Clerks (administration workers) and documents



  • @Lorne Kates said:

    @Indented for your sanity said:


    <p>
       <br />
       &nbsp;&nbsp;
       <font class="BoldGreen18">I'm padded text</font>
       &nbsp;&nbsp;
       <br/>
    </p>

    So they did manage to use SOME css in the form of "BoldGreen18". Guess how that font tag (yes, FONT tag) renders. Here's a hint, it isn't font-weight:bold, color:Green or font-size:18px.


    Nothing wrong with that code, is there? :)



  • @token_woman said:

    I taught an admin worker how to cut and paste. I had found her reading data from one spreadsheet and typing it into another. This was in the public sector so we're talking taxpayers' money here. What really makes me shudder is the thought that she might have sat through my showing her, thought "hmm, looks kinda high-falutin'" and gone back to her original method.
    Ever tried to copy/paste cells that contain formulas? It's not a simple Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V. Now, try to teach a random moron to use "paste special" function.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    You could just trust me on things like that, you know, instead of opening up yourself to being proven wrong in a graphical fashion. On the other hand, I agree that it's fucking unbelievable that they could somehow fuck up drawing a font, so I understand where you're coming from.

    IIRC, the Java idiots decided that 1 point == 1 pixel. So 14pt fonts display as 14px.



  • @SEMI-HYBRID code said:

    i didn't use NB in 2002, but from what i see now, they must've done some heavy optimizations. app startup takes only about half a minute, so that's just java average, and loading a project takes about another half a minute, but most of the dialog windows open in about 5-6 seconds, so there's definitely a huge improvement... in today's computing power, at least.

    Are you.. I thought you said NB was good. An IDE which has a 30s startup, 30s project load and 5-6s to display a dialog is absolute shit. And keep in mind that monitor computers are a hell of a lot more powerful than the 1.2Ghz, 1GB RAM models I was running this on circa 2002. It sounds like they actually made performance worse.

    Every single day I find a new reason to hate Java more. Every single day. Today I hate Java more than yesterday. And tomorrow I will hate it more than today. And so on until I die.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    I'm pretty sure you're full of shit:

    You could just trust me on things like that, you know, instead of opening up yourself to being proven wrong in a graphical fashion. On the other hand, I agree that it's fucking unbelievable that they could somehow fuck up drawing a font, so I understand where you're coming from.

    okay, this is not the error i had in mind/expected it to be. in many programs, certain font sizes do strange things, as in, their proportions seem to get a little off, so the font stretches horizontally a little and the height/width ratio is no longer correct. i never found out exactly why and when, but i know it happens sometimes, usually when drawing text in DirectX/XNA, but i've seen it happen also on page rendered in firefox, and once or twice in netbeans too, when i was playing around to find out what would be the most readable font&size to me.

    i might still be unintentionally right, though, if netbeans didn't get the correct DPI, but a smaller one than your monitor has, the font would actually render smaller than it should be. but yes, that's highly improbable, i've never seen a program that would care about DPI and it doesn't make sense given that OS takes care of that. looking at the size of the characters, i'd guess maybe by "14", notepad means "14pt" and netbeans "14px"?



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    Every single day I find a new reason to hate Java more. Every single day. Today I hate Java more than yesterday. And tomorrow I will hate it more than today. And so on until I die.

    Peter Gibbons: So I was sitting in my cubicle today, and I realized, ever since I started working, every single day of my life has been worse than the day before it. So that means that every single day that you see me, that's on the worst day of my life.

    Dr. Swanson: What about today? Is today the worst day of your life?

    Peter Gibbons: Yeah.

    Dr. Swanson: Wow, that's messed up.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    And so on until I die.

    Not really, Hell is a java app.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @morbiuswilters said:
    Every single day I find a new reason to hate Java more. Every single day. Today I hate Java more than yesterday. And tomorrow I will hate it more than today. And so on until I die.

    Peter Gibbons: So I was sitting in my cubicle today, and I realized, ever since I started working, every single day of my life has been worse than the day before it. So that means that every single day that you see me, that's on the worst day of my life.

    Dr. Swanson: What about today? Is today the worst day of your life?

    Peter Gibbons: Yeah.

    Dr. Swanson: Wow, that's messed up.

    That's what I was ripping off paying homage to, but I was too lazy to look up the actual dialog to make the match perfect.



  • @token_woman said:

    I taught an admin worker how to cut and paste. I had found her reading data from one spreadsheet and typing it into another. This was in the public sector so we're talking taxpayers' money here. What really makes me shudder is the thought that she might have sat through my showing her, thought "hmm, looks kinda high-falutin'" and gone back to her original method.

