7 ms·

Isn't eccentric supposed to mean slightly strange? This just sounds mentally ill. Maybe he was trying to improve job security through intentional obfuscation. K

by Flankk 5y ago

Isn't eccentric supposed to mean slightly strange? This just sounds mentally ill. Maybe he was trying to improve job security through intentional obfuscation. Kind of sad, either way.

mattowen_uk 5y ago
Agreed. I feel sorry for Sten, not the company or the other employees. That said, even as shortly back in the 90s, mental illness was still ridiculed and something to be ashamed of, at least we've made progress in that area these days.
- mutatio 5y ago
  Assuming the story is real, why forgo sympathy for the other employees?
jrootabega 5y ago
The daily wtf has been significantly fictional for decades
- dhoe 5y ago
  I have worked with someone who used female names for temp variables in the early 2000s. He also kinda saved us by substituting all icons with over the top cute looking ones the night before the demo, which was super efficient at distracting the audience from how disfunctional the application was.
  - bemmu 5y ago
    Same, I was told my predecessor used his girlfriend’s name for temp variables.
    - SlowAndCalm 5y ago
      I use a random group of words as variable, etc. names when I can't think of them fast enough to stay in the flow. I find it easy to remember what each one does, and can go back and rename them to more reasonable things before doing a commit. It only takes missing one inexplicably named 'deodorant' variable, for me to want to sink into the depths of the Earth at the thought of people thinking I'm one of these eccentrics.
    - moralestapia 5y ago
      >for temp variables Whew, savage.
- tux3 5y ago
  An area where GPT-3 might have some funny creative stories to contribute
- tomalpha 5y ago
  That may or may not be the case, but I worked with someone back in the early 00’s who named all their variables things to do with the planet or sky, actually including both of those words too. Everything was $sky, $cloud, $mist, $hill, $rainbow etc. The code was at times almost poetic, but a nightmare to debug. At least some of this sounds very plausible.
  - knorker 5y ago
    This is still too common in network equipment, server names, and project names. So you need to know if some obscure name is the name of a star, galaxy, or a nebula, in order to know if it's a router, firewall, or server. Still better than naming shit after greek philosophers.
    - arethuza 5y ago
      It was practically mandatory in the days when Sun workstations were popular for them to have astronomical names. I thought I was being quite daring when the lab where I worked got a load of DEC Alpha workstations and I named them after Martian surface features as I'd just read Red Mars.
      - jjgreen 5y ago
        I worked at a place which had macho weather names for the Suns: "storm", "tempest" etc. I and another chap who started at the same time thought this was all rather silly, so we named ours "drizzle" and "damp"; this made the greybeards mutter somewhat.
        arethuza 5y ago
        As a Scot I have to say that "dreich" would be a pretty good name for a machine ;-)
      - TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
        In the 70s it was somewhat mandatory to name CS research computers after characters and locations from Lord of the Rings. But there's still a difference between SET HOST RIVENDELL and naming all your variables after hobbits.
raverbashing 5y ago
Also, if the person exclusively talks on the 3rd person and does weird demands that would have been a non-hire or quickly dismissed as soon as they would start making eccentric requests The 90s were weird I guess?
- oriolid 5y ago
  The 90s thinking was that a smart person who isn't a weirdo would have chosen a respectable profession like lawyer, doctor, accountant or similar. So it was kind of expected that programmers are weirdos.
mnw21cam 5y ago
The difference between weird and eccentric is whether you're poor or wealthy. Eccentric is basically weird but still respectable.
- croes 5y ago
  I think it also has something to do with consciousness. Eccentrics are aware of their weirdness, they just don't care what others think. Weird people don't know that they are weird.
INTPenis 5y ago
Speaking from a personal perspective, eccentric to me means you are very odd but you try hard to contain it among people.

by Flankk 5y ago

Isn't eccentric supposed to mean slightly strange? This just sounds mentally ill. Maybe he was trying to improve job security through intentional obfuscation. Kind of sad, either way.

mattowen_uk 5y ago

Agreed. I feel sorry for Sten, not the company or the other employees. That said, even as shortly back in the 90s, mental illness was still ridiculed and something to be ashamed of, at least we've made progress in that area these days.

mutatio 5y ago
Assuming the story is real, why forgo sympathy for the other employees?

jrootabega 5y ago

The daily wtf has been significantly fictional for decades

dhoe 5y ago
I have worked with someone who used female names for temp variables in the early 2000s. He also kinda saved us by substituting all icons with over the top cute looking ones the night before the demo, which was super efficient at distracting the audience from how disfunctional the application was.
- bemmu 5y ago
  Same, I was told my predecessor used his girlfriend’s name for temp variables.
  - SlowAndCalm 5y ago
    I use a random group of words as variable, etc. names when I can't think of them fast enough to stay in the flow. I find it easy to remember what each one does, and can go back and rename them to more reasonable things before doing a commit. It only takes missing one inexplicably named 'deodorant' variable, for me to want to sink into the depths of the Earth at the thought of people thinking I'm one of these eccentrics.
  - moralestapia 5y ago
    >for temp variables Whew, savage.
tux3 5y ago
An area where GPT-3 might have some funny creative stories to contribute
tomalpha 5y ago
That may or may not be the case, but I worked with someone back in the early 00’s who named all their variables things to do with the planet or sky, actually including both of those words too. Everything was $sky, $cloud, $mist, $hill, $rainbow etc. The code was at times almost poetic, but a nightmare to debug. At least some of this sounds very plausible.
- knorker 5y ago
  This is still too common in network equipment, server names, and project names. So you need to know if some obscure name is the name of a star, galaxy, or a nebula, in order to know if it's a router, firewall, or server. Still better than naming shit after greek philosophers.
  - arethuza 5y ago
    It was practically mandatory in the days when Sun workstations were popular for them to have astronomical names. I thought I was being quite daring when the lab where I worked got a load of DEC Alpha workstations and I named them after Martian surface features as I'd just read Red Mars.
    - jjgreen 5y ago
      I worked at a place which had macho weather names for the Suns: "storm", "tempest" etc. I and another chap who started at the same time thought this was all rather silly, so we named ours "drizzle" and "damp"; this made the greybeards mutter somewhat.
      - arethuza 5y ago
        As a Scot I have to say that "dreich" would be a pretty good name for a machine ;-)
    - TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
      In the 70s it was somewhat mandatory to name CS research computers after characters and locations from Lord of the Rings. But there's still a difference between SET HOST RIVENDELL and naming all your variables after hobbits.

raverbashing 5y ago

Also, if the person exclusively talks on the 3rd person and does weird demands that would have been a non-hire or quickly dismissed as soon as they would start making eccentric requests The 90s were weird I guess?

oriolid 5y ago
The 90s thinking was that a smart person who isn't a weirdo would have chosen a respectable profession like lawyer, doctor, accountant or similar. So it was kind of expected that programmers are weirdos.

mnw21cam 5y ago

The difference between weird and eccentric is whether you're poor or wealthy. Eccentric is basically weird but still respectable.

croes 5y ago
I think it also has something to do with consciousness. Eccentrics are aware of their weirdness, they just don't care what others think. Weird people don't know that they are weird.

INTPenis 5y ago

Speaking from a personal perspective, eccentric to me means you are very odd but you try hard to contain it among people.