What part of software development do you wish was "fixed"?
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Let's say you had a genie in a bottle that could make your daily developer life slightly better. What would it be? I think about this a regularly and it's not necessarily things like "A better IDE" or "a faster computer". Often it's things like - A TODO list that thinks like I do - A means of managing source code reviews simply - A set of templates that actually work - Something that will scan my setup & tool/component versions and fix it all up (Python, for example, is a nightmare) - Something that will actually help solve those Nuget / .NET DLL reference issues - A way to emergency fix my code using my phone (hey - sometimes I break things properly and I'm not near a computer when the screaming starts) - Something that warns me when a package I'm including (pip, npm, Nuget) has an issue (security, use of a bad library, deprecated soon etc) without needing to do anything (I want a popup notification) I could go on, but I'd love to hear your wish lists.
cheers Chris Maunder
oh totally the part where we have only loser coders (or pretending/being forced to be losers) nowadays, that only can use those horrible non languages that are object oriented based... with focus only on stupid capitalism, and totally lack of quality or compatibility.... instead of the beauty and freedom that regular C is... with the simplicity of a simple build system... ofcourse one IDE that would allow to compile as you type, causing modules to become obsolete, and that can understand what you do with some minor form of AI, so that it can suggest the next piece of code for you to code even on the phone (if it was possible to code for phones without all that java/OOP garbage) touch would be nice... i wanted to do that if i had a team... and that is very lightweight (totally not the MSVC monstruosity) ... but this IDE part is optional, but as a wish that would be very nice....
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Let's say you had a genie in a bottle that could make your daily developer life slightly better. What would it be? I think about this a regularly and it's not necessarily things like "A better IDE" or "a faster computer". Often it's things like - A TODO list that thinks like I do - A means of managing source code reviews simply - A set of templates that actually work - Something that will scan my setup & tool/component versions and fix it all up (Python, for example, is a nightmare) - Something that will actually help solve those Nuget / .NET DLL reference issues - A way to emergency fix my code using my phone (hey - sometimes I break things properly and I'm not near a computer when the screaming starts) - Something that warns me when a package I'm including (pip, npm, Nuget) has an issue (security, use of a bad library, deprecated soon etc) without needing to do anything (I want a popup notification) I could go on, but I'd love to hear your wish lists.
cheers Chris Maunder
Users
veni bibi saltavi
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so many things. a final end to source dependency hell. a big undo button that lets me unhose my dev machine after I destroyed it. a shiny object I can distract clients with when I won't have the deliverable they want, when they want it. :-D
Real programmers use butterflies
honey the codewitch wrote:
a final end to source dependency hell.
OH PLEASE YES !!! THIS THIS THIS.
I'd rather be phishing!
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You might want to also update your prime moduli. Most of the operating system vendors are giving everyone the same exact list of primes. Anyone can precompute group G used in the Diffie–Hellman key exchange and save the tables to disk. It actually requires lots of storage... but you can also estimate how much storage space and cpu time is required for the calculation. Today (2021) it would require less than 20 million dollars of hardware to do this for some of the algorithms/primes used in the 1990's. On the Linux/BSD family of operating systems you would want to also remove all primes less than 2048 bits from /etc/ssh/moduli On Windows 10 the designated location is at C:\ProgramData\ssh\moduli awk '$5 > 4095' /etc/ssh/moduli > /etc/ssh/moduli.better Someone is probably going to read this and make a comment about the computational difficultly. But you only need to attack a single known prime (like the list of default primes) and it becomes probabilistic whether or not your future SSH connections have a group G precomputation within the table. I don't need to calculate all of the space... I just need to get lucky that your connection parameters fall within the precalculated space. It would become even easier if I can control your PRNG. Have a look at RFC 2409 section 6[^] from the late 1990's. It's hard to believe that everyone fell for the Oakley primes specified in the standard. It really reveals how very few people understood crypto back in those days. Best Wishes, -David Delaune
Ooh, I didn't know I had primes :) Must look them up.:thumbsup:
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Let's say you had a genie in a bottle that could make your daily developer life slightly better. What would it be? I think about this a regularly and it's not necessarily things like "A better IDE" or "a faster computer". Often it's things like - A TODO list that thinks like I do - A means of managing source code reviews simply - A set of templates that actually work - Something that will scan my setup & tool/component versions and fix it all up (Python, for example, is a nightmare) - Something that will actually help solve those Nuget / .NET DLL reference issues - A way to emergency fix my code using my phone (hey - sometimes I break things properly and I'm not near a computer when the screaming starts) - Something that warns me when a package I'm including (pip, npm, Nuget) has an issue (security, use of a bad library, deprecated soon etc) without needing to do anything (I want a popup notification) I could go on, but I'd love to hear your wish lists.