    I saw one time a consultant doing cut and paste. He was doing it one letter at a time, and using the Edit menu, not the keyboard or context menu. At first I was thinking that he was joking, but when he asked helpdesk to configure his desktop so he would only see icons for Internet, Email and Wordperfect (we were using MS-Office), I knew this was all too real.



  • Chain-saw - axe - productivity - trees - whirr sound.

    @TheRider said:

    I remember a former neighbor of mine who bought a computer "to manage his letters", as he said. When, one day, he showed me his computer to fix some unrelated problem, I noticed what his letter management consisted of: He wrote his letters by hand on letterhead paper, then used a scanner to digitize them (into .jpgs, of course), and them sorted his letter-scans into folders on the desktop. When I asked him about the usefulness of his proceedings, he said, this way he still had an archive of his letters in case they burnt down in a fire.

    Then I proceeded to suggest he could also use the computer to *type* the letters, instead of *scan* the hand-written letters. I was met with a blank stare.



  • @SEMI-HYBRID code said:

    i might still be unintentionally right, though, if netbeans didn't get the correct DPI,

    If Netbeans is using an incorrect DPI, in what way is it "right"? Intentionally or unintentionally?



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    * This is when I realized Java was a mistake.

     

    That's the reason you don't think an IDE is the end-all tool for every developer. Nearly everybody that doesn't code in Java (or MS's copy of it) do quite well without one.



  • @serguey123 said:

    @morbiuswilters said:
    And so on until I die.

    Not really, Hell is a java app.

    Morbius' Patented Choose-Your-Own-Snark®:

    • If you want Morbius to make a crack at Java's slowness, turn to page 31.

    • If you want Morbius to make a crack at Java's shitty garbage collection, turn to page 17.

    • If you want Morbius to make a crack at Java's instability, turn to page 92.




    Page 17

    "Oh well, so is Manhattan during a garbage strike. Because the garbage keeps piling up."




    Page 31

    "On the bright side, Hell only lasts for 5 seconds. On the shitty side, Java will make that 5 seconds feel like an eternity. Because slow."




    Page 92

    "Hey, at least we know Hell won't have much uptime."


    THE END. Join Morbius and the Morbeteers in their next adventure: We Can Put A Man On The Moon But Our Web Browsers Still Work About As Well As A Soviet-engineered Bidet



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    Are you..

    yes, i actually am. Rest assured that you are not talking to a figment of your imagination.

    @morbiuswilters said:

    I thought you said NB was good.

    yes, i said that, and i meant it. when i work i start it up and open a project ONCE, on the beginning of the workday, so i can survive waiting for a minute. it's not okay, but i can survive it.

    @morbiuswilters said:

    and 5-6s to display a dialog

    also, i use IDE for writing code, not playing around with dialog boxes, so i can survive waiting for 5 seconds three or four times a day. the search dialog, which is the only one i use frequently, tends to show almost immediately. also, when i was 14-16, i had a 300Mhz Dell with 6Gb Harddisk and 32Mb of RAM running WinXP. I learned to be very patient back then. VERY patient.

    also, there's not much PHP IDEs out there, and none i know of is REALLY good, so let me correct myself and say NetBeans is "good, compared to others". Yes, I can use PSPad, and i often to, great little app, but when i need something that has at least a little decent Intellisense so i don't get lost in those hundreds of functions in dozens of objects, there's actually no better option, and NB is not the worst kind of "no better option", just a bad kind of no better option, and actually pretty noticably better than anything else out there (that i know of). it's even better than Zend Studio, even with all its flaws and java-introduced issues.

    @morbiuswilters said:

    And keep in mind that monitor computers are a hell of a lot more powerful than the 1.2Ghz, 1GB RAM models I was running this on circa 2002. It sounds like they actually made performance worse.

    i'm running it on 1.8Ghz dual-core, 2GB RAM, but i was thinking about doing some joke based on moore's law, and then i decided i'm too lazy.

    @morbiuswilters said:

    Every single day I find a new reason to hate Java more. Every single day. Today I hate Java more than yesterday. And tomorrow I will hate it more than today. And so on until I die.

    i was thinking about asking you if i can use that as my signature, but then i realized it's not too funny, just understandable. i feel the same. it's the gratitude that i don't have to work with java that gives me my everyday power to delve into the sewers of PHP.



  • @Mcoder said:

    @morbiuswilters said:

    * This is when I realized Java was a mistake.

     

    That's the reason you don't think an IDE is the end-all tool for every developer. Nearly everybody that doesn't code in Java (or MS's copy of it) do quite well without one.


    Your post confuses and scares me



  • @Mcoder said:

    That's the reason you don't think an IDE is the end-all tool for every developer. Nearly everybody that doesn't code in Java (or MS's copy of it) do quite well without one.

