What's your least favorite part of coding?
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The fun part of IoT and embedded is a lot of times you're working very close to the metal, and you can't rely on things like an operating system and graphics drivers - you have to write them yourself (or find code that's already written in some cases). I have a graphics library I wrote which I've been using for about 2 years both professionally and as a hobby. I've extended it in that time to support Unicode, TrueType, SVG, PNG and JPG. I liked writing all that code. I hated documenting it[^]. I'm working on documentation for my user interface library that builds on top of it right now and it's a slog. Testing it is at least as bad. I can't decide which I hate most. Probably testing, considering I enjoy writing at least. I've got some unit tests for my major library, but I haven't written it to cover the absolutely vast surface area of my test matrix. Design is typically fun for me, but I feel like every third time I think I'm clever it bites me. Lately the above user interface library has been kicking me in the teeth, requiring me to make breaking changes over several iterations of the code. I'm not thrilled about it, but it's better than testing.
Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx
Having to debug old code and work out what the hell was thinking the idiot that wrote that code just to find out after a while, that I was that idiot.
M.D.V. ;) If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about? Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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The fun part of IoT and embedded is a lot of times you're working very close to the metal, and you can't rely on things like an operating system and graphics drivers - you have to write them yourself (or find code that's already written in some cases). I have a graphics library I wrote which I've been using for about 2 years both professionally and as a hobby. I've extended it in that time to support Unicode, TrueType, SVG, PNG and JPG. I liked writing all that code. I hated documenting it[^]. I'm working on documentation for my user interface library that builds on top of it right now and it's a slog. Testing it is at least as bad. I can't decide which I hate most. Probably testing, considering I enjoy writing at least. I've got some unit tests for my major library, but I haven't written it to cover the absolutely vast surface area of my test matrix. Design is typically fun for me, but I feel like every third time I think I'm clever it bites me. Lately the above user interface library has been kicking me in the teeth, requiring me to make breaking changes over several iterations of the code. I'm not thrilled about it, but it's better than testing.
Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx
Testing is the worst. Documentation is the worst too. After that, I go into a bit of a decline. (With apologies to Douglas Adams)
Paul Sanders. If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter - Blaise Pascal. Some of my best work is in the undo buffer.
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Sorry I have to somewhat contradict you, but I don't think your question has a proper answer between professionals. My view is that we do the work, and the whole work or we get out of this profession or we call ourselves hobbyists. What would you say of a surgeon who says "I enjoy cutting, but stitching not so much"? The oft repeated lament "I hate documenting/commenting" is driving me nuts: what good is your work if you cannot explain to someone how to use it or if you explain it badly? Saying that you don't want to cover with tests all significant cases is like someone performing a CAT scan and stopping in the middle: probably the other half is also OK. Speaking for myself, I like my profession and try to do it the best I can. I strive to document my code (although English is not my mother tongue), write unit tests and, in general, do all the drudgery tasks associated with programming. The fun is doing the whole lot.
Mircea
Mircea Neacsu wrote:
I don't think your question has a proper answer between professionals
So you like everything about your job? Including the meetings with management? Very few people like everything about their job. In fact, not many people really like their job at all. As for the rest of your post, I come across very little code that's properly documented, my own code included. I don't find it all that important and neither does my customer and it's never been an issue. Same goes for automated tests. The greatest bottleneck in my code is a piece that requires extensive UI and integration testing (of which a part can't even be tested because third party). It's faster and easier to just manually run the code a few times and get that code in order so there's fewer chances of it breaking. Having said that, I hate writing documentation because the moment you write it the software will have evolved and the documentation is outdated and no one will ever read it anyway and for that reason I never trust documentation. I also really dislike writing tests. The only tests I've seen never broke until they did because functionality changed. Never have I prevented a bug with tests. I use tests when writing complicated and easy to test logic, like parsers (but I rarely write those and when I do they're simple parsers).
