What was the absolute worst programming job and why?
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I've liked most of my programming jobs in the last 32 years ... but there was ONE ... About 10 years ago I was hired by a large financial company to work on interfaces to a large loan origination package. As a senior-level developer I figured I'd be doing some new development. Not so. The first 2 months I was on this particular job they had me writing Install-Shield scripts! Then after that was done they had me doing piece-meal bug-fixing and maintenance on some of these interfaces that were already thrown together by some other contractor. Horrible code. I wouldn't hire the developer of those things to cut my lawn! When I wouldn't give in to management pressure to turn a "sows ear" into a "silk purse" in an impossible amount of time they fired me ... on the 89th day of my 90-day "probation period". When in my exit interview the guy didn't even want to know why I was let go. I was able to collect unemployment, though, because the company couldn't give a valid explanation to the unemployment agency why I had been let go. (Normally you don't get Unemployment if fired, at least in FL). I learned a couple of years later from the guy I had worked for there that the company liked to hire "contractors" for 89 days, then axe them so they didn't have to pay benefits. Sheesh. I've been with my present company 9 years since that one. -CB
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It started out as a good job, creating web apps with PHP. After I completed the first major project, they decided to make the HR lady the project manager on the 2nd major project. The HR lady had no clue to programing, workflow or anything close to application development. Her concern was to make it look "pretty" first and then worry about the data intergration. We had conflicts on a daily basis and in three weeks, I was given my walking papers. She sucked!
James Hendrix wrote:
HR lady
That's the problem. She probably failed 3 from 3: Human? Resource? Lady? ;P
Panic, Chaos, Destruction. My work here is done.
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James Hendrix wrote:
HR lady
That's the problem. She probably failed 3 from 3: Human? Resource? Lady? ;P
Panic, Chaos, Destruction. My work here is done.
I was in shock when I found out she was going to be in charge of that project. And of course, with her being the HR person, really had no where else to turn. After I left, things got much better for me (salary and working conditions).
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This should be fun: -getting hired to work on a .NET application only to find out it is VB6 -sitting down the first month to a WIN98 PC while it's owner is on vacation -waiting 3 months for my very own copy of Visual Studio -no development process whatsoever -code stored all over the network in random locations -no source control -PHP,Perl,VB6,Java,C++,.NET(C# and VB),ASP,Batch files, Linux,Windows, etc. all rolled into one! -A boss who used to program 30 years ago -spending half your day everyday in meetings -requirements change, deadlines don't (ever, no matter what) This is all in the last job I had, one employer. I can't believe I stayed a year and a half.
"Half this game is ninety percent mental." - Yogi Berra If you can read thank a teacher, if you can read in English, thank a Marine.
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I'd like to see some real world examples showing that it actually works. I'm interested in agile methodologies but pair programming... I don't know. Does that mean the client pays for two full-time developers working on one routine at the same time (one is a backseater)? Everyone has a different coding style and it may lead to the exact situation that you depicted (fighting). Maybe pair programming is good when you need to improve performance of some routines/modules? Maybe if it involves a complex algorithm it's better to have two brains to think about it? But otherwise than that wouldn't unit tests, naming conventions and coding standards be enough?
My only experience with paired programming was good. With a single programmer there are delays when you get stuck on something and have to figure out a workaround. With two programmers working together, these delays happen much less often. Mistrakes are less frequent too. There are also more good ideas on how to proceed. Also both programmers often pick up tricks from each other. Another advantage is that two people are now familiar with that section of code. I think it's good to change pairings every few weeks.
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My predecessor was from India and used some kind of Farsi-derivative language for variable/class/namespace declarations. If that isn't bad enough, he wrote virtually everything in VBScript: ASP.NET pages with embedded VBScript; JSP pages with VBScript embedded in client-side script blocks; PHP pages with VBScript embedded in client-side script blocks; C# desktop applications that rely on external .vbs scripts; etc. After 2 years, I only have 17 more apps to rebuild, then this'll be the greatest job ever.