cheers Chris Maunder
Were it not for Nagy V, I'd be risking broaching this subject - which was surprisingly absent. In part, however, it's because I'm so well isolated from management and my only real "customer" is someone who actually needs what they ask for and knows how to ask for it. But the star fixes would be in the following categories:
- Mandatory Intelligence test for users before they can use applications
- Mandatory Intelligence test for managers, cyber-security, and others before they make comments/suggestions
- Painful consequences for those who have me create and refine a project and then never use it
- Renewal of my 007ish license to enforce the above
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
"If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010
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Were it not for Nagy V, I'd be risking broaching this subject - which was surprisingly absent. In part, however, it's because I'm so well isolated from management and my only real "customer" is someone who actually needs what they ask for and knows how to ask for it. But the star fixes would be in the following categories:
- Mandatory Intelligence test for users before they can use applications
- Mandatory Intelligence test for managers, cyber-security, and others before they make comments/suggestions
- Painful consequences for those who have me create and refine a project and then never use it
- Renewal of my 007ish license to enforce the above
"The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
"If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010
Maybe it's Users and Coders understanding each other a tad more (and managers getting out of the way) ;) .
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Maybe it's Users and Coders understanding each other a tad more (and managers getting out of the way) ;) .
I'm afraid that ship has sailed. The penultimate example:
Screen: "Press ANY Key to continue"
User: "I can't find the ANY key""The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
"If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010
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I'm afraid that ship has sailed. The penultimate example:
Screen: "Press ANY Key to continue"
User: "I can't find the ANY key""The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits." - Albert Einstein
"If you are searching for perfection in others, then you seek disappointment. If you seek perfection in yourself, then you will find failure." - Balboos HaGadol Mar 2010
Maybe there isn't an "ANY" key among the many keys they have on their keyboard ;) Maybe they tried Ctrl+Alt+Del. Genius has it's limits.
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Let's say you had a genie in a bottle that could make your daily developer life slightly better. What would it be? I think about this a regularly and it's not necessarily things like "A better IDE" or "a faster computer". Often it's things like - A TODO list that thinks like I do - A means of managing source code reviews simply - A set of templates that actually work - Something that will scan my setup & tool/component versions and fix it all up (Python, for example, is a nightmare) - Something that will actually help solve those Nuget / .NET DLL reference issues - A way to emergency fix my code using my phone (hey - sometimes I break things properly and I'm not near a computer when the screaming starts) - Something that warns me when a package I'm including (pip, npm, Nuget) has an issue (security, use of a bad library, deprecated soon etc) without needing to do anything (I want a popup notification) I could go on, but I'd love to hear your wish lists.
cheers Chris Maunder
Kent Sharkey:
'Fixed' as in 'plumber', or 'fixed' as in 'veterinarian'?
Clueless meddling, and fixed as in encased in cement. @kentacmebinarycom
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, weighing all things in the balance of reason? Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful? --Zachris Topelius Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies. -- Sarah Hoyt
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Chris Maunder wrote:
A way to emergency fix my code using my phone (hey - sometimes I break things properly and I'm not near a computer when the screaming starts)
Not on my wishlist - I have an answer. An ssh client (I use JuiceSSH on Android) and an ssh-aware editor (DroidEdit). Using the on-screen keyboard is a pita, but it's surprisingly usable with a small bluetooth keyboard. Oh, and nail down your ssh servers tight. No userid/password logon, decent ECDSA or long RSA keys. Cheers, Peter
Software rusts. Simon Stephenson, ca 1994. So does this signature. me, 2012
I'd add Microsoft's Remote Desktop App (available for Android and iPhone). Not as good as logging in with a PC, but they did cleverly set it up so the phone screen functions like a laptop touchpad rather than trying to make touches pass through as clicks. It's much more usable than I expected.
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Let's say you had a genie in a bottle that could make your daily developer life slightly better. What would it be? I think about this a regularly and it's not necessarily things like "A better IDE" or "a faster computer". Often it's things like - A TODO list that thinks like I do - A means of managing source code reviews simply - A set of templates that actually work - Something that will scan my setup & tool/component versions and fix it all up (Python, for example, is a nightmare) - Something that will actually help solve those Nuget / .NET DLL reference issues - A way to emergency fix my code using my phone (hey - sometimes I break things properly and I'm not near a computer when the screaming starts) - Something that warns me when a package I'm including (pip, npm, Nuget) has an issue (security, use of a bad library, deprecated soon etc) without needing to do anything (I want a popup notification) I could go on, but I'd love to hear your wish lists.