Best, Sander Azure DevOps Succinctly (free eBook) Azure Serverless Succinctly (free eBook) Migrating Apps to the Cloud with Azure arrgh.js - Bringing LINQ to JavaScript
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Quote:
Documentation, as I am no good at writing clear instructions
Now appart from Q/A where you simply reply with a link, I have a strong feeling, that you are writing very good instructions :thumbsup:
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The fun part of IoT and embedded is a lot of times you're working very close to the metal, and you can't rely on things like an operating system and graphics drivers - you have to write them yourself (or find code that's already written in some cases). I have a graphics library I wrote which I've been using for about 2 years both professionally and as a hobby. I've extended it in that time to support Unicode, TrueType, SVG, PNG and JPG. I liked writing all that code. I hated documenting it[^]. I'm working on documentation for my user interface library that builds on top of it right now and it's a slog. Testing it is at least as bad. I can't decide which I hate most. Probably testing, considering I enjoy writing at least. I've got some unit tests for my major library, but I haven't written it to cover the absolutely vast surface area of my test matrix. Design is typically fun for me, but I feel like every third time I think I'm clever it bites me. Lately the above user interface library has been kicking me in the teeth, requiring me to make breaking changes over several iterations of the code. I'm not thrilled about it, but it's better than testing.
Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx
Recoding because some product manager has changed his/her mind and shoehorned some feature modification into the spec, which trashes the design and requires a major rewrite. I hate doing things twice. I'm sure I'm not alone in this.
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The fun part of IoT and embedded is a lot of times you're working very close to the metal, and you can't rely on things like an operating system and graphics drivers - you have to write them yourself (or find code that's already written in some cases). I have a graphics library I wrote which I've been using for about 2 years both professionally and as a hobby. I've extended it in that time to support Unicode, TrueType, SVG, PNG and JPG. I liked writing all that code. I hated documenting it[^]. I'm working on documentation for my user interface library that builds on top of it right now and it's a slog. Testing it is at least as bad. I can't decide which I hate most. Probably testing, considering I enjoy writing at least. I've got some unit tests for my major library, but I haven't written it to cover the absolutely vast surface area of my test matrix. Design is typically fun for me, but I feel like every third time I think I'm clever it bites me. Lately the above user interface library has been kicking me in the teeth, requiring me to make breaking changes over several iterations of the code. I'm not thrilled about it, but it's better than testing.
Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx
Recoding because some product manager has changed his/her mind and shoehorned some feature modification into the spec, which trashes the design and requires a major rewrite. I hate doing things twice. I'm sure I'm not alone in this.
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Mircea Neacsu wrote:
I don't think your question has a proper answer between professionals
So you like everything about your job? Including the meetings with management? Very few people like everything about their job. In fact, not many people really like their job at all. As for the rest of your post, I come across very little code that's properly documented, my own code included. I don't find it all that important and neither does my customer and it's never been an issue. Same goes for automated tests. The greatest bottleneck in my code is a piece that requires extensive UI and integration testing (of which a part can't even be tested because third party). It's faster and easier to just manually run the code a few times and get that code in order so there's fewer chances of it breaking. Having said that, I hate writing documentation because the moment you write it the software will have evolved and the documentation is outdated and no one will ever read it anyway and for that reason I never trust documentation. I also really dislike writing tests. The only tests I've seen never broke until they did because functionality changed. Never have I prevented a bug with tests. I use tests when writing complicated and easy to test logic, like parsers (but I rarely write those and when I do they're simple parsers).
Best, Sander Azure DevOps Succinctly (free eBook) Azure Serverless Succinctly (free eBook) Migrating Apps to the Cloud with Azure arrgh.js - Bringing LINQ to JavaScript
Sander Rossel wrote:
So you like everything about your job? Including the meetings with management?
Yes, I lived an enchanted life :) My boss for 20+ years was the owner of the company, an intelligent, nice person who called meetings only when needed and kept them short and to the object. Otherwise, I had my share of delayed flights, lost luggage, running into the occasional idiot, in short the usual unpleasantness of life, but that's not something I could blame on my profession.
Sander Rossel wrote:
In fact, not many people really like their job at all.
I know. In fact I see it as one of the best paths to a miserable life. Hopefully, most programmers who hang out in their spare time at a coding site, do enjoy their profession. Otherwise I'm very, very sorry for them. Now about documentation:
Sander Rossel wrote:
I don't find it all that important and neither does my customer and it's never been an issue.
