you have to check for false positives etc.

people who get really worked up over things like servers, code, blah, anything IT really.

People who can't upshift properly. Duh.

Flatmates who use all the bandwidth when they're not even home.

.. And then when they get home, wonder why you pulled their patch cable.

haha I did that to my old flattie :)

now isnt that where you need to have a BA that knows what the fuck they are on about, and has the balls to tell it straight (in laymans terms anyway) to the client - rather than agreeing to all sorts of crap to get the job?

very short sighted as sooner or later your company's name will be mud when all the limitations become apparent to the client (who will never stop to consider the fact that their demands might have contributed to this situation - though - really the client should expect to be educated when they are asking for stuff that isnt possible - again consultant/BA's job)

also, can openers

they never last very long before they wont work - i just brought a new one and a week later its starting to slip

flawed technology - why hasnt someone made a BETTER one?

What the fuck are you doing to them? Buy those ugly metal ones, I have had one for years.

Normally I ignore spelling and grammar on this forum, but the above always gets my goat:

It should be - "i just bought a new one"

Brought = to bring.

Bought = to buy.

Now I know you could be saying that you took a new can-opener home, but you're not. I'm not flaming you, btw, just pointing something out for future reference.

I agree with chiquelet.

What she pointed out really rattles my tits.

crazy frog

Flatmates who invite their friends over and play drum n bass really loudly in the kitchen when everyone else in the flat fucking hates it.

I hate it when people use "i" instead of "I".

What really gets my goat is when people use 'loose' when they mean 'lose'.

Damned goat.

Do you really?

I set myself up for that, but the people needed to learn the difference between bought and brought. It was all worth it :)

I hate people who can't handle loud drum and bass! :D

Yes, right up there with "you're" and "your".

the one i bought is one of those ugly metal ones

(edit)

oh, and what am I doing to them? oddly enough, opening cans with them! :D

My god, the woman can't even use a can opener! She is a danger in the kitchen and therefore is of no use to anyone as a woman. Down the garbage shute with her.

I burn popcorn too

Christ, you can't do anything. I bet you make really bad scrambled eggs.

I bet you can't get a girlfriend

He's got kimmy - they make such a cute couple!

Women who can't cook. That really grinds my gears. Anyone who can't make decent scrambled eggs. It's so fucking easy to make, how can you screw it up?


I simply beat them and make them mine.

WTF? They have made better ones! Stop buying cheap crap from the $2 shop and complaining that it is cheaply made. I bought a Brabantia can opener in 1986 for $15 and still have it, though it is getting a little fucked now - but I got at least 15 years of good use out of it. When I was a kid we didn't have much money and my mother bought some cheap shitty can openers that were mediocre when new and shit within weeks - that used to grind my gears.

Seriously, the people that buy the cheapest low quality crap available then complain about the poor quality really piss me off. I spend good money to buy good quality stuff that will last well, why pay half as much for something that lasts for 10% as long?

Hey.... I was about to make some witty comment about goats and grinding them.

But its escaped me for the moment, although I still feel the need to post something dang it.

Fuck it, me and my goat are going to bed now to grind stuff.