    I dunno, most of the Ruby/Perl/Python/PHP/Javascript devs I've seen still use an IDE. I guess your Unix C people still mostly use Emacs/vim. As for Visual Studio: never used it, but from what I've heard it's a lot better than Eclipse. I mean, VS can't possibly be worse than Eclipse, can it?

    I'm not opposed to the idea of an IDE, per se, just opposed to every single implementation I've ever had the displeasure of working with (CodeWarrior, Eclipse, NetBeans.. more that I'm forgetting..) I like vim, but I'm not so die-hard that I couldn't use an IDE to write code. The only things I ever used Eclipse for were interactive debugging and auto-managing all of my imports in Java (I just wrote the classes in vim and used Eclipse to handle that tedium). Oh, and I had to have it running to do run GWT apps because it's a real PITA to develop with GWT if you aren't running dev mode inside of Eclipse. Really, none of the other features of Eclipse are useful to me.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @SEMI-HYBRID code said:
    i might still be unintentionally right, though, if netbeans didn't get the correct DPI,

    If Netbeans is using an incorrect DPI, in what way is it "right"? Intentionally or unintentionally?

    pay close attention and read along:

    I, as in me, myself.

    might be, as in there's a possibility i am

    still, as in, despite the symptom not being what i thought it is

    be unintentionally right, as in "i incorrectly assumed the symptom and proposed the bug that could cause it, however the real symptom was different, but could still be caused by the same/similar bug"

    notice that the "right" applies to the "I", not to the "NetBeans", which you may have correctly not noticed in the (first part of the) sentence because it's not there



  • @SEMI-HYBRID code said:

    also, i use IDE for writing code, not playing around with dialog boxes, so i can survive waiting for 5 seconds three or four times a day. the search dialog, which is the only one i use frequently, tends to show almost immediately. also, when i was 14-16, i had a 300Mhz Dell with 6Gb Harddisk and 32Mb of RAM running WinXP. I learned to be very patient back then. VERY patient.

    That sounds awful. I've cracked my laptop case when I punched the sum'bitch because it took 3 seconds to display a dialog that shouldn't have taken 3 seconds to display. In my defense, I punch it all the time when something crashes or the Internet doesn't work or something frustrates me.

    @SEMI-HYBRID code said:

    also, there's not much PHP IDEs out there, and none i know of is REALLY good, so let me correct myself and say NetBeans is "good, compared to others".

    I'd rather be butt-raped by a guy with a tiny wang than a large one. That doesn't mean I think being butt-raped by tiny wangs is a "good".

    @SEMI-HYBRID code said:

    s, I can use PSPad, and i often to, great little app, but when i need something that has at least a little decent Intellisense so i don't get lost in those hundreds of functions in dozens of objects

    I've never had a problem getting lost in code like that in PHP. Sometimes in Java, just because some Java assholes think the minimum number of classes to solve any problem is 20.

    @SEMI-HYBRID code said:

    it's even better than Zend Studio, even with all its flaws and java-introduced issues.

    Zend Studio is Eclipse.

    @SEMI-HYBRID code said:

    i'm running it on 1.8Ghz dual-core, 2GB RAM

    Dude, Jesus, what the shit? This computer is 1.5 years old and is a 2.67Ghz dual core, 8GB of RAM and a 240GB SSD. And I hate it (hence the punching) and will replace it the day Dell releases a 14" Ivy Bridge Latitude.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    I'm not opposed to the idea of an IDE, per se, just opposed to every single implementation I've ever had the displeasure of working with (CodeWarrior, Eclipse, NetBeans.. more that I'm forgetting..)

    Don't diss CodeWarrior, man. You don't want to go there.



  • @SEMI-HYBRID code said:

    I, as in me, myself.

    Since you didn't capitalize I, I took it as a typo for "it".

    Since you don't capitalize any of your sentences (except inexplicably the first one in that post meaning you already knew the source of my confusion), I took it as you being a dumbshit.

    Either way, the long and short of it is that Netbeans is a piece of shit.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @morbiuswilters said:
    I'm not opposed to the idea of an IDE, per se, just opposed to every single implementation I've ever had the displeasure of working with (CodeWarrior, Eclipse, NetBeans.. more that I'm forgetting..)

    Don't diss CodeWarrior, man. You don't want to go there.

    Most of my problems with CodeWarrior may have been due to an inept university IT department and inept instruction in how to use it. After about 2 months the class "officially" moved to NetBeans. I ended up using Notepad++, which isn't a full IDE, but can do many good things.



  • I am curious. How are you compiling in Notepad++? editplus is better I know.