Really? I imagine you provide your customer with some type of manual or instructions. As for documenting the internals of your program, if other colleagues need to look at your code, I'm not sure they enjoy the experience. If you are a team of one, it might not be that important in your younger years or if you are writing throw-away code that is used only once and never revisited. If you are writing reusable code, docs matter.
Sander Rossel wrote:
I also really dislike writing tests. The only tests I've seen never broke until they did because functionality changed. Never have I prevented a bug with tests.
I don't know what type of code you are writing. It might be your case, but in my world tests do matter. I do complicated math stuff and I want to make sure it works for all acceptable inputs. Some of the code I wrote has been in use for 10-15 years and that's because of a combination of being well-documented and properly tested.
Mircea
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Sometimes I like that challenge. Other times it can be frustrating.
Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx
It can be a challenge when you have access to something you can examine. In this specific case, all we have access to is a 404 response if we do not guess the URL and port. Another problem with 1 million euro gizmos, they do not give us any to play with in a test environment.
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Sander Rossel wrote:
So you like everything about your job? Including the meetings with management?
Yes, I lived an enchanted life :) My boss for 20+ years was the owner of the company, an intelligent, nice person who called meetings only when needed and kept them short and to the object. Otherwise, I had my share of delayed flights, lost luggage, running into the occasional idiot, in short the usual unpleasantness of life, but that's not something I could blame on my profession.
Sander Rossel wrote:
In fact, not many people really like their job at all.
I know. In fact I see it as one of the best paths to a miserable life. Hopefully, most programmers who hang out in their spare time at a coding site, do enjoy their profession. Otherwise I'm very, very sorry for them. Now about documentation:
Sander Rossel wrote:
I don't find it all that important and neither does my customer and it's never been an issue.
Really? I imagine you provide your customer with some type of manual or instructions. As for documenting the internals of your program, if other colleagues need to look at your code, I'm not sure they enjoy the experience. If you are a team of one, it might not be that important in your younger years or if you are writing throw-away code that is used only once and never revisited. If you are writing reusable code, docs matter.
Sander Rossel wrote:
I also really dislike writing tests. The only tests I've seen never broke until they did because functionality changed. Never have I prevented a bug with tests.
I don't know what type of code you are writing. It might be your case, but in my world tests do matter. I do complicated math stuff and I want to make sure it works for all acceptable inputs. Some of the code I wrote has been in use for 10-15 years and that's because of a combination of being well-documented and properly tested.
Mircea
Mircea Neacsu wrote:
but that's not something I could blame on my profession
Part of the job, I guess.
Mircea Neacsu wrote:
Hopefully, most programmers who hang out in their spare time at a coding site, do enjoy their profession.
I do :)
Mircea Neacsu wrote:
Really? I imagine you provide your customer with some type of manual or instructions.
None whatsoever. My code is custom made for every customer so they know exactly what they're getting. I get an occassional call like "Sander, if I press this button will it do x or y?", but that happens maybe once a year. Mostly because all buttons are pressed on a weekly basis so people know what they do. I've written plenty of manuals in the past and I think none of them were ever read. Even with a manual, it's easier for my customer to call me than it is to find and read the documentation. At one time the customer even requested a help menu, accessible from an "info-button" at the top right of the form. We documented the entire form and added the button. The only one who pressed it was me when they called "what does this do?" :laugh: One time a customer told me "I didn't know what to expect, but I opened it and I just knew where to go because the software is so intuitive."
Mircea Neacsu wrote:
if other colleagues need to look at your code, I'm not sure they enjoy the experience.
I recently got a new junior employee and he had little trouble working through my code. It's not that hard either, you POST a form and end up in the OnPost method and you can figure it out from there. A few if-statements, a for-loop, some validations, save something to the database... Nothing too complicated. I have the advantage that most of my code has a GUI, which means most of the funtionality has a visible component, which also makes debugging a bit easier (there's always a clear entry point, like a button click). Some of my code is a hassle to work with, but I wouldn't even know how to begin to describe it. Just set a breakpoint and walk through the code line by line, I guess. That's really the only sure way to know what code does. Reversed, I never read documentation either. If I have to read lots of documentation just to understand what's going on, it's probably bad code and the documentation would be just as bad. On that note, writing go
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Mircea Neacsu wrote:
but that's not something I could blame on my profession
Part of the job, I guess.