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This should be fun: -getting hired to work on a .NET application only to find out it is VB6 -sitting down the first month to a WIN98 PC while it's owner is on vacation -waiting 3 months for my very own copy of Visual Studio -no development process whatsoever -code stored all over the network in random locations -no source control -PHP,Perl,VB6,Java,C++,.NET(C# and VB),ASP,Batch files, Linux,Windows, etc. all rolled into one! -A boss who used to program 30 years ago -spending half your day everyday in meetings -requirements change, deadlines don't (ever, no matter what) This is all in the last job I had, one employer. I can't believe I stayed a year and a half.
"Half this game is ninety percent mental." - Yogi Berra If you can read thank a teacher, if you can read in English, thank a Marine.
Brent Lamborn wrote:
-A boss who used to program 30 years ago
Don'cha just LOVE them :|
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Ignorance is bliss - for the ignorant... Its hell for the rest of us. My fav was a job where nobody had ever figured out how to add dates... The result was a whole new month that occured yearly and a system in which every month had only 28 days. Nice!
VanityClaw wrote:
result was a whole new month that occured yearly and a system in which every month had only 28 days
:omg: There's a concept around here known as 13th salary. Sort of like an annual bonus. I never figured out how they came up with the name. Until now! :laugh:
To hell with circumstances; I create opportunities.
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That sounds par for the course for most game companies :-D (I'm currently at my fourth one, after two shut-downs and a lay off...)
There are three kinds of people in the world - those who can count and those who can't...
Did you work at Flagship Studios?
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Anything that includes one or more of the following statements: - I just need a button that... - We had this system developed for us and would like you to... - It shouldn't be too hard to do... - Our last programmer was on drugs... (true story) - Do you know Lotus Notes? - We have an old system that we want converted to :insert language here: (as if it will happen by magic?!!??!!) - No, we don't have the source code - do you need it? (again, true story) Feel free to add to the list!!
-------------------------------------------------------- Knowledge is knowing that the tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is not putting it in fruit salad!!
yes, - "It's just data." - "My wife and I run a business out of our house" - "Our current hosting company won't return our phone calls."
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Brent Lamborn wrote:
-A boss who used to program 30 years ago
Don'cha just LOVE them :|
My last manager didn't have a CS degree (I think he was into physics) but learned to "program" RPG on iSeries. I heard bad things about his code from some people, he also used to say that software architecture is just a gold-plating. ;) After working there for a few years he got eventually promoted to be a manager of a team of 15 or so developers. I don't know how this works, perhaps it's because it was not a software house, but come on... Seeing such things you gotta think of Scott Adams' Dilbert as a real story.
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True Story, twice over: "We need this Fortran code translated into C++ using templates and object orientation."
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I worked at a company that kept re-writing the same application in different languages: Fortran -> ADA -> Pascal -> Visual Java -> Visual C++ After six years of that I was going out of my mind.
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Schedule gave me 6 months to do my part of the work, and another 3 months to do performance tuning and tweaking. A hard push, but just maybe possible. The schedule also showed a progress demo in 3 months to the customer. Scheduled for the demo: my part of the project, done, tuned and tweaked. Manager insisted that my schedule stood -- I had 6 months to get my part up and running, and another 3 to tune -- and also that the demo schedule stood (they had to have some progress to show the customer). Manager ignored the logical inconsistency there. Come demo, my part was done, tuned and tweaked, and (gasp) stable. I was so tired I fell off my bike on the way home a few weeks later, breaking my leg and tearing up my ankle. That was a fun summer :)
patbob
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I got brought in on contract to help out a team. I was switching a Paradox database to Oracle, using SQL embedded in C++. That part was cool, but the manager brought me in to help out a group that didn't think they needed help. It was like pulling teeth to get the others to let me know anything about what had been done or what was expected. I completed the work, but didn't ask if they wanted me to do more.
