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Ask Slashdot: What Are Some Developer Secrets That Could Sink Your Business?
snydeq writes: In today's tech world, the developer is king -- and we know it. But if you're letting us reign over your app dev strategy, you might be in for some surprises, thanks to what we aren't saying, writes an anonymous developer in a roundup of developer secrets that could sink the business. "The truth is, we developers aren't always straight with you. We have a few secrets we like to keep for ourselves. The fact that we don't tell you everything is understandable. You're the boss, after all. Do you tell your boss everything? If you're the CEO, do you loop in the board on every decision? So don't be so surprised when we do it." What possible damaging programming dirt are you keeping the lid on? Some of the points the developer mentions in his/her report include: "Your technical debt is a lot bigger than you think," "We're infatuated with our own code," and "We'd rather build than maintain." If you can think of any others not mentioned in the report, we're all ears! This may be a good time to check the "Post Anonymously" box before you submit your comment.
But we're trying to move from C to Rust...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Sometimes developers meet with Russians. This could sink your business if CNN finds out.
You know what I don't tell my boss? That we use systemd.
If you post as Anonymous Coward, don't expect a reply.
As a young engineer in my first job I was the point man for a new technology in our company called ISDN.
Back in the early 90's each country had it's own flavour of ISDN for market protectionism or just to be different.
Our product started offering an ISDN interface as well as the other older comms interfaces (X25 etc).
I was at the "bored" stage with the dev work when a nice little bug started breaking things among our European customers.
I could have simply stuck a 3.5" floppy in the post (this is pre-internet) but since I'd never been to Switzerland, Munch (in Sept), Paris, etc, etc I was eager to travel.
What made this ruse even sweeter was that when I got on site I'd pretend to debug for a 1/2 hour, then switch floppy discs, and -hey presto- it all worked perfectly.
Each time I the toast of the office I was visiting, as well as our company sales team golden boy, rewarded by being taken out for a nice meal and drinks as a thank you.
If I'd just stuck the floppy in the post it just wouldn't have had the same effect nor would I have seen some nice parts of Europe or tasted their fine cuisine.
Dev: "Bless me Father, for I have sinned. I've been keeping terrible developer secrets. All our 'in-game footage' that supposedly shows off the new engine? Entirely pre-rendered."
Rev: "Go on."
Dev: "And I've been secretly coding everything in Rust, even though I promised the CTO I'd use a 'real man's language, like C.'"
Rev: "I see."
Dev: "And most of the day I'm not even coding. I'm posting on Slashdot and playing that mobile game from the Schwarzenegger commercials."
Rev: "Hmm."
Dev: "I lied on my resume; I said I worked for Google as a senior developer, but it was really a call center job with a company called 'Googe' that produces fake semen for German fetish parties."
Rev: "What sort of fucked up calls you must've... **AHEM** My child, these are grave sins to be sure, but anything can be forgiven by the generous mercy of --"
Dev: "I work on systemd in my spare time."
Rev: "I COMMAND THEE LEAVE, SATAN!"
Nothing posted to
"I'm working on it now... Should be ready next week!"
*Alt+Tab back to Firefox with Slashdot open*
Dev: "I lied on my resume; I said I worked for Google as a senior developer, but it was really a call center job with a company called 'Googe' that produces fake semen for German fetish parties."
So....is this product, is is available for import?
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!