Mircea Neacsu wrote:
Hopefully, most programmers who hang out in their spare time at a coding site, do enjoy their profession.
I do :)
Mircea Neacsu wrote:
Really? I imagine you provide your customer with some type of manual or instructions.
None whatsoever. My code is custom made for every customer so they know exactly what they're getting. I get an occassional call like "Sander, if I press this button will it do x or y?", but that happens maybe once a year. Mostly because all buttons are pressed on a weekly basis so people know what they do. I've written plenty of manuals in the past and I think none of them were ever read. Even with a manual, it's easier for my customer to call me than it is to find and read the documentation. At one time the customer even requested a help menu, accessible from an "info-button" at the top right of the form. We documented the entire form and added the button. The only one who pressed it was me when they called "what does this do?" :laugh: One time a customer told me "I didn't know what to expect, but I opened it and I just knew where to go because the software is so intuitive."
Mircea Neacsu wrote:
if other colleagues need to look at your code, I'm not sure they enjoy the experience.
I recently got a new junior employee and he had little trouble working through my code. It's not that hard either, you POST a form and end up in the OnPost method and you can figure it out from there. A few if-statements, a for-loop, some validations, save something to the database... Nothing too complicated. I have the advantage that most of my code has a GUI, which means most of the funtionality has a visible component, which also makes debugging a bit easier (there's always a clear entry point, like a button click). Some of my code is a hassle to work with, but I wouldn't even know how to begin to describe it. Just set a breakpoint and walk through the code line by line, I guess. That's really the only sure way to know what code does. Reversed, I never read documentation either. If I have to read lots of documentation just to understand what's going on, it's probably bad code and the documentation would be just as bad. On that note, writing go
Sander Rossel wrote:
Part of the job, I guess.
Price to be paid for travelling to 50+ countries on 6 continents with all travel expenses paid :laugh:
Sander Rossel wrote:
Mostly LOB applications. I really don't need to test that a button click results in some entity being validated and saved to the database. I manually tested it and it works.
There is some difference in purpose and scale. In my case, the same software was/is used for data acquisition and visualization by over 5000 customers who connected 200+ types of devices. Besides, operating costs for some of the customers were so big that a single day lost was more than the cost of our software. If it wouldn't have worked, they would have thrown it overboard and I wouldn't have had the chance of a comfy retirement. :D
Mircea
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Sander Rossel wrote:
Part of the job, I guess.
Price to be paid for travelling to 50+ countries on 6 continents with all travel expenses paid :laugh:
Sander Rossel wrote:
Mostly LOB applications. I really don't need to test that a button click results in some entity being validated and saved to the database. I manually tested it and it works.
