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I learned a long, long time ago to keep code clean. Only take being burned once for you to realise it can come back and bite you years later. Oh, and be carefu

I learned a long, long time ago to keep code clean. Only take being burned once for you to realise it can come back and bite you years later. Oh, and be careful of your messages in debug/trace statements, should your client decide to have a look at those ever-growing files.

blauditore 9y ago
What happened?
- kabdib 9y ago
  In the Apple Newton source code, a cow-orker of mine wrote a comment about Sharp Electronics, our manufacturing partner. The comment was a snarky inclusion of their corporate motto, "From Sharp minds come sharp products" in a place where Sharp engineers had done something unusually boneheaded that my friend had had to work around with an ugly hack. Then someone shared the source code in question with Sharp (as sample code or something), and they found the comment. Many, many apologies later, $mike was able to laugh about it, though I don't believe he ever felt unjustified. This may have been the time that he decided that his unofficial job title in Newton was Official Scapegoat. "Feel free to blame me for anything that goes wrong. I won't do anything about it, but at least you can blame someone." Teams cranking 80+ hours a week on a project for a year or two are just gonna vent. It's perfectly healthy.
- alex_hitchins 9y ago
  Copious embarrassment was the main thing. I believe the client was using it as much as possible to leverage some free consultancy, saying some of the comments obviously written by staff were unprofessional and violated good faith agreements and so on. Today I proceed with the thinking that anything I write could be read by my mother.
- bonesss 9y ago
  My co-worker was dealing with some credit card operations on a kiosk solution. During a key demo a quick test of the system triggered some fraud detection and the system threw up a huge "Got you, sucka!!" message. The new owners shared a look between themselves...
bonesss 9y ago
> Oh, and be careful of your messages in debug/trace statements This is one of the easiest ways I have found to distinguish mature coders and immature coders (green, rookies, whatever): read their test data entry. New coders write all kinds of cute things, little data entry stories (test1, test2, test3whyisnothingworking), and frequently put in jokes or witty things... Longbeards have all, at one point or another, had a customer/management see something inappropriate and know it's a bad idea. More importantly, they've worked on too many systems to spend time thinking up cute ways to manually test if their CRUD operations are working.

blauditore 9y ago

What happened?

kabdib 9y ago
In the Apple Newton source code, a cow-orker of mine wrote a comment about Sharp Electronics, our manufacturing partner. The comment was a snarky inclusion of their corporate motto, "From Sharp minds come sharp products" in a place where Sharp engineers had done something unusually boneheaded that my friend had had to work around with an ugly hack. Then someone shared the source code in question with Sharp (as sample code or something), and they found the comment. Many, many apologies later, $mike was able to laugh about it, though I don't believe he ever felt unjustified. This may have been the time that he decided that his unofficial job title in Newton was Official Scapegoat. "Feel free to blame me for anything that goes wrong. I won't do anything about it, but at least you can blame someone." Teams cranking 80+ hours a week on a project for a year or two are just gonna vent. It's perfectly healthy.
alex_hitchins 9y ago
Copious embarrassment was the main thing. I believe the client was using it as much as possible to leverage some free consultancy, saying some of the comments obviously written by staff were unprofessional and violated good faith agreements and so on. Today I proceed with the thinking that anything I write could be read by my mother.
bonesss 9y ago
My co-worker was dealing with some credit card operations on a kiosk solution. During a key demo a quick test of the system triggered some fraud detection and the system threw up a huge "Got you, sucka!!" message. The new owners shared a look between themselves...

bonesss 9y ago

> Oh, and be careful of your messages in debug/trace statements This is one of the easiest ways I have found to distinguish mature coders and immature coders (green, rookies, whatever): read their test data entry. New coders write all kinds of cute things, little data entry stories (test1, test2, test3whyisnothingworking), and frequently put in jokes or witty things... Longbeards have all, at one point or another, had a customer/management see something inappropriate and know it's a bad idea. More importantly, they've worked on too many systems to spend time thinking up cute ways to manually test if their CRUD operations are working.