The OFFICIAL programming thread

Kilemall

@lithu said in The OFFICIAL programming thread:

One thing I do not understand it how you can write this whole damn app which is maybe thousands of lines, yet the documentation is written like a fucking riddle.

Job security.

I can’t remember the last time I was asked write documentation. Must have been a decade ago. Me and my current boss maintain each others code all the time and it’s rare that either of us had to ask the other “wtf are you doing here”. We’re both pretty good coders though even if I do say so myself.

Edit: We’re both also mostly writing medium sized web apps and the backend services to support them. Not mission control launch programs.

Tazz

Gustaf

@hog said in The OFFICIAL programming thread:

I can’t remember the last time I was asked write documentation. Must have been a decade ago. Me and my current boss maintain each others code all the time and it’s rare that either of us had to ask the other “wtf are you doing here”. We’re both pretty good coders though even if I do say so myself.

Edit: We’re both also mostly writing medium sized web apps and the backend services to support them. Not mission control launch programs.

What kind of web apps?

Gators1

@hog said in The OFFICIAL programming thread:

I can’t remember the last time I was asked write documentation. Must have been a decade ago. Me and my current boss maintain each others code all the time and it’s rare that either of us had to ask the other “wtf are you doing here”. We’re both pretty good coders though even if I do say so myself.

Edit: We’re both also mostly writing medium sized web apps and the backend services to support them. Not mission control launch programs.

Depends on the scope of the projects I think. I lead a project to build my company’s data warehouse and analytics/reporting platforms years ago as an outside consultant. We did a ton of documentation on the data movement side and definitions/structures for the target platforms. When I got back I found that there had been a lot of changes, many of which didn’t make sense, and the only documentation behind those changes was a bunch of poorly written tickets that didn’t tell me anything. It’s not hard for a developer to follow code, but in my case it’s more defining what they were trying to accomplish with the code that’s the missing piece. So why did they write the data movement process the way they did and what requirements is it meeting with the data it’s fetching.

The developer who was doing most of the work was an idiot and his boss managed big billing applications and had no experience with this type of application. As a result we have spent the last couple years fixing shit rather than moving forward with new development projects. I have been pushing their new boss to implement documentation requirements and reviews as part of the development process as it avoids mistakes (the current developer has had to redo a bunch of work too) along with independent QA.

I think it’s useful to work through the process as it provides better output and also is necessary for business continuity because the only person in the company with a deep knowledge of that system is me. If I leave they are fucked because nobody there knows how to architect shit, what the output is supposed to be or why it was built the way it was. They could bring in consultants from the outside to help out, but they have nothing to work from other than the original documentation that’s outdated. It’s all custom work moving data into a custom structure based on rules taking data from highly customized source applications. With the state it’s in they could end up starting from scratch if they had to start over with a new team.

Gators1

@gustaf said in The OFFICIAL programming thread:

@hog said in The OFFICIAL programming thread:

I can’t remember the last time I was asked write documentation. Must have been a decade ago. Me and my current boss maintain each others code all the time and it’s rare that either of us had to ask the other “wtf are you doing here”. We’re both pretty good coders though even if I do say so myself.

Edit: We’re both also mostly writing medium sized web apps and the backend services to support them. Not mission control launch programs.

What kind of web apps?

Have you heard of pornhub.com?

@gustaf said in The OFFICIAL programming thread:

@hog said in The OFFICIAL programming thread:

I can’t remember the last time I was asked write documentation. Must have been a decade ago. Me and my current boss maintain each others code all the time and it’s rare that either of us had to ask the other “wtf are you doing here”. We’re both pretty good coders though even if I do say so myself.

Edit: We’re both also mostly writing medium sized web apps and the backend services to support them. Not mission control launch programs.

What kind of web apps?

Any and everything from logistics, manufacturing, production, to HR processes. Some might include heavy visualization elements, workflow and process logic, others aren’t much more than glorified forms.

Edit: the customer has an ERP system that most of our apps act as a front end to. There’s backend enhancements where necessary but we aren’t usually writing whole systems from scratch - it’s just that all new UIs are generally web front ends.

Kilemall

So, you’re a dashboard/user UI guy, with various DB queries underneath buttons?

@kilemall said in The OFFICIAL programming thread:

So, you’re a dashboard/user UI guy, with various DB queries underneath buttons?

Well it’s a little more involved than just DB queries on the backend but yeah. For most new apps I’ll have to write the rest service. That might have anywhere from as little as 3 or as many as 15 nodes representing different entities. There’s all the usual design concerns when building that. For each service entity and the CRUD operations etc we write API classes that are independent of the REST service so that you could recode the front end in any tech and it should just work the same.

Often I’ll have to create new database tables to store or track something that doesn’t fit into one of the existing ERP objects/tables. Sometimes it’s a complete new process that just isn’t met by the ERP so it will be all new tables. But we try and use the existing ERP processes as much as possible even though it’s often more work to do it that way.

Anyway, that’s what pays the bills. I do more interesting and varied programming in my own time.

Nerds

Kilemall

@zeppelin said in The OFFICIAL programming thread:

Nerds

People who make and maintain the systems that make your civilization work, you mean.

Just like farmers.

Or ranchers, riding the IT range, herding those data dogies.

tigger

And tranchers.

Lob12

@kilemall said in The OFFICIAL programming thread:

@zeppelin said in The OFFICIAL programming thread:

Nerds

People who make and maintain the systems that make your civilization work, you mean.

Just like farmers.

You had my sympathy but then the 2nd sentence kinda blew that away.

Gustaf

@lob12 said in The OFFICIAL programming thread:

@kilemall said in The OFFICIAL programming thread:

@zeppelin said in The OFFICIAL programming thread:

Nerds

People who make and maintain the systems that make your civilization work, you mean.

Just like farmers.

You had my sympathy but then the 2nd sentence kinda blew that away.

True. Liberals hate farmers. All those cow farts and water usage.

Lob12

@gustaf said in The OFFICIAL programming thread:

@lob12 said in The OFFICIAL programming thread:

@kilemall said in The OFFICIAL programming thread:

@zeppelin said in The OFFICIAL programming thread:

Nerds

People who make and maintain the systems that make your civilization work, you mean.

Just like farmers.

You had my sympathy but then the 2nd sentence kinda blew that away.

True. Liberals hate farmers. All those cow farts and water usage.

You’d hate farmers too if you had to live what LOT has to go through every winter. Just wait, young child.

Lithu

@lob12 said in The OFFICIAL programming thread:

@gustaf said in The OFFICIAL programming thread:

@lob12 said in The OFFICIAL programming thread:

@kilemall said in The OFFICIAL programming thread:

@zeppelin said in The OFFICIAL programming thread:

Nerds

People who make and maintain the systems that make your civilization work, you mean.

Just like farmers.

You had my sympathy but then the 2nd sentence kinda blew that away.

True. Liberals hate farmers. All those cow farts and water usage.

You’d hate farmers too if you had to live what LOT has to go through every winter. Just wait, young child.

Not necessarily. Hurricane season is coming, farmers come back early if we get a real hurricane and not barely canes

Lob12

Ah really, his farm isn’t’'cane proof? hawr hawr hawr

Tazz

Blanks

Gustaf has missed all the farmer wars of LOT

Lob12

@blanks said in The OFFICIAL programming thread:

Gustaf has missed all the farmer wars of LOT

Draft dodgin’ Gustaf