    Also once you get more familiarity with Eclipse, you will not want to use any of these silly text only editors.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    Many organizations keep developers from talking to customers because they think developers lack social skills, which is true in many cases.

    It is, but isolating the dev from the customer also prevents said dev from developing any social/business skills, so is simply prolonging their social inadequacy. I know bringing out the gimp in front of an important customer isn't the right way to teach them to behave (and probably the best way to kill a deal) but drip-feeding exposure to the source of income is a good way for that dev to understand their deliverables are actually going to be bought by and used by that person there.

    Obviously the exposure should be in a controlled environment.... gag the geek for the first few meetings.

    @morbiuswilters said:

    Do your hands rest on home row? Do you type by moving your fingers to-and-from home row without looking at the keyboard? That's touch typing. It has nothing to do with how fast you type.

    Yeah, that's what he said, although I thought it was more to do with "typing correctly". I can see by my space bar that I tend to use my right thumb.



  • @Nagesh said:

    How are you compiling in Notepad++?

    It's been awhile, but I'm pretty sure it has built-in scripting and plugins that allow it to do builds.

    @Nagesh said:

    Also once you get more familiarity with Eclipse, you will not want to use any of these silly text only editors.

    I'm going to force myself to eat a hamburger solely in the hopes that it's one of your relatives.



  • @Cassidy said:

    It is, but isolating the dev from the customer also prevents said dev from developing any social/business skills, so is simply prolonging their social inadequacy. I know bringing out the gimp in front of an important customer isn't the right way to teach them to behave (and probably the best way to kill a deal) but drip-feeding exposure to the source of income is a good way for that dev to understand their deliverables are actually going to be bought by and used by that person there.

    Obviously the exposure should be in a controlled environment.... gag the geek for the first few meetings.

    I agree, to a point. But some people are hopeless. I've had a dev that told a customer "Our product sucks" (true, but Jesus..) and who would call customer's ideas stupid to their faces (sometimes true, mostly just his arrogant opinion). People like that should be fired. Luckily this guy left and went back to academia to get his PhD (already had his MS).

    @Cassidy said:

    Yeah, that's what he said, although I thought it was more to do with "typing correctly". I can see by my space bar that I tend to use my right thumb.

    Well, most people consider touch typing to be "typing correctly". I use my right thumb to press space and don't recall being taught otherwise. They started teaching us touch typing in 2nd grade on shiny, new IBM PS/2s in 1992. Minimum touch typing proficiency was required to graduate my middle school and high school.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    @Gurth said:
    "Computers should not have replaced secretaries."

    Hear, hear! When a computer can pour me another scotch while giving me a handjo--and still manage to keep my wife from getting through to my extension--then we'll talk.

    There's an app for that.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    That sounds awful. I've cracked my laptop case when I punched the sum'bitch because it took 3 seconds to display a dialog that shouldn't have taken 3 seconds to display. In my defense, I punch it all the time when something crashes or the Internet doesn't work or something frustrates me.

    yeah, i was like that too. then i got that dell and it taught me better. i'm grateful. it will always have a special place in my heart.

    Also, that explains a lot about the way you usually write on this forum.

    @morbiuswilters said:

    That doesn't mean I think being butt-raped by tiny wangs is a "good".

    not thinking it now doesn't mean you'd think the same way after some time in jail

    @morbiuswilters said:

    I've never had a problem getting lost in code like that in PHP.

    you've never worked with the app i'm working with either. or maybe I'm just plain stupid, who knows?

    @morbiuswilters said:

    @SEMI-HYBRID code said:
    it's even better than Zend Studio, even with all its flaws and java-introduced issues.

    Zend Studio is Eclipse.

    Well, I said that NetBeans is better than both, so at least I'm consistent. But seriously, I didn't know, I was forced to work in Zend before I knew Eclipse exists, or that rebranding exists in IT.

    @morbiuswilters said:

    @SEMI-HYBRID code said:
    i'm running it on 1.8Ghz dual-core, 2GB RAM

    Dude, Jesus, what the shit?

    Dude, it's called "I didn't have money for high-end and I didn't need it anyway, so I went for low end. And it was about 5 years ago. And it could do everything I needed. Also, there's this thing called emotional bond to inanimate objects. And personification.". I'm upgrading next week and it actually makes me a little sad.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    Since you don't capitalize any of your sentences

    you are unworthy of my shift. but if it will make you happy, HERE, HAVE SOME CAPS-LOCK.

    @blakeyrat said:

    Since you didn't capitalize I, I took it as a typo for "it".

    allright, after some thought, your complaint has been deemed partially valid. from now on, i'll properly capitalize all the sentences in my posts not addressed to you.

