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The most outrageous moments of my career
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The most outrageous moments of my career
#21
 Story #2:

So I had been sucked in to a pseudo-startup with some truly incomptent management. The head of development was a lardy guy that we had nicknamed "The Blob", and, to give you an idea of his deep technical knowledge, he didn't know the difference between Java and Javascript. Since the original gang of developers (me and a few others) didn't take any of his bullsh*t they started hiring young and impressionable ones (the kind you can fire  before 3 months if you don't like them). And one of them was a freshly graduated girl with whom I shared an office.

So the Blob took the habit to come "discuss ideas" (i.e. talk complete nonsense) with my colleague (but sometimes pushing her to tears by asking her impossible work), and when he did so he usually put his butt on my desk, that would flex under the weight and working with a display which isn't upright is more painful than it seems. I had to stop this (both the pestering of the colleague and the display tilt). Some time later I visit my local florist (which I knew well due to being both a regular customer and have kids in the same class as hers) and found that she was selling small cactuses, so I started testing their spikiness to find the one most suited for my goals (technically, stout spikes, but that would break loose; and remain in the target). Intrigued, she asked what I was doing so I told her my whole plan, that made me get out of the shop with a free cactus and the promise to tell the result.

The next morning I put the cactus at the strategical place and start working. Enters The Blob who unfortunately notices the thing and remains standing up. Over the next few days he is still careful but since I have also started calling him out on his nonsense he tries to come when I am not around.

So, a few days later, I leave my desk for a coffee with the IT guy, and when I reach the end of the hall I see The Blob dashing out of his office and entering  ours. When I come back 5 minutes later, my colleague is alone and her eyes are filled with tears... of laughter, because when I look around I see a flattened cactus on the floor.

Instant hero status. Plus the colleague amused us for months with her impression of The Blob sitting on the cactus. Brought the cactus back to the florist. She was impressed :)
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#22
This is not work related, but from my childhood, and worth telling.


We had some interesting kids in our social group back then.


Video games hadn't been invented (except maybe on one of my favorite shows - Flash Gordon)
so we had to create clever things to keep us occupied. Sometimes rather mischievously.

One of the group had a very laid back father, who's ambition in life was to collect every issue of TV guide.
This particular kid was more often than not getting us into some sort of trouble.
Like the time he decided to shoot a hornet's nest through with an arrow while the rest of us begged him not to.

He had a particular dislike to the elderly women living next door to his house, because she was always complaining
to his father that he was doing something that annoyed her. So he put on his thinking cap and came up with the
following prank.

He had a clock motor (analog, as were all clock motors back in the late 40's early 50's) in his 'junk box' that he
decided to put to use. He rigged it up to a small catapult that he had made earlier, large enough to hold a pretty good
size pebble, Aimed it at his neighbors house and set the clock motor to launch the payload in about thirty minutes.

With the prank set in motion we all went down stairs to watch TV with his father.

On schedule, 30 minutes later, the doorbell rang.
It was the next door neighbor who proclaimed: 'That son of yours just threw  a rock at my house!'

to which his father replied: Nonsense! He and his friends have been sitting with me watching TV for the last half hour!
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#23
Today I have stumbled - by reference - on this excellent intro into descriptors.

It reminded me of a "misplaced"  Cry enthusiasm I have experienced stumbling on this "Descriptors Demystified" article.

It has earned me a stiff reprimand from a manager high up a food chain - purported genius! - who wrote me that program should deal with "real things" - like
Quote:opening files, writhing to databases, displaying on screen
 Naughty
Test everything in a Python shell (iPython, Azure Notebook, etc.)
  • Someone gave you an advice you liked? Test it - maybe the advice was actually bad.
  • Someone gave you an advice you think is bad? Test it before arguing - maybe it was good.
  • You posted a claim that something you did not test works? Be prepared to eat your hat.
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#24
There's this guy in the office - in one of his commits he has added a dot to this line
# This Python file uses the following encoding: utf-8
This is the only thing he changed in the module - obviously, someone can actually mistake this line for a user-written comment  Wall , but since utf-8. is illegal encoding, the build was broken. So I was forced to add below this line the following warning
##################################################################
#                          IMPORTANT
# The line above is not a comment - it should not be changed!!!!!
##################################################################
and I also sent a mail to colleagues with the following warning
Quote:Dear all,
Lines like one below are not comments – they are encoding instructions. Load <No> was broken by adding dot to it – see <ticket>
# This Python file uses the following encoding: utf-8
This is the way encoding is defined when interpreter is not specified with a shebang line – which is not needed, when a module is not executable on its own.
See PEP-0263 for details

In just 2 days the same person broke the load again - by creating circular import for the sake of .... annotation  Doh

Obviously, he did not test his code after either of those "cosmetic" changes  Angry
Test everything in a Python shell (iPython, Azure Notebook, etc.)
  • Someone gave you an advice you liked? Test it - maybe the advice was actually bad.
  • Someone gave you an advice you think is bad? Test it before arguing - maybe it was good.
  • You posted a claim that something you did not test works? Be prepared to eat your hat.
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#25
Rather than adding that comment, why not do the typical
# -*- coding: <encoding name> -*-
?

Also, annotations are more than just cosmetic. They allow static analysis tools to notify you of mistakes in a way similar to a statically typed language. In theory....
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#26
(Jun-06-2017, 03:53 PM)micseydel Wrote: Rather than adding that comment, why not do the typical
# -*- coding: <encoding name> -*-
?
I got the impression that this is recommended form for files without interpreter line - see PEP-263. And, I've already implied
  • This line looks too artificial to be user comments (well, my level of English is much higher than that of my colleagues)
  • This was the only change made to the file in the commit  Wall - and this line was there for a long time


(Jun-06-2017, 03:53 PM)micseydel Wrote: Also, annotations are more than just cosmetic. They allow static analysis tools to notify you of mistakes in a way similar to a statically typed language. In theory....

I can tell you a joke about the difference between in theory and in practice - but I will be banned for foul language Snooty . In practice, we don't use any analysis tools - and creating circular import is bad. Both in theory and in practice.

Making changes to files after running tests is bad practice altogether - in my humble. Breaking builds Hand ....
Test everything in a Python shell (iPython, Azure Notebook, etc.)
  • Someone gave you an advice you liked? Test it - maybe the advice was actually bad.
  • Someone gave you an advice you think is bad? Test it before arguing - maybe it was good.
  • You posted a claim that something you did not test works? Be prepared to eat your hat.
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#27
I was only defending annotations, not circular imports, changing files after running tests, or breaking builds. Those are all definitely bad :)
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#28
(Jun-06-2017, 04:25 PM)micseydel Wrote: I was only defending annotations, not circular imports, changing files after running tests, or breaking builds. Those are all definitely bad  :)

I don't have anything against annotations - I've been known to use them myself  Tongue . Occasionally, though, they are unusable - Robot Framework despises them Think



I think I need to add some clarification - since no code analysis tool will tolerate 200-300 characters long code lines  Doh , adding annotations is pure cosmetics.
Test everything in a Python shell (iPython, Azure Notebook, etc.)
  • Someone gave you an advice you liked? Test it - maybe the advice was actually bad.
  • Someone gave you an advice you think is bad? Test it before arguing - maybe it was good.
  • You posted a claim that something you did not test works? Be prepared to eat your hat.
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