Interesting Links for 09-12-2016

[andrewducker]

This time it’s Saudi Arabia: even when Boris Johnson gets it right, he’s wrong (tags: saudiarabia politics uk ) Sofia Vergara: US actress faces lawsuit 'from own embryos' (tags: OhForFucksSake usa law children ) Game of Thrones-themed bar coming to Edinburgh (tags: alcohol gameofthrones ) The worst customer demo of all time (tags: data business

Comments

[momentsmusicaux]

Haha, I tend to use rude words for my test data, and then frantically remove them an hour before I'm due to do a demo on my own system.

[cartesiandaemon]

I've always been naturally reticent, so I never had much inclination to use rude words. But I've been aware for quite a while now how easy it is to cross the streams and for "no-one will ever see this" to be false. So I aim for test data which is (a) obviously test but (b) not unprofessional. That can easily lead to things like "named after characters from a TV-show", which can be quirky, but hopefully isn't disastrous if someone sees it.

[andrewducker]

TV characters for me too.

[woodpijn]

I once had to write a set of tests where users could be members of groups and could interact with other users in various ways, like adding and removing them from groups. I used Harry Potter characters and houses.
The testsuite had plot. It was practically fanfic.

[kalimac]

My brother teaches law and has to create sample cases for his students to write briefs on. So he populates these with obscure 19th century US Presidents, or characters from old TV sitcoms, as the names for the parties in the lawsuits, just to see if his students will get the references. Occasionally they do.

Surely there are such things as cheap sample databases you can buy or otherwise legally obtain, the way you can strings of random digits. Perhaps they'd come without all the interconnections so important here, but the workers had to create those anyway.

Totally apart from the obscene database, if I were the client the first thing I'd say would be "Get those stupid cartoony icons off the function buttons. This is business, not kindergarten."

[skington]

The cartoony icons might be a deliberate get rid of the duck ploy, though.

[kalimac]

I don't care why they put it in there. I want it gone. I don't see why I, as the client, should have to be the victim of the vendor's internal psychological game-playing.

[skington]

Nobody has yet commented that the "live demo of obscene database" story was posted by Scott Lynch? He of Lies of Locke Lamora fame?

[alitheapipkin]

So it was! More than 11 years ago, although he does seem to be still around-ish. I'm not actually that surprised, there are a whole bunch of American SF&F authors on here, including his now wife Elizabeth Bear.

[pennski]

I do remember we had "Mr Hanky, the Christmas poo" in our test database back in the day, not realising that this would be shown to clients.

git of Theseus

[apostle_of_eris]

Coding has changed from 2006 to 2016, and modern projects evolve faster
I'm a happy-to-be retired programmer.
I still check out a few tech meetups to have an idea what's going on. The one that horrifies me most is javascript. Most monthly meetings show three newish frameworks or toolsets, or thingys. I honestly have no idea what becomes of projects built with these things two or three years out. I see no evidence that the question crosses the minds of the builders either.
Not only are projects being built too fast to consider maintainability, but toolsets, frameworks, languages, and metalanguages ("compiles to javascript" (sic)) too.

[channelpenguin]

Out of interest, what do you do now?

I've tried, but the world seems only to want to pay me to do development...

I've always had that feeling (since my start in 1993) that things change at a speed that means you can't master anything, and you get as good as you are ever going to get inside 5 years - the rest is running very hard to stay in place.

If I can continue to have years off and go back after a skills update, though, then this is actually a good thing. But that takes employers knowing the above and that that 20 years of provably learning whatever is needed,whenever it's need is at least as valuable as specific knowledge - which will go out of date quickly.

[apostle_of_eris]

try to live on Social Security