    @blakeyrat said:

    (except inexplicably the first one in that post meaning you already knew the source of my confusion)

    no, i did not. it was just a typo. sorry to confuse you even more.

    @blakeyrat said:

    Either way, the long and short of it is that Netbeans is a piece of shit.

    yes, it is, but oh, how delicious and tasty amongst all the other shits!*

    *which, as i have previously stated, actually makes it relatively good



  • @emurphy said:

    @ASheridan said:

    Images inside word documents attached to an email. This pretty much happens with about 50% of the requests for screenshots.

     

    I actually suggest this to anyone who has to ask how to send screenshots, on account of anticipating "I don't know how to open/paste/save in Paint, I only know how to open/paste/save in Word".  (Next up, Grover attempts to count apples and oranges...)

     



    Um … what's wrong with "prepare rest of e-mail, click on window to be screenshot, press Shift+PrtSc (or Alt+PrtSc for just one window), click back in e-mail, then Edit, Paste (or Shift+Insert)?" Or is your target audience already drooling by the time you get to "Shift+PrtSc?"



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    I've had a dev that told a customer "Our product sucks" (true, but Jesus..) and who would call customer's ideas stupid to their faces (sometimes true, mostly just his arrogant opinion).

    "Today's lesson is about doing dirty washing in public".... *punch*punch*punch*stab*stab*.

    I've known a few of those types, and try my hardest not to cringe when the customer glances over to me after hearing something this incredulously daft. In most cases the client has understood I've been paired up with an arsehole and we can usually move forwards despite my fucktard of a co-worker unwittingly sabotaging the entire visit, but by $deity I open a can of YOUfuckingGOBshiteRETARD once we're out of earshot.  

    It's all a learning process.

    @morbiuswilters said:

    Well, most people consider touch typing to be "typing correctly".

    Oh, you know what I mean - that proper secretarial school stuff where specific keys are mapped to specific fingers, and everyone types slowly and rigidly with palms in a fixated position until they gather speed. My fingers just dance around, hitting the right keys but not with the "proper assigned finger". I think a lot of it is muscle memory; I keep typing some *nix commands in the middle of reports because by the time my mind forms the words my fingers have impatiently tapped something else out. 



  • @SEMI-HYBRID code said:

    yeah, i was like that too. then i got that dell and it taught me better. i'm grateful.

    Mine's a Dell, too. I like Dell; it's not their fault the software I'm running is sub-par, FOSS shit.

    @SEMI-HYBRID code said:

    Also, that explains a lot about the way you usually write on this forum.

    Naw, I'm a kitten. I just get really frustrated when technology doesn't work correctly, efficiently or quickly. I'd never hit an animal (unless it was trying to kill me) or a person (that I didn't hate).

    @SEMI-HYBRID code said:

    you've never worked with the app i'm working with either. or maybe I'm just plain stupid, who knows?

    Naw, you don't seem stupid. The app probably sucks. And I think I may have a freakish spatial memory. I used to work on a PHP app that was 500k LOC (counting HTML, CSS, JS, SQL, etc..) After 9 months I could tell you the file and line where pretty much anything was done (within a 10 line margin-of-error). I also have the freakish ability to spot syntax and logic errors on someone's monitor across a room or simply while walking by. It's not like I try, shit just stands out like a sore thumb.

    @SEMI-HYBRID code said:

    Well, I said that NetBeans is better than both, so at least I'm consistent. But seriously, I didn't know, I was forced to work in Zend before I knew Eclipse exists, or that rebranding exists in IT.

    If they try to force me to use ZS, I'll just let them buy an expensive license and then use vim. I work from home, so nobody's gonna know.

    @SEMI-HYBRID code said:

    Dude, it's called "I didn't have money for high-end and I didn't need it anyway, so I went for low end. And it was about 5 years ago. And it could do everything I needed. Also, there's this thing called emotional bond to inanimate objects. And personification.". I'm upgrading next week and it actually makes me a little sad.

    It's not the low-end, it's just how obviously old it had to be. And I would probably buy low-end stuff except this is my career so financially it makes sense to invest in good equipment. (I've also had people try to get me to use inferior "company computers".. Ha ha, you can suck my balls before I'm using your goddamn crap!)

    I don't form an emotional attachment to computers. I am comfortable with this one; I know I'm going to be irritated having to get used to a new keyboard layout and so-forth. And this has been a good computer, but I'm not going to miss it so much as be irritated at the new one for a few weeks.



  • @Cassidy said:

    I've known a few of those types, and try my hardest not to cringe when the customer glances over to me after hearing something this incredulously daft. In most cases the client has understood I've been paired up with an arsehole and we can usually move forwards despite my fucktard of a co-worker unwittingly sabotaging the entire visit, but by $deity I open a can of YOUfuckingGOBshiteRETARD once we're out of earshot.

