

Continuous Integration Failure? Use USB Missiles - chopsueyar
http://www.papercut.com/blog/chris/2011/08/19/who-broke-the-build/

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VladRussian
>It works on a deep psychological level to offer vast productivity
improvements.

some other extremely effective methods used in [another organization where
people are treated like sh!t] the Russian Army: blocking access to the exit
door, restroom and/or food/water, gang-chaining and/to the utility pipes,
forcing to wear gas mask [and if weather is warm enough - rubberized fullbody
chemical weapons protective suite] ... until the task is completed/corrected,

and the best of the best methods is to having [only] your teammates [who have
no connection to the error] being forced into the above described conditions
until _you_ correct _your_ own error. After it happens once, your teammates
would make sure that you wouldn't repeat the error ever ...

~~~
idlewords
Which is why 'Russian Army' is synonymous with productivity and effectiveness.

~~~
count
Sounds like the beginning of Full Metal Jacket.

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VladRussian
now that you mentioned it :

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTgrQ7W-taQ&feature=relat...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTgrQ7W-taQ&feature=related)

Typically happens at night when most officers left

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penguinboy08
As someone working in this office I must warn others of the constant fear this
little device instils in you. It's like working at aperture science, the
emphasis on testing is maniacal.

~~~
dmoney
The CEO of Aperture Science was torn up and thrown into a fire.

~~~
jrockway
Well, the computerized remains of his assistant / girlfriend, anyway.

"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade... Get mad!"

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icefox
For simple things like build errors a local git hook was good enough to
completely rid the project of those problems. For the Arora project I believe
there were around 5 commits in the entire lifetime of the project that didn't
build on one system and those were all cases were it built on the developers
OS, but failed on a different OS. But man would it have been cool to have a
USB missiles just sitting there waiting for the day they could launch.

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jrockway
Not a fan of the psychological torture here. Why is "breaking the build" such
a major problem? If the tests don't pass, the commit should go into a
"testing" branch. If the tests pass, merge testing into master. That way you
can fix things asynchronously, rather than wear a dumb hat or get shot at by
missiles.

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rheide
Excellent stuff. I had a similar idea once, hooked it up to an irc channel and
made a bot with commands to shoot people in the office by typing their name.
Unfortunately I couldn't get the rocket launcher to be accurate as the same
command sequence wouldn't always result in the launcher aiming at the same
position.

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akent
Sounds like if range is limited you'd need an array of multiple launchers,
strategically distributed around the office to provide the most efficient
coverage.

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andrewflnr
That would be especially awesome if multiple launchers engaged in the attack,
resulting in a multi-directional barrage.

~~~
akent
Reserved for particularly heinous breakages of the regression tests, perhaps?

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rpwilcox
For more crazy rocket CI fun: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MK1p7Nz5c9s>

(Wherein guys on a project I worked on had an Atlassian Bamboo CI server
hooked up to the USB rocket launcher)

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rodh257
nice, I'd heard a few people mention this idea in the past but never went
through on it - good on you.

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byoung2
What is to stop developers from logging in remotely to commit changes, knowing
that any attack will be directed at an empty chair?

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coderdude
I doubt anyone would be threatened enough by foam projectiles to try to
circumvent it. Now, getting someone else attacked for no reason is a different
story. That would be amusing.

~~~
tomjen3
It could be stopped by setting a piece of cardboard a few inches behind your
head.

~~~
mkopinsky
Or by rolling your desk chair over a few inches

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kahawe
Is that a generation or culture thing? Where I used to work, it was the one
golden and unquestionable and holy rule: if you break the build, you have to
buy a crate of beer for the team - so you get the "punishing" part and you get
some team building too because we would drink that beer during office parties,
other special occasions or just in the evening before going home or out or
over a casual chat.. or during some Warcraft or DotA sessions and that team
still sticks together even nowadays that the company is long gone and we are
working in different jobs and countries. I really miss that place for its team
spirit and the people there.

And I must say, I felt almost offended when in my new job when I found out
they didn't have anything like this in place at all.

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MostAwesomeDude
I love how people are worried about the possibility of deep, everlasting
psychological scars.

I work at the OSUOSL. Some of our finer (read: less uptight) patrons
occasionally donate Nerf weaponry. Getting shot at with Nerf guns is not
uncommon, and really isn't that big of a deal. I do not constantly glance over
my shoulder in fear of a Nerf raid.

~~~
eru
We also have Nerf guns hear, but we use them only in sporting matches. (I.e.
running around and shooting each other.)

If you break the build, you get to wear a ridiculous party hat, until you fix
it.

On the upside, we have beer.

(We also have a USB launcher, but only because we had to make sure all USB
devices we could think of would work with our software.)

