I hate my new job
closed account (1yR4jE8b)
So I had to get a new job because my girlfriend got a really sweet gig doing some 3d animation, and since Computer Science is such a huge field I just follow here everywhere she goes because I can get a job in pretty much every town we move to.
The job I have currently....*&^%&^%&^ sucks.
It's mostly an implementation job, that's fine, implementation is my favorite part of software design anyway. My problem is their complete incompetence in actually being able to write readable, maintainable, portable code.
Example, they have a customized billing application which they sell. It is completely written in Visual Basic .Net and is so strongly tied to the GUI that it would be IMPOSSIBLE to port this program to another platform. The program has over 100 source files and every single aspect of it is tightly couple to the Form designer. Not only that, they use indecipherable function and variable names. They also mix and match various different software libraries that are used for the same thing. For example, in order to query/manipulate the software's database they use a combination ADODB and the built in Sql functions of VB.Net, sometimes in the same functions. They also have a single 'Variables.vb' file which contains about 100 global variables that are thrown around the application as if it was a beach ball. This program is damn near impossible to read/understand/debug properly. This is one of the main reasons why I mostly avoid RAD/Form Designers, they encourage really bad programming habits in lesser programmers that tend to really cause havock in maintenance fairly quickly.
Just the other day, my boss came up to me and told me: "I've been looking at your code, and it's really good, but we really need to speed up development so try to code a bit more like [the other guys]". I was face palming at the thought of it.
A few days ago, when I got put into his team to make a Windows Service out of a function in the billing application, my project manager asked me if I knew VB.Net. I said "I haven't done VB since grade 10 in highschool, which was about 11 years ago." I assured him that it's called Visual BASIC for a reason, and that I would pick it up in no time. After I got that done, he asked me if I knew ASP or ASP.Net so that I could work on a web portal for another project that they have going on too. I said "ummm...nope", to which he replied "Well what languages DO you know"
Which I replied:
-C, C++, C# (using Mono), Java, Python, HTML/PHP/CSS, Ruby, Perl (and now VB.Net lol)
"I'm a Linux user at home, so when I write code I like to use languages that don't tie you to a specific platform and tend to avoid Microsoft specific technology".
To which he replied:
"Microsoft is where it's at man, you need to get with the program"
I almost punched him out at that very second.
tldr: I work with idiots, and my job sucks ass.
The job I have currently....*&^%&^%&^ sucks.
It's mostly an implementation job, that's fine, implementation is my favorite part of software design anyway. My problem is their complete incompetence in actually being able to write readable, maintainable, portable code.
Example, they have a customized billing application which they sell. It is completely written in Visual Basic .Net and is so strongly tied to the GUI that it would be IMPOSSIBLE to port this program to another platform. The program has over 100 source files and every single aspect of it is tightly couple to the Form designer. Not only that, they use indecipherable function and variable names. They also mix and match various different software libraries that are used for the same thing. For example, in order to query/manipulate the software's database they use a combination ADODB and the built in Sql functions of VB.Net, sometimes in the same functions. They also have a single 'Variables.vb' file which contains about 100 global variables that are thrown around the application as if it was a beach ball. This program is damn near impossible to read/understand/debug properly. This is one of the main reasons why I mostly avoid RAD/Form Designers, they encourage really bad programming habits in lesser programmers that tend to really cause havock in maintenance fairly quickly.
Just the other day, my boss came up to me and told me: "I've been looking at your code, and it's really good, but we really need to speed up development so try to code a bit more like [the other guys]". I was face palming at the thought of it.
A few days ago, when I got put into his team to make a Windows Service out of a function in the billing application, my project manager asked me if I knew VB.Net. I said "I haven't done VB since grade 10 in highschool, which was about 11 years ago." I assured him that it's called Visual BASIC for a reason, and that I would pick it up in no time. After I got that done, he asked me if I knew ASP or ASP.Net so that I could work on a web portal for another project that they have going on too. I said "ummm...nope", to which he replied "Well what languages DO you know"
Which I replied:
-C, C++, C# (using Mono), Java, Python, HTML/PHP/CSS, Ruby, Perl (and now VB.Net lol)
"I'm a Linux user at home, so when I write code I like to use languages that don't tie you to a specific platform and tend to avoid Microsoft specific technology".