cheers Chris Maunder
- I wish hackers would go away so I could stop having to pay security taxes. - For the same reason, I wish customers would pay honestly so I could stop wasting time securing the product against unlicensed use. - I wish Microsoft would finish its APIs before releasing them. - Reliable and deterministic GUI layout (and stop trying to cram the whole world into a browser) - Team members that would stop taking shortcuts, and bosses that think cheaper/faster isn't worth the expense/delay/mess - A complete set of tools that everyone is happy with so we can stop changing them all the time and get some work done - Marketing departments would have small budgets, get it right the first time, and stop forcing us to create nonsensical applications and keep changing them in a giant hurry. Recognize when a product is finished and stop piling in more features that ultimately ruin it. (That goes for programming languages, too.) - Reliable hardware, asynchronous access everywhere all the time, push notifications, easier thread coordination that didn't result in crashes or hangs whenever something went amiss - Hotshot programmers that know their place and humbly stay in it - I wish all customers would follow troubleshooting instructions, in order, to completion, answering every question that was asked, only what was asked, in complete, intelligible, punctuated sentences.
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Let's say you had a genie in a bottle that could make your daily developer life slightly better. What would it be? I think about this a regularly and it's not necessarily things like "A better IDE" or "a faster computer". Often it's things like - A TODO list that thinks like I do - A means of managing source code reviews simply - A set of templates that actually work - Something that will scan my setup & tool/component versions and fix it all up (Python, for example, is a nightmare) - Something that will actually help solve those Nuget / .NET DLL reference issues - A way to emergency fix my code using my phone (hey - sometimes I break things properly and I'm not near a computer when the screaming starts) - Something that warns me when a package I'm including (pip, npm, Nuget) has an issue (security, use of a bad library, deprecated soon etc) without needing to do anything (I want a popup notification) I could go on, but I'd love to hear your wish lists.
cheers Chris Maunder
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Let's say you had a genie in a bottle that could make your daily developer life slightly better. What would it be? I think about this a regularly and it's not necessarily things like "A better IDE" or "a faster computer". Often it's things like - A TODO list that thinks like I do - A means of managing source code reviews simply - A set of templates that actually work - Something that will scan my setup & tool/component versions and fix it all up (Python, for example, is a nightmare) - Something that will actually help solve those Nuget / .NET DLL reference issues - A way to emergency fix my code using my phone (hey - sometimes I break things properly and I'm not near a computer when the screaming starts) - Something that warns me when a package I'm including (pip, npm, Nuget) has an issue (security, use of a bad library, deprecated soon etc) without needing to do anything (I want a popup notification) I could go on, but I'd love to hear your wish lists.
cheers Chris Maunder
Most of my software development woes are not technology related but people related. 1. Coworkers that actually know how to code (present job excluded) 2. Previous employees that worked on the code that actually knew how to code (present job included) 3. Management that wasn't a collection of overpaid morons (present job excluded) 4. Third party vendors that would actually write decent API's 5. Third party vendors that would actually write decent documentation for aforementioned API's. The only technology solution I want is: 1. One button click to fully clone my entire development environment onto another computer. And a general complaint: 1. Can we just get rid of passwords? ;)
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Let's say you had a genie in a bottle that could make your daily developer life slightly better. What would it be? I think about this a regularly and it's not necessarily things like "A better IDE" or "a faster computer". Often it's things like - A TODO list that thinks like I do - A means of managing source code reviews simply - A set of templates that actually work - Something that will scan my setup & tool/component versions and fix it all up (Python, for example, is a nightmare) - Something that will actually help solve those Nuget / .NET DLL reference issues - A way to emergency fix my code using my phone (hey - sometimes I break things properly and I'm not near a computer when the screaming starts) - Something that warns me when a package I'm including (pip, npm, Nuget) has an issue (security, use of a bad library, deprecated soon etc) without needing to do anything (I want a popup notification) I could go on, but I'd love to hear your wish lists.
cheers Chris Maunder
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so many things. a final end to source dependency hell. a big undo button that lets me unhose my dev machine after I destroyed it. a shiny object I can distract clients with when I won't have the deliverable they want, when they want it. :-D
Real programmers use butterflies
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I've been called a shim before, but not professionally. I've only ever understood it as 1. A slim chunk of material used to space two things or otherwise wedge them into position 2. A (usually dodgy) adapter or interface unit of some type 3. An anti-trans slur. I'm assuming #2 here? maybe between developers and the people at the company that sign the checks?
