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Entry tags:
Things Real Dreamwidth Programmers Do
Lots of new developers - including myself - are very nervous about screwing things up. Lots of old developers have told me not to worry, but I keep worrying. I don't want to seem stupid or break something important!
So I thought we could make a list of some wonderful hilarious things that Dreamwidth developers have done and still do. I've put the names of people who told me I could share these, but you can be sure that pretty much all of them make everybody around grin and admit that they do something very similar too, actually.
Our fearless leaders have commented on the topic when I told them I was making the list:
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denise: you haven't arrived until you've made at least one mistake that brings the site to its knees ;)
mark, when told about this list's creation: if we're going to create a list of all the shit I've done over the years it will be a very long list.
Everybody: Spent ages searching for the bug, only to realise the file you're editing is not actually the same file you're running.![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
fu managed to do this one while I was actually writing up this list, and not just on her Dreamhack but on Dreamwidth itself!
exor674 I STILL have to look at the TT docs every damn time I have to do things. and I mean the "how to make pages" not the scary "doing weird and obscure things in the plugins" (note: exor674 is the project head for TT conversion)
shadowspar: I spend a lot of time with 'perldoc -f <most-any-perl-function>'
azurelunatic: Forget to convert null entries to zeroes before doing mathematical operations that's likely to involve counting or dividing.
mark: the other day I oopsed a database and had to rebuild it. while debugging the slow page load thing, I installed something, that uninstalled MySQL :P
azurelunatic: And for my part, I totally submit suggestions all the time that are already logged in Bugzilla.
mark: when I was at Mozilla, I accidentally clobbered the database that contained the crash logs. i.e., every time Firefox crashes and you let it send in the crash log. this was at the Firefox 3 launch. I blew it away. no backups.
denise: like the time mark helped me troubleshoot my broken email for like three hours, only for me to discover the reason it wasn't working was because i'd let the domain registration lapse
azurelunatic: Forget to increment the serial number on the DNS file, and spend a half-hour cursing and weeping in class.
So next time you're feeling stupid, please remember that these things are all perfectly normal programmer behaviour:
All of these are things that Mark, Denise, Fu, and all of our senior coders do on a regular basis, therefore we have proof they are totally normal and expected and no cause for shame or guilt.
If you care to, please share other silly things you've done in the comments!
So I thought we could make a list of some wonderful hilarious things that Dreamwidth developers have done and still do. I've put the names of people who told me I could share these, but you can be sure that pretty much all of them make everybody around grin and admit that they do something very similar too, actually.
Our fearless leaders have commented on the topic when I told them I was making the list:
denise: you haven't arrived until you've made at least one mistake that brings the site to its knees ;)mark, when told about this list's creation: if we're going to create a list of all the shit I've done over the years it will be a very long list.Things Real Dreamwidth Programmers Do (Or Have Done)
Everybody: Spent ages searching for the bug, only to realise the file you're editing is not actually the same file you're running.
fu managed to do this one while I was actually writing up this list, and not just on her Dreamhack but on Dreamwidth itself!exor674 I STILL have to look at the TT docs every damn time I have to do things. and I mean the "how to make pages" not the scary "doing weird and obscure things in the plugins" (note: exor674 is the project head for TT conversion)shadowspar: I spend a lot of time with 'perldoc -f <most-any-perl-function>'azurelunatic: Forget to convert null entries to zeroes before doing mathematical operations that's likely to involve counting or dividing.mark: the other day I oopsed a database and had to rebuild it. while debugging the slow page load thing, I installed something, that uninstalled MySQL :Pazurelunatic: And for my part, I totally submit suggestions all the time that are already logged in Bugzilla.mark: when I was at Mozilla, I accidentally clobbered the database that contained the crash logs. i.e., every time Firefox crashes and you let it send in the crash log. this was at the Firefox 3 launch. I blew it away. no backups.denise: like the time mark helped me troubleshoot my broken email for like three hours, only for me to discover the reason it wasn't working was because i'd let the domain registration lapseazurelunatic: Forget to increment the serial number on the DNS file, and spend a half-hour cursing and weeping in class.So next time you're feeling stupid, please remember that these things are all perfectly normal programmer behaviour:
- Asking others for help
- Forgetting how you did the same thing yesterday
- Asking others for more help
- Forgetting to restart Apache
- Finding yourself looking up the same bit of Perl syntax for the 37th time
- Forgetting to upload the file you edited
- Making typos and not noticing
- Forgetting to restart Apache again
- Asking for help yet again
All of these are things that Mark, Denise, Fu, and all of our senior coders do on a regular basis, therefore we have proof they are totally normal and expected and no cause for shame or guilt.
If you care to, please share other silly things you've done in the comments!