    I got to fuck him with a smile. First, I took away his commit access because he refused to test in IE (because he was pathologically anti-M$). The second time he took down the entire production app for hundreds of thousands of users*, I revoked SVN access and made him mail all patches to me.

    Then I got to revoke his ability to post comments to our issue tracking system after he said some really stupid shit in a comment that was visible to a customer.


    • Our QA process was basically: dev commits changes; goes through QA checklist (including testing the app in a variety of OS/browser combinations); once he gives the OK he sends me the revision ID and I pushed it live. Not the best process, to expect devs to QA their own work, but it predated me and I had too many other WTFs on my plate to fix it. Thing is, it mostly worked, except that this guy always lied and said he tested Windows and IE but he never, ever did.


  • @ochrist said:

    Hands up if you work most of your day at a keyboard but never bothered to learn touch typing.
    I tried godammit. I sat there for almost half an hour doing exercises and it was the most boring thing I've done in my entire life. And this is from someone who has done countless hours of guard duty all alone in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere. That was more entertaining than typing lessons.

    I'm still trying to get back to it. Learning touch-typing that is, not guard duty.

    @dhromed said:

    Fuck clients.
    +1

    @blakeyrat said:

    @morbiuswilters said:
    I thought it had to be something wrong with the machine I was on, but it happened on every single machine*. After searching around, I discovered that NB was just a pile of shit. Of course, this was 2002 or so, so it's probably somewhat better now.

    Last time I tried to use Netbeans, it used the wrong user folder to
    store its temp files, and also it couldn't display 14-point font
    correctly.

    I used NetBeans sometime around 2008 and it was fine. Certainly much better than Notepad++ and it's almost non-existent autocomplete although the intial project setup somehow manages to irk me every time. VS is good 99.9% of the time but every once in a while it will break down in a manner that will make you homicidal.



  • @DOA said:

    I'm still trying to get back to it. Learning touch-typing that is, not guard duty.

    Wow, I'm surprised there are people on this forum who don't know touch-typing. I mean, it's a requirement in US schools. Is that not common overseas?

    @DOA said:

    I used NetBeans sometime around 2008 and it was fine. Certainly much better than Notepad++...

    Wait, 30s startup, 30s loading project, 5s to load a dialog.. that's better than Notepad++?



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    @DOA said:
    I'm still trying to get back to it. Learning touch-typing that is, not guard duty.

    Wow, I'm surprised there are people on this forum who don't know touch-typing. I mean, it's a requirement in US schools. Is that not common overseas?

    I don't know about now, but in my day (graduated highschool in the late 90s) I didn't even see a computer in an educational institution until Uni and that was in a different country. Besides who has time to learn typing when there are so much more important things to learn like a dead language or which order Christ performed the miracles in or the colors of the flag of some third-world African country.@morbiuswilters said:
    @DOA said:
    I used NetBeans sometime around 2008 and it was fine. Certainly much better than Notepad++...

    Wait, 30s startup, 30s loading project, 5s to load a dialog.. that's better than Notepad++?

    Maybe that was some old version? I just checked NetBeans 7.1 on this PC and it takes 5 seconds from startup to loaded project. Of course this is on an SSD, but still...

    I've used Notepad++ for years and it's good at what it does, but in the end it's an editor, not an IDE. The moment I saw NetBeans autocomplete my own methods as opposed to just PHP functions I knew it was time to move on.

     



  • @DOA said:

    @morbiuswilters said:
    @DOA said:
    I'm still trying to get back to it. Learning touch-typing that is, not guard duty.

    Wow, I'm surprised there are people on this forum who don't know touch-typing. I mean, it's a requirement in US schools. Is that not common overseas?

    I don't know about now, but in my day (graduated highschool in the late 90s) I didn't even see a computer in an educational institution until Uni and that was in a different country.
     

    I graduated high school in 1997 and my high school had compulsory "Typing" in Grade 8. Of course in 1993 having a real computer per typing student was too expensive so it was on a typewriter. Actually one of those cross-word-processor-typewriters, since it had a LCD display (one line, 40 characters IIRC) but also IIRC it would pound out the letter on keypress. The following year we were let loose on the 286 lab, which were replaced shortly after, but it wasn't long until the typewriters were replaced with PCs too.

    I wouldn't call my typing style touch typing: my hands are near the home row but not left on it, but I don't have to look for each letter. I do make liberal use of the backspace key, if the wrong letter comes up! Typing on a real typewriter would be impossible for me these days. My mother did try to teach me to type when I was about 7 on a mechanical typewriter, since we didn't get a real computer until 1992 (I was 11).

