The Gun Counter

Two days ago, my computer automatically updated with the Windows new patch. Since then the spam mails have been appearing in my inbox. Before the update, they ALL were going to my spam mailbox. Sometime I wonder if Microsoft programmers ever check their work.

Silly! That's what YOU'RE there for!

Your feedback will be ignored for the next update, as well.

Check their work? Silly boy, that's why they have patches in the first place. If an OS was perfect we'd never need a patch or an update.

Call me naïve, but it seems to me that a computer update should make your system run BETTER, not worse.

kapikui wrote:

Hey it compiles, ship it.

What is this testing of which you speak?

Hell, I've had programmers try to move code into production with compiler errors, and insist they tested the shit out of it.

MarkD wrote:

kapikui wrote:

Hey it compiles, ship it.

What is this testing of which you speak?

Hell, I've had programmers try to move code into production with compiler errors, and insist they tested the shit out of it.

It might have successfully compiled on their own workstation, with their own special local environment. Sometimes they don't test with the 'standard' build environment, or even understand the difference. I've seen that often enough.

Or they're just lying. At one job we had a developer like that. He had a PhD and was supposedly a 'genius', he'd spend all day in meetings he wasn't invited to trying to tell people how to do their jobs (because he knew better). And his own code wouldn't compile. We had firm rules, that you never check in code that doesn't build. Those rules were not for him. Every time we wanted to do any kind of build/release, the build/release guys (one of whom was me) would have to FIX his code. Yes, we had sysadmins fixing coders' code, so it would compile. On releases. To customers.

His wife also happened to be best friends with the owner's wife. Eventually the problem was obvious to everyone, but what could you do? The owner liked maintaining access to nookie, so we were all helpless. Eventually we had some money troubles, and that gave sufficient cover to allow him to be laid off. Which boosted *everyone's* productivity.

Darrell wrote:Call me naïve, but it seems to me that a computer update should make your system run BETTER, not worse.

Previous ranting about nepotism and incompetence aside, patches breaking systems isn't a new thing and Microsoft certainly doesn't have a monopoly on it.

Greg wrote:

MarkD wrote:

kapikui wrote:

What is this testing of which you speak?

Hell, I've had programmers try to move code into production with compiler errors, and insist they tested the shit out of it.

It might have successfully compiled on their own workstation, with their own special local environment. Sometimes they don't test with the 'standard' build environment, or even understand the difference. I've seen that often enough.

(snip)

Nope, mainframe environment, no local environment involved. In one memorable instance the problem was a mis-spelled variable name which caused an undefined variable compiler error.

We also had a programmer with 20+ years of Cobol programming experience (she claimed) who didn't know how to do arrays. Whenever she was given a program to modify, and that modification involved using arrays, she'd hand it back to be given to someone else (frequently me), when I asked her why she just didn't LEARN it (like every other programmer in the world) she said she'd never needed to use arrays (well duh, that's what happens when you refuse to work on something, you never need to learn it).

I had another programmer who, when I asked her to supply me with test results, suggested I should read her code to prove to myself it would work. Ummmm, let's not.

Fox is reporting that Microsoft is finally killing Internet Exploder.