The Official Status Thread
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Possibly. You seem to think there was a joke there.
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This forum is too quick to catch up on when there's no Mafia going on.
Time for a new game, then?
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Status****strong text:
(junior dev) Product information isn't showing on the details page and I can't figure out why!!!
(me) Are there any errors? Start a debugger.
{hits F10 rapidly stops at exception} It excepts, "String format not correct"
Well, where did that error occur?
I don't know, I'll restart everything and...
WAIT! Just look at the stack trace in the exception
The what?
Click there, there, expand-- there, stack trace.
Oh. How do I tell?
There's only two lines there. Parse to int threw the exception. It happened on Details on line 52. What's line 52?
{goes to line 52} CInt(ProductID) threw it
What is ProductID set to right now?
Blank
How? Where is ProductID set from?
{scrolls up} The querystring
You mean the standard "item_no" querystring we use across the entire system? Show me the browser. What's the querystring set to right now?
{opens browser} It isn't in the URL. I made the link to this page, do I have to include item_no all the time?So status****strong text trying very hard to limit to my own head on my own desk, instead of grabbing the pup by the scruff and his head on his desk.
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It never fails to amaze me how many people think that computers are fucking psychic.
Give him some reading about URL parsers and have him write a 6 page essay on how they work when he is done.
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Ongoing status
20 minutes later, no resolve on that ticket. Go over to 's desk to see.
The item details still aren't loading
Have you traced through the item details control?
What's that?
.... one of the standard control-- an integral part of the system-- that you've been using for the past six months.
...
{points it out in Visual Studio}
Oh. Right, that.
Open it up. {notices a comment FROM THIS DEV dated LESS THAN A WEEK AGO!!!!!} Put a breakpoint there. Load the page.
{click click click}
There. Exception, "String format" again. Go to that line.
{highlights a line that's Decimal.TryParse( Item.OptionalProperty.Trim() ...) } But I used TryParse
That expects a string. And OptionalProperty is null. And .Trim() tries to convert it to a string. We've-- we've talked about null exceptions before.
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@Lorne_Kates said:
{opens browser} It isn't in the URL. I made the link to this page, do I have to include item_no all the time?
So status****strong text trying very hard to limit to my own head on my own desk, instead of grabbing the pup by the scruff and his head on his desk.
Why the fuck don't you have a useful error message?
This isn't his fault. Don't blame-shift; who ever wrote that code in the first place did a shitty-ass job.
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Why the fuck don't you have a useful error message?
This isn't his fault. Don't blame-shift; who ever wrote that code in the first place did a shitty-ass job.
Agreed, we need much better error logging. And we do. But this is an older version of the software, so it doesn't have the best error logging.
But as a developer, here's my expectation in thought process:
- I need to link to a page. This is one of the most common pages in the entire system. I've written and seen links to this page before
- I write the link and it doesn't work, even though other links to that page do work
- What is different between the link I wrote, and any of the hundreds of other links? I mean, I should know this, since again this is THE most common page on the whole system, and I've personally been working with it non-stop for the past 6 months.
- Oh look, those links have item_no in the querystring, but mine doesn't. I wonder if I have to use it?
- Oh look, this page-- the very first thing it does is look in the querystring for item_no, and then loads the item based on it. If it doesn't find it, it doesn't load the item. I guess I just answered my own question.
What I expect not to happen:
a) The link I wrote doesn't work. I'll just sit here and stare at the WRONG PAGE for 30 minutes until Lorne wanders by
ii) I'll now wasted 10-15 minutes of Lorne's time having him ask me all the questions above
troi) Even though that's the most common page, and I wrote code on it less than a week ago (see my follow up post), I'll need Lorne to show me where it is in Visual Studio and where to put a breakpoint
) wait, this required field is required? Since when?
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I should mention this was hired as a Support Developer-- specifically to work with multiple versions of the system, including legacy ones, and handle both support cases and change requests for existing customers.
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@Lorne_Kates said:
I wrote code on it less than a week ago (see my follow up post), I'll need Lorne
Great, now we have frontpagification fails in the regular forums.
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All that time was wasted because the person who created the page didn't spend 1 MINUTE creating an error message for a missing required parameter.
Look, I'm not saying the kid's a misunderstood supergenius. I'm saying your developers did something stupid when they made the page, and that technical debt is what is causing the waste of time now. ASSIGN THE BLAME TO THE CORRECT PARTY.
The good news is you can still add the error message. Do it.
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Our boss told us our estimate was wrong. It was actually at least $30/s.
Status: Someone broke the nightly build in such a way that it builds, but people not compiling the C# parts can't run rather large portions of it. But we fixed it.
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All that time was wasted because the person who created the page didn't spend 1 MINUTE creating an error message for a missing required parameter.
But also because is almost completely incompetent. Like, going to where an exception is happening is pretty much debugging 101.
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Swedish drama!
TL;DR: it turns out that there is not an ongoing terrorist attack in Stockholm.
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the amount of developers who don't know what a stack trace is and how it's used is too damn high.
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Status: Responding to absurd accusations about "your system occasionally fails to upload files to our system and your logs are lying"
The response is "Last year, this system did 198 million file uploads. The only destination system to come up with missing files is yours. 5 times. The common denominator in all those incidents is you."
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Seriously. Even if you assume actual failures, that's 7 9's.
