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The Worst Development Job You've Ever Had?
manavendra asks: "I'm currently working for a solution provider for telcos, and as part of product migration the entire API has to be 'internationalized'. Owing to a legacy architecture, most (if not all) application logic is still embedded in PL/SQL stored packages. My job: find hard coded strings, and replace with calls to the globalization API.
Yes there is a script written to handle most tasks, but its quite primitive (not to mention fears of automating 'too much'). Boredom is at all time high. Have tried all means of whittling away the time, and hence this question to other Slashdot users: What's the worst ever job you had to do in the name of 'software development' (or as a software developer)?"
I converted 65 ASP files to PHP in 2 days (Saturday/Sunday) plus Access DB to MySQL.
no sleep, boring as hell!!
I have to write software where the specs seem to be changing and/or expanding every other day or so. This makes me sad because it means I may have to rewrite some stuff I spent *hours* doing a few days ago.
Converting a quarter of a million lines of VB code to Java...
The meek shall inherit the earth, in 3 by 6 plots. - Lazerus Long
Writing accounting software for the construction industry using MFC and B-Trieve.
After twelve years in the software industry, including work with award-winning graphics and voice recognition packages, I never thought I'd end up here, but then the local economy imploded. At least I have a job. Biding my time...
What's wrong with Re-branding GPL Software?
:)
It wasn't quite like that. It was much more like "make it look like we wrote this, that it's proprietary, cutting edge, and that nobody else even comes close."
I don't remember all the details any more (this was about 4 or 5 years ago), but everyone I worked with agreed that it was way over the line, and could easily get us sued. Fortunately, when I complained (and got booted from the dev team), nobody else was given the task, and we were able to fail on our own merits.
DLT is certainly faster than typing though if you were using BackupExec or was not saving data in a easy to migrate form then I would agree.
:)
DLT+tar is decent.
Exabyte+tar is slow.
Exabyte+BackupExec = pain... 8 hours just to get a catalog and just as long to retireve anything.
BackupExec is all kinds of crap.
I think the use of the term DLT peaked my interest but I agree with the original statement.
"Survival of the fittest Max, and we've got the fucking gun!" - Pi
Repetitive manual tasks allow my mind to wander and lets me think of interesting things to do. These days I'm just so mentally exhausted from work I just come home, stare slackjawed at the monitor, and hit reload on /. every 15 minutes or so
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
For those of you who are too young/un-edumacated, parent is a reference to 2112, by Rush.
Props to the power trio.
- We need to use the most expensive JSP interpreter we can find.
- We need to use the most expensive JSP IDE we can find.
- We need a separate computer for each person (including those who will work primarily from their computer located off-site), plus a test server and a backup for the test server and an extra computer just in case.
- We need to make the database as related as possible - if you can make a lookup table for a Yes/No field, then by all means you should do it!
- Make sure each and every table has an auto-increment integer index, expecially those tables that will contain over 100 million records.
- Development time must take at least 18 months to provide a proof-of-concept, but cannot produce anything that may be actually used.
Needless to say, I was kicked off the job and threatened with being charged under the Patriot's Act for complaining about the job on my BLOG. Now, I'm out of that environment and wrapping up a 4-month conversion of a VB/SQL2000 application to PHP/PgSQL. Practically the same job, but I really love this one.The previous comment is purposely vague and generalized, but all of the facts are completely true.
My situation is kinda similar to the parent. You folks remember the Commanche helicopter? I was hired to work on that six months before the army told us they were gonna cancel the project. That was a month ago. You wanna know what the really wierd thing is? I'm still working here. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), they haven't given me anything new to work on. Right now they're paying me to play solitaire and read Slashdot. My boss literally told me to just look busy. You may think it's fun to be paid to goof off, but it's really really boring. Gimme something to do, damnit!
I landed in the middle of a project that had been in development for TWO YEARS, and was poster child of evil software engineering malpractices: hardcoded numbers and strings, no separation of content and logic, no coding standards, no comments, no docs, no NOTHING. Mixes of PHP, javascript and HTML in the same line. Copied and pasted javascript code that nobody knew what it did, but when pasted in worked. And, of course, with fire-breathing bosses looking over your shoulder. And with crappy dell computers on 14" monitors that gave 70Hz at 800x600. I had left a job coding java in a decent environment with people from wich I could learn lots, but switched for the money. Not long after that I realized there's more than money to a job. I left that job with the begginings of stress-induced breakdown I would suffer a month later, and a vow to never again work anywhere before asking about the documentation policy.
I hate to point this out but,
Win3.11 ran on MS-Dos and MS-Dos came with qbasic.
While not a glamorous programming language. It would have done the job.
Well, I feel your pain on most of your post...but, in the area of database...if there isn't a proper natural key for the primary key, I'm a big fan of sequences and triggers to generate unique integer primary keys. And if the database is to be on a RDBMS, then hell yes, it had better use a related model...gotta be normalized. If you have a good model, the rest will fall in place.
However, I will agree with you about the expensive gear, but, with Gov. rules, they pretty much rule out trying to do things with open source...something I try all the time. Heck, have linux on many desktops around here...but, they are trying to get them out....and forcing that NMCI piece of crap down everyone's throat....