To which he replied:
"Microsoft is where it's at man, you need to get with the program"
I almost punched him out at that very second.
tldr: I work with idiots, and my job sucks ass.
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sadly he's right, Microsoft IS where it's at...if we follow the market share. With 90% of the business computing world using windows, you're going to have to learn the windows specific languages and such. But believe me when I tell you I don't like learning languages that are hammering me down to any one platform, nor do i like paying to use a language (some kid I went to highschool with brought up a language that was like that, I can't remember which one it was :O). That's why I'm a Unix user, who uses linux for programming, MAC OS X (on an amd pc no less) for everyday use, and windows for gaming and gaming ONLY.
closed account (1yR4jE8b)
While I understand the monopoly MS has on the market, it was more the condescending way that he basically implied that everything I know is useless. Which is pretty hard to portray in plain text.
IT's funny, because we just made a big sale to a company which involves converting a huge Microsoft ASP/MSSQL infrastructure to PHP/Mysql.
We were the ones that suggested the conversion too. I don't understand the mindset of the people who run this company, I really don't.
IT's funny, because we just made a big sale to a company which involves converting a huge Microsoft ASP/MSSQL infrastructure to PHP/Mysql.
We were the ones that suggested the conversion too. I don't understand the mindset of the people who run this company, I really don't.
xD welcome to the corporate world. and the reason I'm not going into business programming, I'm TRYING to get into OS dev. But that's pretty much impossible, So I'll end up in applications development.
Oh, I think I can match this.
This one project I worked on was an absolute nightmare. It took Visual Studio 2-3 minutes to load it, and when loaded it needed 700+ MiB of RAM. Now, that by itself wouldn't be a problem, except that all computers had 1 GiB of RAM installed. I bet you didn't know you could get System.OutOfMemoryExceptions from inside the IDE. That's not all. Compiling something this big of course takes forever, and when you're already using almost all of RAM, that basically means that you'll be using swap space as regular RAM. I once fell asleep while compiling, and that's no exaggeration.
I can't give any details on the code itself, because I didn't stay long enough to delve into it, but I do remember that the designer was big on dumb getters and setters, and on misusing exceptions, and by that I mean using exceptions for regular error conditions. I wouldn't have been surprised to find a NoErrorException.
This one project I worked on was an absolute nightmare. It took Visual Studio 2-3 minutes to load it, and when loaded it needed 700+ MiB of RAM. Now, that by itself wouldn't be a problem, except that all computers had 1 GiB of RAM installed. I bet you didn't know you could get System.OutOfMemoryExceptions from inside the IDE. That's not all. Compiling something this big of course takes forever, and when you're already using almost all of RAM, that basically means that you'll be using swap space as regular RAM. I once fell asleep while compiling, and that's no exaggeration.
I can't give any details on the code itself, because I didn't stay long enough to delve into it, but I do remember that the designer was big on dumb getters and setters, and on misusing exceptions, and by that I mean using exceptions for regular error conditions. I wouldn't have been surprised to find a NoErrorException.
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I am currently working with a POS... that uses .dbf files.... so they decide hey, we're going to start to rewrite the app from C++ to .net.... but we're going to keep the dbfs but use a SQL Server as well... So every transaction hits the dbfs... and then there is this continuous... memory hogging process called a "grind" that decrpyts the dbfs, dumps it into each stores sql server... this happens continuously throughout the day... To make matters worse... you have some modules in C++, some in C++.net, some in C#.net, some in Visual Basic... not .net, and all of these modules access the dbf files in sequence. At the end of the day, the local sql server is pulled up to a data warehouse where an enterprise level app is used for above store reporting.... written in java. This sql server is then cloned daily to their respective client corporate offices where it is the cloned yet again into Oracle. Each site has built their own custom interfaces between the cloned sql db and oracle and their hr/payroll and inventory systems.
Welcome to my hell... the sooner I move to simulation programming the better.
Welcome to my hell... the sooner I move to simulation programming the better.
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