Slashdot Mirror
Slashdot Asks: What Are Some Insults No Developer Wants To Hear? (infoworld.com)
snydeq writes: Flame wars in the bug tracker might be exactly the right (harsh) feedback your code needs, writes Peter Wayner in his run-down of the insults no programmer wants to hear about their code or coding skills. "The technology world is a bit different than the pretty, coiffed world of suits and salesdroids where everyone is polite, even when they hate your guts and think you're an idiot. Suit-clad managers may smile and hide their real message by the way they say you're doing "great, real great pal," but programmers often speak their minds, and when that mind has something unpleasant to say, look-out, feelings." Instead of posting this story in a click-bait fashion as presented from InfoWorld, we thought we'd ask the developers of Slashdot: What are some insults no developer wants to hear? Some of the classic insults include: N00b, /dev/null, Eye Candy, Fanboi, and [Nothing]. Are there any insults you are familiar with that aren't mentioned in the list?
It compiled cleanly, so he shipped it.
John
"Yes but as I'm not a moron I never thought of the user story from your perspective..."
systemd
the recursive function computing her mass causes a stack overflow.
Wow this is microsoft quality!
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I'm a strong advocate of constructive code reviews that provide useful feedback, while leaving the egos and personal stuff out. It's important for everyone to participate, to both give and receive feedback. First, you help your team improve your product. Second, you learn about the new sections of code; how the new functionality was implemented. That's important on a large product.
And then there's the one that many of the old guys overlook: nobody knows it all, so everyone can learn from anyone, including the new kid on the team. We can all see how technology and computers have evolved dramatically over the decades; it's a mistake to believe that software design and engineering hasn't been simultaneously evolving for the better.
John
In the 15 years of my professional career, there's only been one day when I didn't want to come to work.
That was the day after the IT department accused me of intentionally crashing their network, and my Director didn't back me up.
That loss of confidence in my integrity was far worse than any spoken word.
What kind of frat-house development shop are you running? These are the people who are going to help make you successful, not some new pledges to haze. Grow. The. Fuck. Up.
Nah, men were meant to eat meat. Admittedly, not as much as it as we do. But Vitamin B12 proves it.
This code is so poorly documented that Donald Trump wants to send it back to Mexico!
"You code like a UX designer"
Those are fighting words. :)
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Why are you not putting in 60-80 hours a week?
Apu does and we don't even pay as much as you.
Sorry, but so far, almost every story posted by BeauHD has been completely irrelevant. Perhaps SD is better than HD? Either way, all his posted stories don't belong on this site. They're all click bait.
"Freedom in the USA is not the ability to do what you want. It is the ability to stop others from doing what THEY want"
From a sr. developer delivered directly to the face of another developer who had been at the company a few years.
To reduce crime, make fewer things against the law.
Something that a lot of developers seem to take pride in, but which is really at the root of unprofessionalism is
Wow, your code is so complex I can't understand it.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
"You got a little d*ck" is always the worst.
Well, not really unless you're insecure about it. It's also not very programmer specific. A better developer insult:
"Can you fix that code your intern wrote?" (Note: there was never an intern, so it's your code)
SJW n. One who posts facts.
No developer ever never ever wants to have Linus critique their code.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
So, a developer went to the doctor, he said, "Doctor, what's wrong with me?"
Doctor: "You're fat.".
Developer: "I want a second opinion."
Doctor: "OK, you're ugly, too."
You are welcome on my lawn.
"Programmers who hurl insults at each other like to think it's because they're honest, no-nonsense efficiency machines that get things done. The reality is that they never bothered to learn how to interact effectively with other human beings, and that deficiency is typically far more detrimental to their professional lives than they realize."
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
People have very long memories, especially in the career department when their house, and food for their family is on the line. Wisecracking about devs in general in IT is one thing. Insulting people to their face or their manager's face is not exactly a very wise career move.
Plus, devs have heard it all. They have heard they can be replaced by offshore dev houses, H-1Bs, monkeys, or almost anything. They are not going to perform any better when someone continues to compare them with inanimate objects or people in a persistent vegetative state.
