Byte Through

There are times that things happen that can’t be forgotten, and they become part of what makes fun to remember those old days… specially when those are fun things that makes us remember how bad things were back then.

A couple stories that happened at my previous job…

RM = The project leader

RM: Dude, i was just looking at the code you uploaded yesterday, you need to fix this man.

ME: Is something wrong? can you show me the bug?

RM: You’re always returning an error on one of your new methods, you need to fix that.

ME: Returning an error? what do you mean?

RM: Here, look at this:

bool DoSomeStuff()
{
    bool bError = true; //wrong named variable

    if(doSomeOtherStuff() )
    {
        bError = IsStuffEnabled();
    }

    return bError;
}

RM: Do you see, why are you always returning an error? you need to change that variable, you can’t always return an error, how this code works?

ME: well that is not how it works :), that’s just the name of a variable and you need to look at the values at runtime.

RM: no man, this is wrong, you can’t return a value, you need to change the code otherwise the application will always fail on this method

ME: but that’s just the name of the variable, it has no real meaning outside of the editor..

RM: Man i get your point, but this is not working, just do as I’m telling you, i know how to program, you’re always returning an error on this method, it can’t work, change it please.

ME: :P ok

bool DoSomeStuff()
{
    bool bEnabled = true; //wrong named variable

    if(doSomeOtherStuff() )
    {
        bEnabled = IsStuffEnabled();
    }

    return bEnabled;
}

RM: thank you man, I know you are very good at this, but you have to learn to listen, we can always learn from everyone else, I was like you when i first started, but I’ve learned a lot of things since I started working here.

ME: yeah, no problem, talk to you later…

:P :P

——-

This happened to a friend of mine…

RM: man, why are you not cleaning this variable at the end of the function?

M: what?

RM: here man, this is wrong, change it please, clean up the variable.

M: what?

RM: look at this code:

void SomeFunction()
{
    bool bResult = false;

    string* str = new string("abdc");

    if(str)
    {
        bResult = DoSomeStuff(str);
        delete str;
    }

    return bResult;
}

M: yeah i see, what’s wrong?

RM: you are not cleaning the variable str, this can crash the application

M: it can’t! the function ends there, that’s just a temporary variable

RM: man, i get your point, but you need to clean that up, do something like str = null; just do what i’m telling you, i know this stuff

M: there’s no point in doing that, the variable will not exist anymore as soon as the function ends

RM: man, i have lots of years of programming experience, if I’m telling you this is wrong you need to listen, don’t behave as if you know everything i have more experience than you, do as i say

M: i don’t get it, ok, i will change it, but there’s no point

RM: why do you make things so hard? just change it, and we need to talk about your career on this company, there are a few things that we need to chat about…

M :|

And so it use to happen at my last job.

Be back soon with more fun anecdotes from old times (luckily) now gone by !

:P