There is some difference in purpose and scale. In my case, the same software was/is used for data acquisition and visualization by over 5000 customers who connected 200+ types of devices. Besides, operating costs for some of the customers were so big that a single day lost was more than the cost of our software. If it wouldn't have worked, they would have thrown it overboard and I wouldn't have had the chance of a comfy retirement. :D
Mircea
Mircea Neacsu wrote:
travelling to 50+ countries on 6 continents
I'd absolutely hate that part of the job X| I hate visiting customers, save for two are even closer than my own office (6 and 7 km vs. 14 km). I don't like working from home all the time either though, need to get out and socialize once in a while :)
Mircea Neacsu wrote:
There is some difference in purpose and scale
That's my point exactly. In your original post you said: "The oft repeated lament "I hate documenting/commenting" is driving me nuts: what good is your work if you cannot explain to someone how to use it or if you explain it badly? Saying that you don't want to cover with tests all significant cases is like someone performing a CAT scan and stopping in the middle: probably the other half is also OK." However, at my scale, it adds more work and complexity than it takes away. Just like almost everything, whether you need documentation and unit tests "depends" on your use case. Not having proper build and release pipelines is leaving the job half-done though :laugh:
Best, Sander Azure DevOps Succinctly (free eBook) Azure Serverless Succinctly (free eBook) Migrating Apps to the Cloud with Azure arrgh.js - Bringing LINQ to JavaScript
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Mircea Neacsu wrote:
travelling to 50+ countries on 6 continents
I'd absolutely hate that part of the job X| I hate visiting customers, save for two are even closer than my own office (6 and 7 km vs. 14 km). I don't like working from home all the time either though, need to get out and socialize once in a while :)
Mircea Neacsu wrote:
There is some difference in purpose and scale
That's my point exactly. In your original post you said: "The oft repeated lament "I hate documenting/commenting" is driving me nuts: what good is your work if you cannot explain to someone how to use it or if you explain it badly? Saying that you don't want to cover with tests all significant cases is like someone performing a CAT scan and stopping in the middle: probably the other half is also OK." However, at my scale, it adds more work and complexity than it takes away. Just like almost everything, whether you need documentation and unit tests "depends" on your use case. Not having proper build and release pipelines is leaving the job half-done though :laugh:
Best, Sander Azure DevOps Succinctly (free eBook) Azure Serverless Succinctly (free eBook) Migrating Apps to the Cloud with Azure arrgh.js - Bringing LINQ to JavaScript
Sander Rossel wrote:
'd absolutely hate that part of the job X| I hate visiting customers, save for two are even closer than my own office (6 and 7 km vs. 14 km).
To each his own: me, I love(d) travelling. Now my bucket list is empty. I still like vacationing but it's not the same as when you go for work and get a chance to know people and see their real life. I guess I'm more of a traveler than a tourist. :)
Sander Rossel wrote:
Not having proper build and release pipelines is leaving the job half-done though :laugh:
Amen! :laugh:
Mircea
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The fun part of IoT and embedded is a lot of times you're working very close to the metal, and you can't rely on things like an operating system and graphics drivers - you have to write them yourself (or find code that's already written in some cases). I have a graphics library I wrote which I've been using for about 2 years both professionally and as a hobby. I've extended it in that time to support Unicode, TrueType, SVG, PNG and JPG. I liked writing all that code. I hated documenting it[^]. I'm working on documentation for my user interface library that builds on top of it right now and it's a slog. Testing it is at least as bad. I can't decide which I hate most. Probably testing, considering I enjoy writing at least. I've got some unit tests for my major library, but I haven't written it to cover the absolutely vast surface area of my test matrix. Design is typically fun for me, but I feel like every third time I think I'm clever it bites me. Lately the above user interface library has been kicking me in the teeth, requiring me to make breaking changes over several iterations of the code. I'm not thrilled about it, but it's better than testing.
Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx
Mine is not technical. Overall, I am pleased with the tools and helps I have in VS2022. My least favorite part of coding is interference in my coding by non-technical project managers. Such as (and I paraphrase for brevity): “That will take too long to do it right.” “Are we there yet?” “I read somewhere you should be using language Y instead of language X. Go back and rewrite all the code in language X.” “We don’t need exception handling and logging. Just do it without all that.” “Why is it taking so long?” “Let’s add more programmers so we get this done sooner.” (said about halfway or after the midpoint of the project) “We need more meetings.” And, of course, the reader could add more. P.S. I have over 20 years as a project manager with the technical knowledge, skills, and abilities. This is about the non-technical project managers who don’t have the necessary knowledge and experience on how software engineering projects differ from other projects they learned about in their coursework. I thank God everyday for those non-technical project managers that understand they need to learn the difference and are teachable. They make fantastic project managers.
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The fun part of IoT and embedded is a lot of times you're working very close to the metal, and you can't rely on things like an operating system and graphics drivers - you have to write them yourself (or find code that's already written in some cases). I have a graphics library I wrote which I've been using for about 2 years both professionally and as a hobby. I've extended it in that time to support Unicode, TrueType, SVG, PNG and JPG. I liked writing all that code. I hated documenting it[^]. I'm working on documentation for my user interface library that builds on top of it right now and it's a slog. Testing it is at least as bad. I can't decide which I hate most. Probably testing, considering I enjoy writing at least. I've got some unit tests for my major library, but I haven't written it to cover the absolutely vast surface area of my test matrix. Design is typically fun for me, but I feel like every third time I think I'm clever it bites me. Lately the above user interface library has been kicking me in the teeth, requiring me to make breaking changes over several iterations of the code. I'm not thrilled about it, but it's better than testing.
Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx
Learning to code with C# and coming from VB 6 & VB.Net and not know what I am doing So asking a question on CP and receiving an answer that Makes me think Tells me what to understand OR best some example code that I can expand on The real fun is going back and fixing the code in a application when I learn a better way to structure the code ie putting all my CRUD functions in a Library
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Learning to code with C# and coming from VB 6 & VB.Net and not know what I am doing So asking a question on CP and receiving an answer that Makes me think Tells me what to understand OR best some example code that I can expand on The real fun is going back and fixing the code in a application when I learn a better way to structure the code ie putting all my CRUD functions in a Library
Forgive me, but I think you may have misread my question? I was asking about the least favorite, not your favorite. Maybe I misunderstood your response though. *head scratch*
Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx
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Forgive me, but I think you may have misread my question? I was asking about the least favorite, not your favorite. Maybe I misunderstood your response though. *head scratch*
Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx
YES I misread your question Guess I was on the positive side of everything today NO you did not misunderstand my response Perhaps my least favorite thing is NOT knowing what I am doing and asking dumb questions. I try to not be like the poster that asked OG in the questions Where do I find that I have looked at your IoT graphic library Trying to make a IR remote to turn on my shop vac when I start my Table Saw 20 amp circuit The one I purchased keeps tripping the breaker so I just keep them on separate circuits
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YES I misread your question Guess I was on the positive side of everything today NO you did not misunderstand my response Perhaps my least favorite thing is NOT knowing what I am doing and asking dumb questions. I try to not be like the poster that asked OG in the questions Where do I find that I have looked at your IoT graphic library Trying to make a IR remote to turn on my shop vac when I start my Table Saw 20 amp circuit The one I purchased keeps tripping the breaker so I just keep them on separate circuits
Choroid wrote:
Trying to make a IR remote to turn on my shop vac
I know there are off the shelf IR tranceivers and such so it shouldn't be incredibly difficult.
Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx
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The fun part of IoT and embedded is a lot of times you're working very close to the metal, and you can't rely on things like an operating system and graphics drivers - you have to write them yourself (or find code that's already written in some cases). I have a graphics library I wrote which I've been using for about 2 years both professionally and as a hobby. I've extended it in that time to support Unicode, TrueType, SVG, PNG and JPG. I liked writing all that code. I hated documenting it[^]. I'm working on documentation for my user interface library that builds on top of it right now and it's a slog. Testing it is at least as bad. I can't decide which I hate most. Probably testing, considering I enjoy writing at least. I've got some unit tests for my major library, but I haven't written it to cover the absolutely vast surface area of my test matrix. Design is typically fun for me, but I feel like every third time I think I'm clever it bites me. Lately the above user interface library has been kicking me in the teeth, requiring me to make breaking changes over several iterations of the code. I'm not thrilled about it, but it's better than testing.
Check out my IoT graphics library here: https://honeythecodewitch.com/gfx
My worst part of coding is when I'm constantly asked to defend the code when it turns out that the data is the cause of the problem.
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lmoelleb wrote:
I did not change anything
That statement is always a lie.
Software Zen:
delete this; -
Hell yeah. McAfee is installed at work and we have had really weirdo things happening... everytime we do get a "not so logical" thing, the first we do is to deactivate it for an hour (the only thing we can do due to server policies) or check the second most common cause... the windows updates.
M.D.V. ;) If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about? Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
Nelek wrote:
McAfee is installed at work
We have it here as well. We use Inno Setup for our product installers. One day I was working on an install script and compiled it. I got a popup message from McAfee claiming a real-time scanning violation. Inno Setup closed up. I restarted it, and the source for my install script was gone, as were a number of the files included in the install. McAfee had terminated the Inno Setup compile process and deleted all of the files (including source code) that process had opened. I only lost an hour's work, but still. My problem report to IT was... flammable.
Software Zen:
delete this;