To boot, there may be a good chance that the college intern or H-1B fresh off the boat that is the brunt of insults this week may be one's manager the the next week after a corporate reorg or a buyout.
And if you have no living enemies, you stood up, crushed your enemies, saw them driven before you, and heard the lamentations of the suits.
Insults are the first refuge of the insecure. I'm not talking Torvalds-style insults of the code, I'm talking about when they insult you.
Bad code deserves insults, although not all insulted code is bad, since people will insult good code as an indirect insult of the coder, which is completely different.
Flaming people in order to build oneself up by putting other people down is at least as old as the Internet, but it's not conducive to better coding - it's more likely to drive away people who could potentially be valuable contributors.
Because of that, there is at least one online forum (coderanch.com) whose primary purpose is to allow people to ask stupid questions with the assurance that they won't be flamed.
she thinks Apple is a tech company.
Ah, those were the days.... here, have some old-school ammo...
"Mac users switching to Linux is PROOF the homosexuality is a choice and it can be cured" ... tho that maybe more troll than insult. Not sure maybe it depends on the forum/context?
C|N>K
Ironically, it generally seems that I don't spend all that much time - relatively speaking - on the big, deep tech issues.
Where most of the project time gets eaten up is in the stupid little ordinary details. It's not uncommon to lose nearly 2 whole days because of a slipped comma or a dash where there should have been an underscore or a mismatched quote.
A lot of times, it doesn't take a technical wizard to spot such stuff, just someone who isn't seeing what should be there, instead of what is there. That's why it's important that you can rely on constructive criticism, not insults. If I'm going to have my basic competence called into question just because I can't type straight, I'm far more likely to spend the extra time spinning my wheels doing it myself.
OK, since this whole story is flamebait...actually "Java developer" would be better there. I mean if you work a job using the busted old training wheels you picked up in college, ya know you might not be the brightest candle on the Titanic. Some related insults...."default parameter", "guppie", "bug mill", "platform whore"...
The real path to male liberation
One should be grateful for one's mother's sexual habits.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Now see here, you young whipper snapper I don't know who you think you're deali$
I don't care one bit for your condescending, flippant attitude about line wrapp$
And while I was stapling punch cards to vacuum tubes in the golden age of compu$
I single-handedly rewrote our nuclear missile guidance systems on an 80x24 term$
And the whole time I was with Tim Leary ripped in half on sunshine acid and amy$
Look I'm sorry for what I said earlier about your mother, I just get cranky abo$
Constantly trampling my prize zinnias! And my fescue isn't going to reseed itse$
Jesus they're back, I have to go chase them off while waving a rake in the air.
Nothing posted to
You don't have to insult them. Just do their job for them and they'll get the point.
I agree with your first four pet enragers. As for the fifth:
I need the image in 300dpi (web development, where print resolution means squat).
What's the pixel density of an iPad mini tablet with Retina display? Wikipedia says 326 dpi.
Yes, they try to give feedback about readability and code style and they should. Yes, your code is likely perfectly correct and works fine. If you were writing an app yourself or some small solo programming project, that would be fine. But, in today's world, dozens or hundreds of people work on a coding project and dozens will have to read it and edit it years later with no one from the original team being available to walk them through it. This means that coding styles and conventions become important so other members of your team and future teams can understand what the hell you wrote and be able to edit it. I don't even want to imagine updating code for a project with a team of 20 that everyone wrote in their own style with their own personal shortcuts; it sounds like a specialized circle of hell. This is where you end up with things like certain Symantec products where there is an original core code blob that no one can understand or edit nor is there anyone from the original product working for the company to help edit it so they have to put rings of code to modify that core blobs output to work with the new layers of the product. Yes, I've dealt with this; not as a coder but, as a professional trying to figure out why their product was breaking when Symantec themselves didn't know as they couldn't access the problem code.
"Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -
My favorite is: Where did you learn to code, VB6?
"Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -
Since you said AGAIN, that implies that the insults were not your first refuge. Perhaps they're the first refuge of the insecure and the 4th refuge of the fed-up.