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The job I had for 4 or so weeks at a game company where the lead guy was reinventing the 3D engine and the company ran out of money and didn't tell their employees, leading them on with "I'll get your checks in a couple days" and then one day, the people financing the game (who stopped financing it, obviously) came in in the middle of the night and took all the computer equipment (which was their property so they had every right to do so.) Marc
Another game-related disaster for your amusement. The plan was to re-use an existing game's engine to create a game of a different genre. The problem is that there was no identifiable engine layer, it was written from the gound up to be exactly what it was. -The product at one time had 5 lead designers, some of which were unable to tell me definitively who was in charge of what. -For some time, both the lead programer and the creative director were contractors. -The game could never figure out what it wanted to be. Originally slated for an on-line service that never materialized, the game was practically re-invented twice mid-development. -Our level designer seemed more interested in tinkering with photoshop than doing his work. -The game passed off between 5 producers/managers throught it's dev cycle. I could go on, but you get the picture. Against the better judgement of many, the game was eventually released. As for quality, let's just say that one of the game's more talented designers referred to it as "colon blow" and insisted that he be removed from the credits.
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I recently worked for a small IT consulting company that posted on their website technologies that none of the employees knew or had any experience in. If one of us by chance had read an article or book on a technology, that was enough for them to put on the website that we could provide excellent resources to provide consulting. It's no wonder hardly any of the projects ended on a good note.
mgdth
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Another game-related disaster for your amusement. The plan was to re-use an existing game's engine to create a game of a different genre. The problem is that there was no identifiable engine layer, it was written from the gound up to be exactly what it was. -The product at one time had 5 lead designers, some of which were unable to tell me definitively who was in charge of what. -For some time, both the lead programer and the creative director were contractors. -The game could never figure out what it wanted to be. Originally slated for an on-line service that never materialized, the game was practically re-invented twice mid-development. -Our level designer seemed more interested in tinkering with photoshop than doing his work. -The game passed off between 5 producers/managers throught it's dev cycle. I could go on, but you get the picture. Against the better judgement of many, the game was eventually released. As for quality, let's just say that one of the game's more talented designers referred to it as "colon blow" and insisted that he be removed from the credits.
Sounds like most games these days.
Todd Smith
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not an actual story - more of an educated guess Being a coder on the CP website - imagine having your code being in front of that many nit pickers ;) Bryce
MCP --- To paraphrase Fred Dagg - the views expressed in this post are bloody good ones. --
Publitor, making Pubmed easy. http://www.sohocode.com/publitorOur kids books :The Snot Goblin, and Book 2 - the Snotgoblin and Fluff
bleep bleep bleep bleep bleep bleep errr Great job! I love CP. Throw bob a high-five for me next time you see him. Then check your drink.
Todd Smith
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I've owned a development shop with a decent sized staff for 8 years now. I'm only 30 but I've seen a lot of projects gone wrong (and quite a few that have gone right as well). The absolute worst stories seem to come from web projects with a seperate marketing company involved. The marketing company claims they have a technology focus, which usually translates into no understanding of the web whatsoever. (Don't get me started on the BS that seems to be tolerated in the marketing world.) Anyways, the project was with very well known pizza delivery company, which the marketing "company" tricked into working with them. I say tricked because, had the pizza company known how unorganized and inexperienced, the two jokers that owned the marketing "company" were, they would have decided against working with them. We in turn, were hired by the marketing "company" to produce a system for email broadcasts from corporate, that management could add local content to before sending out. Sounds fun until we started working with the marketing jokers. Instead of being honest like most of our strategic partners, they lied to the pizza company, explaining that we were their employees. I didn't like the lie, but we had a project to complete. So as time went by we learned how one white lie can turn into a huge mess. This was mostly due to the fact that the marketing "company" decided that they wanted to keep both sides of their tricky web of lies in the dark. For example, every time we needed technical clarification on say, data definitions, the marketing "company" wanted to get involved. So what should have been a 10 minute phone call turns into a 3 hour waste of time. We would have meetings about meetings, and sometimes we could see how much the pizza company patronized the marketing "company" during the conferences which was always good for a laugh. (As a general rule to those out there starting their own companies, big corporations smell BS the best. Honesty is the best policy.) They could see right through the two yo-yos running the project. At this point most people with integrity would wash their hands clean and confess. But these idiots told more lies and made things only worse. Needless to say, the whole thing fell apart. We did have some successful run-throughs, but due to our lack of any type of control, we could not react and adapt the way we needed to as things changed. The marketing "company" had a hot mess on their hands and because of their management "techniques" we were unable to help them