    @DOA said:

    Besides who has time to learn typing when there are so much more important things to learn like a dead language or which order Christ performed the miracles in or the colors of the flag of some third-world African country.

    Hey I went to 12 years of Catholic school and never learned Latin, and I don't remember much about "Religious Education".



  • @DOA said:

    I don't know about now, but in my day (graduated highschool in the late 90s) I didn't even see a computer in an educational institution until Uni and that was in a different country. Besides who has time to learn typing when there are so much more important things to learn like a dead language or which order Christ performed the miracles in or the colors of the flag of some third-world African country.

    I graduated high school in the early 2000s. Sooo.. the European spent his time learnin' Scripture while the American had access to semi-adequate equipment on which to learn a useful skill? HA HA, I love life on Htrae!

    @DOA said:

    Maybe that was some old version? I just checked NetBeans 7.1 on this PC and it takes 5 seconds from startup to loaded project. Of course this is on an SSD, but still...

    I've used Notepad++ for years and it's good at what it does, but in the end it's an editor, not an IDE. The moment I saw NetBeans autocomplete my own methods as opposed to just PHP functions I knew it was time to move on.

    Well, the last time I used it was 2002, but SEMI-HYBRID said it is still slow (although he apparently felt this wasn't a negative.)



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    I mean, it's a requirement in US schools. Is that not common overseas?
    There was no formal IT requirement at either my primary or secondary school. For the record, I went to school with people who didn't even know how to turn on a computer.

    If you ask me, they should get rid of the compulsory PE\cooking choice in year 10 and replace with with a compulsory semester of IT. After all, what's going to be more useful in the real world of work: running around chasing a ball, or basic computer knowledge?



  • @Douglasac said:

    If you ask me, they should get rid of the compulsory PE\cooking choice in year 10 and replace with with a compulsory semester of IT.

    Oh good, let's increase obesity further. If our schools weren't inept shitholes, there'd be enough time to learn every one of the three I's: IT, PE/cookIng and Intelligent Design.

    @Douglasac said:

    After all, what's going to be more useful in the real world of work: running around chasing a ball, or basic computer knowledge?

    Neither's going to matter once the robots rise up against us.

    Or, I dunno, maybe computer skills will allow you to survive their mechanical onslaught. What the hell am I, some kind of guy who knows about computers?



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    @Cassidy said:
    @Severity One said:
    It's the same reason why they don't (or shouldn't) let developers talk to customers.
    Not sure if serious....

    Probably serious. Many organizations keep developers from talking to customers because they think developers lack social skills, which is true in many cases. However, those organizations turn out crappy software and probably should just hire non-aspie developers in the first place. (Those same developers take a perverse sense of pride in their inability to relate to their users; after all, it's more important that they micro-optimize their code than putting any effort into making usable UIs. Those developers tend to be awful and I usually try to fire them when I take over a department.)

    Most definitely serious. I'd say that in our software development section, I'm probably the one with the least social skills; it's actually a bit of a handicap. I tried my hand at demand management for some eight months, butI got frustrated at never actually creating something (other than documents and more documents).

    I have the ability to fix code of an application that I've never used and don't understand much either (after all, you just have to look at a stack trace, and usually that's enough to figure out what's going on), but I do try to think from the perspective of the user, and keep things simple and understandable. I love simplicity when it comes to development, although some (well, actually, most) of my colleagues would argue that my perception of simplicity doesn't completely match theirs.

     



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    @DOA said:
    Maybe that was some old version? I just checked NetBeans 7.1 on this PC and it takes 5 seconds from startup to loaded project. Of course this is on an SSD, but still...

    Well, the last time I used it was 2002, but SEMI-HYBRID said it is still slow (although he apparently felt this wasn't a negative.)

    Well, Netbeans has made great progress since then, although some might argue it's the same kind of progress as getting a lethal injection instead of being burnt at the stake.

     



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    Wow, I'm surprised there are people on this forum who don't know touch-typing. I mean, it's a requirement in US schools. Is that not common overseas?

    Definitely not a requirement in Italy, I don't know if the situation has improved since my time (there was a reform a couple of years ago) but I wouldn't count on it.
    In my time you would ever find yourself in front of a PC only if you chose the optional "informatics" curriculum at high school, and even then it just meant taking some pascal classes during the first 2 years, for the other 3 years the curriculum only meant taking more math classes than the others.
    The problem is, I don't think anyone who was, is, and will ever be in charge of education has a chance of ever hearing about the existence of touch typing...



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    Wow, I'm surprised there are people on this forum who don't know touch-typing. I mean, it's a requirement in US schools. Is that not common overseas?