Real programmers use butterflies
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Let's say you had a genie in a bottle that could make your daily developer life slightly better. What would it be? I think about this a regularly and it's not necessarily things like "A better IDE" or "a faster computer". Often it's things like - A TODO list that thinks like I do - A means of managing source code reviews simply - A set of templates that actually work - Something that will scan my setup & tool/component versions and fix it all up (Python, for example, is a nightmare) - Something that will actually help solve those Nuget / .NET DLL reference issues - A way to emergency fix my code using my phone (hey - sometimes I break things properly and I'm not near a computer when the screaming starts) - Something that warns me when a package I'm including (pip, npm, Nuget) has an issue (security, use of a bad library, deprecated soon etc) without needing to do anything (I want a popup notification) I could go on, but I'd love to hear your wish lists.
cheers Chris Maunder
I would simply get rid of all technical management, which will solve all your other problems very quickly...
Steve Naidamast Sr. Software Engineer Black Falcon Software, Inc. blackfalconsoftware@outlook.com
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I've been called a shim before, but not professionally. I've only ever understood it as 1. A slim chunk of material used to space two things or otherwise wedge them into position 2. A (usually dodgy) adapter or interface unit of some type 3. An anti-trans slur. I'm assuming #2 here? maybe between developers and the people at the company that sign the checks?
Real programmers use butterflies
I think of them as being interfaces, kind of like that guy in "Office Space" whose sole job was to take specifications and hand them to the developers.
"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"
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Let's say you had a genie in a bottle that could make your daily developer life slightly better. What would it be? I think about this a regularly and it's not necessarily things like "A better IDE" or "a faster computer". Often it's things like - A TODO list that thinks like I do - A means of managing source code reviews simply - A set of templates that actually work - Something that will scan my setup & tool/component versions and fix it all up (Python, for example, is a nightmare) - Something that will actually help solve those Nuget / .NET DLL reference issues - A way to emergency fix my code using my phone (hey - sometimes I break things properly and I'm not near a computer when the screaming starts) - Something that warns me when a package I'm including (pip, npm, Nuget) has an issue (security, use of a bad library, deprecated soon etc) without needing to do anything (I want a popup notification) I could go on, but I'd love to hear your wish lists.
cheers Chris Maunder
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Let's say you had a genie in a bottle that could make your daily developer life slightly better. What would it be? I think about this a regularly and it's not necessarily things like "A better IDE" or "a faster computer". Often it's things like - A TODO list that thinks like I do - A means of managing source code reviews simply - A set of templates that actually work - Something that will scan my setup & tool/component versions and fix it all up (Python, for example, is a nightmare) - Something that will actually help solve those Nuget / .NET DLL reference issues - A way to emergency fix my code using my phone (hey - sometimes I break things properly and I'm not near a computer when the screaming starts) - Something that warns me when a package I'm including (pip, npm, Nuget) has an issue (security, use of a bad library, deprecated soon etc) without needing to do anything (I want a popup notification) I could go on, but I'd love to hear your wish lists.
cheers Chris Maunder
I've been living (and programming) long enough to see myriads of great solutions ... left behind. Lots of the problems that we wish had commonly accepted solutions have solutions - but not commonly accepted. At least not today. Maybe they were common, twenty or thirty years ago, but not today. An example: The problem of changing APIs. OK, we got "interface definitions" - so make it "changing interface definitions". Every new library version comes with a dozen updated interface definitions, to cater for new, extended functionality. You must update your application, interface definition or not. The majority of Win16 APIs were like LibFunc that became LibFuncEx (with a different argument list), then LibFuncExEx, ... There was (is?) at least one with five 'Ex'! But another subset of APIs took a single argument: A struct, the first member being the struct size, implying the number of arguments, followed by the arguments. The function can be extended without changing the API: Arguments for extended functionality is added at the end of the struct. Well, you might say that appending "optional" struct members is a change, but certainly a non-breaking one. It doesn't require caller code change. Not even a recompilation. If the new library function is handed a "short" struct, it knows to skip the functionality depending on the extra parameters. A great way to reduce/avoid API changes! I follow it whenever I control the API. Here and there, I see APIs like that, but it is certainly not standard, The Way to Do It. Never touted in the programming courses and tutorials I have seen. You learn interface definitions; great for implementation independency with one specific set of arguments, but of no help with the next version. When I suggest this approach for coworkers and programming friends, the most positive response is "Yeah, for a function with more than four arguments on the ARM, the compiler lays out code the way you say". Every programmer I know insist on having every single argument individually visible in parentheses after the function name, not as a list of struct members. And every single of them thing they have a godgiven right to change that argument list for every single version. "Just look at the .h file; there you'll see the arguments you must use!". I have lived through dozens of similar ignored/forgotten techniques. Sometimes, I have to explain how we used to do it a couple decades ago, and they are truly surprised: Why don't we simply do it that way, then?