But, I gotta speak up for the database parts you complained about....you can't shortcut on that...ESPECIALLY if you are dealing with 100+ million records....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Well, it's for linux, so if you have windows...guess this isn't a solution for ya. Also the GUI isn't much to speak of, but it gets the important stuff done. (And works very nicely as a cron job =)
"the guys from strange brew"???
You're talking about two of the funniest characters of all time -- Bob and Doug McKenzie!
You make them sound like a couple of movie extras!
My current job is a total frustrating nightmare. I was originally hired where I worked to make a new VB version of an access application. (Hey it pays the bills) So I began in earnest, devoting much time, effort and hard work. The SQL server backend database is a total convoluted, non normalized, non indexed steaming pile. The so-called middle tier performs calculations on massive joined tables, looping through each record, passing this massive recordset of multiple huge joined tables to functions and procedures that may or may not modify one or more fields in this recordset. Management then wonders why this is slow.
Project management, dont get me started.
Our project manager is an MBA with no programming experience, and a total tool. He never looks at source code, has no specification other than *random daily requests* to modify and change the application to match the desires of the last potiential client spoken to. He does not know who Fred Brooks is, he commonly asks for wildly divergent input behavior from day to day. Example: "On this form make the tab order go down after this control, then go across again" or "On this form take off the delete button on the toolbar because customer support thought that would confuse a user" or "on this form i want a to select a column instead of sorting when the user clicks on a grid column header". I have had a manager here tell me, "I am not sure if I trust this application development cycle stuff". Another wanted similiar functionality on toolbars to look different for each entry/edit area. Example: On this form I want search to look like binoculars, but on another to look different, because it needs 'more color!'. To top it all off, managers do not 'get together' on change requests, so they fight each other on how the application should work. My project manager will look and use a form for *weeks* with 'this is great' yada yada and then suddenly and inexplicably decide 'this sucks!' and request a total departure from normal functionality.
Any suggestion that things may be done better using traditional techniques is met with suspicion, or a perverse sense that I am trying to undermine their authority.
Needless to say, I dont work long hours anymore, as I feel used by people to incompetent and lazy to learn how properly develop an app.
I recently went through a hellish project. I was designing a website for some ex- print advertising execs who decided to start their own web business. First off, these two were pretty impossible themselves, they really didn't have much of a clue about the web, and no matter how basic I tried to explain things, I had to answer every question at least four times. That in itself was enough to drive somebody mad.
But the really awful boring part was the image generation. Now, being ex print advertisers, by the time we were finished approving mockups the site ended up being highly graphical. Don't like high bandwidth sites? Don't visit this one.
Then...and this is the killer...they decided that every section was to have its own color scheme. Requiring its own set of images. The same images--just different colors. There were eight sections at first -- but then there is a sister site as well, with eight more sections. Each section had it's own set of menu items (in normal, hover, and selected states), layout graphics, headers, subheaders, titles, etc. etc. etc.
In total, I had to generate over 1,000 images using the full-page mockup as a base. A very long, very dull process. One of the few times the keyboard really bothers my wrists.
Punctanym: alternate spelling of words using punctuation or numerals in place of some or all of its letters; see 'leet'
Actually, that is probably the right way to do it today. You could build an oh-so-trendy layer cake of objects and application servers, but it will be a maintenance nightmare eight years later.
A database + PL/SQL app can survive many trends in programming languages. Connect with Perl, Java, whatever's trendy this week. Report with Crystal Reports for ad-hoc stuff. Nobody can bypass the business logic and mess up the database as long as they work through stored procedures.
PL/SQL is dull and weak, but quite maintainable. And it reduces the "impedance mismatch" between procedural langauge and SQL.
Unless you're a really good actor, at the interview they'll immediately see that you'll be out the door whenever the next real job comes along...
They won't know what you don't tell them. I see nothing wrong in de-embellishing a resume to fit the job's expectatations. Even if your prior job was "Chief Software Architect for a Fortune 100 company", you can put down something more mundane like "Programmer" or, even better, "Technician."
Vote in November. You won't regret it.
Y2k was WAY over hyped. I mean you would have to be really retarted . . .
It's obvious you've never seen a large COBOL program (I wish I hadn't) with two-digit-year fields and all the validation that's done on them. These even include birth dates in programs for HMOs and insurance companies. There are massive banking, insurance, and payroll programs written in COBOL. Try disrupting the banking industry or stopping people's paychecks, and then ask them if that's a "bad thing".
Y2K was no joke, and it hasn't been avoided, only postponed. Nobody expected those programs to last for thirty-plus years when they were first written. With all the *windowing* that was done to avoid Y2K, the problem has just been pushed into the future. If the *fixed* software isn't replaced in the next thirty years or so, it will be a Y2K redux, only worse.
Working for Lockheed Martin...
Sat around for a year waiting for clearance did absolutely nothing. We didn't even have enough computers for everyone waiting and by company rules bringing a deck of cards was forbidden and reading non company approved books was prohibited. However, I did get a stupid ID card to hang around my neck and an employee number by which I could be referred to.
In the end I left the company. I had been written up for viewing 'the onion' once from a computer. "The Onion" in Lockheed and the government's eye was an anti-social movement online publication that was a threat to the workspace.
Lockheed is a JOKE!
try { println( SigString ); } catch( Exception e ) { println( 'Who cares?' ); }