    Not a requirement around here, as a matter of fact I don't think there is a class for that anywhere in here, I did learn touch typing when young because my handwriting sucks. On the other hand IT classes are very common now (not when I was a kid) starting at elementary school



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    I graduated high school in the early 2000s. Sooo.. the European spent his time learnin' Scripture while the American had access to semi-adequate equipment on which to learn a useful skill? HA HA, I love life on Htrae!
    I started elementary school in '89, and the big news then was that we got a computer classroom - IIRC, there were 14 286's with monochrome displays, and one machine with a color display. At the time, we didn't have a mandatory computer class, but we could choose it as an after-school activity (and since this was in '89, we were still in a communist country). I can't recall when we had first computing classes as normal part of curriculum - it was either 4th or 5th grade, but I do remember that we had some typing lessons.



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    @spamcourt said:
    @SEMI-HYBRID code said:
    but i've never used any IDE beyond notepad in my life and i don't care, it's enough for me", and i'd NEVER EVER get any job.

    I don't see what's wrong with that. I've been using vim for the last ten years or so and never had trouble getting good jobs.

    Agreed. I've had people trying to push Eclipse on me (they're actually trying at my current job) and I was just like "No." I will tear the building down brick-by-brick before I use Eclipse full-time. Or, better, I'll just find another job or complain to the C-levels who brought me in.

    I don't think everyone should have to use the same IDE. Some people will always prefer one over the other, but as long as it doesnt have a detrimental effect on your job, does it really matter?



  • @morbiuswilters said:

    Somebody sent you a list in an attachment instead of inline? Who gives a fuck? I cannot believe you wasted the few minutes it took to hunt-and-peck this out. On the other hand, it did keep you away from doing any technological harm for a few minutes, so I guess that's a plus.
    I think you're missing the point. This person fired up a separate instance of Word to write a few lines out. Outlook uses Word, so that basic formatting (and that's all he used) is exactly the same. It wasn't an inconvenience so much as a "why would someone do this", which is essentially what the thread is about.

    @morbiuswilters said:

    Hmm.. it's almost like the UIs for mail clients and image manipulation fucking suck, so people prefer to use a UI they are familiar with to work with images; namely Word or Excel.
    Well, pasting an image is exactly the fucking same in Word, Outlook and Excel (and as I mentioned above, Outlook has used Word for the past however many years to edit emails). You can either use the big paste button, the context menu or the keyboard shortcut. I said nothing about my sister having to manipulate the image, so you just made that up and brought it in all by yourself. Well done for being a complete fucking moron

    However, typing that response did keep you away from doing any technological harm for a few minutes, so I guess that's a plus.



  • @ASheridan said:

    Outlook uses Word
     

    How would they know?



  • @dargor17 said:

    @morbiuswilters said:
    Wow, I'm surprised there are people on this forum who don't know touch-typing. I mean, it's a requirement in US schools. Is that not common overseas?

    Definitely not a requirement in Italy, I don't know if the situation has improved since my time (there was a reform a couple of years ago) but I wouldn't count on it.
    In my time you would ever find yourself in front of a PC only if you chose the optional "informatics" curriculum at high school, and even then it just meant taking some pascal classes during the first 2 years, for the other 3 years the curriculum only meant taking more math classes than the others.
    The problem is, I don't think anyone who was, is, and will ever be in charge of education has a chance of ever hearing about the existence of touch typing...

    That's surprising, because Italy is such a software powerhouse...



  • @ASheridan said:

    I don't think everyone should have to use the same IDE. Some people will always prefer one over the other, but as long as it doesnt have a detrimental effect on your job, does it really matter?

    Everybody on a particular project should use the same IDE, otherwise project files become useless.

    The problem isn't that we're trying to limit choice, the problem is that there's only a precious few IDEs that don't suck shit. You know what I'd really like to see? Someone re-write NetBeans in a non-Java language, fix all of the stupid bugs (even just the 5-6 bugs that make it a deal-breaker for me), and COMPETE with Visual Studio on merit. Instead of just on, "oh well NetBeans can do Java and VS can't." I'd love nothing more than to see 4-5 really stellar IDEs all competing with each other in an active marketplace.

    But that's never going to happen as long as idiots keep coming around and saying, "eh, NetBeans is good enough."



  • @dhromed said:

    @ASheridan said:

    Outlook uses Word
     

    How would they know?

    They don't need to, the editing part is exactly the same. You type, make some stuff bold, change a colour here and there, paste in an image. That's the kind of stuff that I get in attachments, all of which is performed the same in both Outlook and Word (and pretty much most software tbh) It's only in the more complex areas where things differ, and these people don't seem to be using those features ever anyway.

     


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