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Status: the square root of four is a greenish blue cross multiplied with the smell of the letter
9
on a summer day with an easterly breeze all over the taste of stale gasoline plus the colour of thirty seven (fourty two if it's a rainy tuesday).
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more like mini stress induced mental break down....
/me is traveling for work next week and there's more than a little panic in her mental state right now.
to be specific, ninety seven and three quarters @accalia's are voting "ENGAGE PANIC MODE NOW!", one hundred and sixteen and an eighth @accalia's are voting "do something! anything but panic! just do all the things!", two hundred and seventy nine @accalia's are abstaining from the voting process and an eighth of an @accalia is MIA
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Go look for the 12.5% MIA. It is probably having a good time.
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Status: woot! Greenfield development!
Well, ok, it's just a bulk uploader tool. Maybe 500 lines, max.
But still.
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Status: Applied for a jorb. Maybe I'll get an interview.
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the amount of developers who don't know what a stack trace is and how it's used is too damn high.
And then you've got the product I work on, which uses at least five languages (if you count managed and unmanaged C++) that call eachother in bizarre, arcane ways that make stack traces only useful in very specific situations...
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And then you've got the product I work on, which uses at least five languages (if you count managed and unmanaged C++) that call eachother in bizarre, arcane ways that make stack traces only useful in very specific situations...
Looks like you need some logging thereβ¦
http://www.surgenetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Logging.jpg
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Status: Trader Joe's peppermint hot chocolate... Hmm, outdated. Oh well, still tastes good.
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Status: I've to review code from Junior #2 but my brain is refusing to work properly. and the code is not helping.
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Status: Ok the database I need to test my bulk uploader utility is 800 MB, and since I'm working from home over the VPN the download is going at about 300kb/second and I am impatient.
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What's so special about 4:12 PM? Is this some new technique Valve's using to lower the load on their download servers, or...?
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Status: production support escalated a ticket to me where they didn't follow the instructions I've given them before to deal with things. Thus I got to spend time diagnosing what they broke and fixing it before moving on to the first problem. It's (I know I've complained about this before) another "please make images of these excel files like if I printed them" where after the first couple hundred rows there is nothing until a single cell at row 1048576 gets a border meaning tens of thousands of pages.
Hopefully after the next couple of times this happens I'll be allowed to put in auto detection of these problems. That or give this shit pile to someone else.
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It's (I know I've complained about this before) another "please make images of these excel files like if I printed them" where after the first couple hundred rows there is nothing until a single cell at row 1048576 gets a border meaning tens of thousands of pages.
Shit. I remember an entire year of that when I was running the CS labs in college, because the CS100 teachers gave out less-than-idiot-proof instructions.
I instituted a white mutiny to obtain "administer print queue" rights.
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My Steam's been doing that for a few months now. It does seem like it's meant to reduce load.
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Probably more like this: https://www.salemstate.edu/academics/schools/1172.php?nbr=100&sbj=ITC&acad=UGRAD
It's been nearly 20 years. They might've changed the class.
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I wonder why they tell you in advance? I guess in case I wanted to manually hurry it along?
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I wonder why they tell you in advance? I guess in case I wanted to manually hurry it along?
Probably. Plus "we'll get around to downloading it eventually" is a bit vague.
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I think it originally just said "not queued", but people must have gotten confused about that and written to support too many times.
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Status Bought cognac, brandy and rum to make aged eggnog. Trying cognac for the first time. It tastes-- well, exactly like brandy, whiskey, and most of the other brown boozes I've tried.
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@Lorne_Kates said:
Trying cognac for the first time. It tastes-- well, exactly like brandy, whiskey, and most of the other brown boozes I've tried.
Thems' fighting words. You want to come here so we can do this proper with pistols at dawn? Or should I come to Canada and we duel with pointy sticks at dusk?
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That is a fabulous hairpiece.
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I, as an intern with a background in comp sci consisting mostly of "it's been a hobby since I was a wee lad", still know to at least go to wherever the error points and start there. So, yeah, I'm going to have to agree with the consensus. This guy is probably not fit to be a full time employee.
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Status: This works now:
class Main() extends IO() { { var ch : Channel = new Channel(); new Coroutine(new Counter(10, ch)); while (ch.recv() match { case null => out("Done!\n"); false case i : Int => out_any(i).out("\n"); true }) () }; } class Counter(var max : Int, var ch : Channel) extends Runnable() { override def run() : Unit = { var current : Int = 0; while (current <= max) { ch.send(current); current = current + 1 }; ch.send(null) }; }
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@Lorne_Kates said:
do I have to include item_no all the time?
Not, but if it doesn't it should provide a cave-man's burn about how you can't display details of a not-an-item.
'd by @Blakeyrat, but I don't care because I haven't been here ALL DAY!
Filed under: Ba BUH Wah!
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Wow, and only 30 Exabytes!
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But also because is almost completely incompetent. Like, going to where an exception is happening is pretty much debugging 101.
Unless you're in eclipse rcp. In which case that hundred line stacktrace is probably the last place you'll find anything useful.I was reaquented with unit tests again recently. God I'd forgetten how wonderful it was to see a useful stacktrace.
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Unless you're in eclipse rcp. In which case that hundred line stacktrace is probably the last place you'll find anything useful.
Oh, those probably contain the useful stuff too. But it'll likely be buried somewhere deep in that stack trace, perhaps a few chained causes in, and figuring it out will require some guesswork. (Initialization cockups are the worst. In-Operation stack traces are usually less deep.)