

Show HN: devsigh.com - post all your stories of developer sigh - chargrilled
http://www.devsigh.com

======
rsbrown
In the annals of innefectual, misdirected, passive-aggressive online nerdrage
this system of anonymous, groupthink-driven schadenfreude really takes the
cake.

Of course, here I am shaking my fist on Hacker News so who am I to criticize?

~~~
guard-of-terra
Every one of those are about "I should have confronted the decision because I
know better but I'll shut up and write to devsigh instead"

Because you have no spine? Pathetic.

~~~
bmalee
Firstly, ranting online and confronting the problem directly are not actually
mutually exclusive. Secondly, in the real world sometimes a problem just isn't
worth addressing; no matter how hard you try, sales/marketing/your manager/the
CEO/the users just won't understand, so just work around it and let off steam
online instead.

~~~
guard-of-terra
The level of helplessness in those rants suggest they are.

In the real world you are THE responsive professional, and you tell people
that the important thing is going to be wrong, politely but repeatedly, and
they actually listen to you. And when you repeat it in simple words long
enough, they eventually would understand. That's how it works. Or at least you
land on better terms so you don't have to make a deal with your conscience.

How they know if it won't work if they didn't try? They just sigh and go on
spending their time doing busywork, spending corporate money or failing
projects.

~~~
bmalee
In the real world, some battles are not worth fighting. Telling people that
your way is correct, over and over again, doesn't necessarily mean that
they'll learn, and even if you're right it doesn't necessarily win you any
friends (even among people who agree with you). Sometimes you have to pick
your battles and work around the incompetence, laziness, and sheer malice of
others, and then vent a little to your friends, or to the internet at large if
you have none.

~~~
warfangle
In fact, it can bite you in the ass when it comes review time - people review
you as an obstruction to getting things done. Note, this isn't always true;
when it is, it's a good sign that you shouldn't be working for the company.
But in some geographic areas, even IT/Dev positions are hard to come by.

I have a friend who runs into these kinds of problems all the time. Complains
incessently about them, how he hates IT/networking and wants to get out of it.
Every story he tells reminds me how grateful I am to work at an amazing
company. His excuse for not finding an amazing company? He doesn't want to
move away from where he lives.

What can you say to someone in that position?

~~~
guard-of-terra
"His excuse for not finding an amazing company?" I think the main reason for
not finding an amazing company is the same as one which prevents him from
standing up thus making his life (and, in fact, lives of everyone around)
better.

I guess the same people who work at nice jobs where they make a difference
would continue to make so elsewhere and this in fact is what let them where
they're now.

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chargrilled
Hi everyone. I built this over the course of the last week as an exercise in
learning Django.

I noticed my friends and I tended to share lots of stories about our work-
related development woe on IRC and thought it would be good to create a place
to share the stories!

Let me know if you've got any feedback.

~~~
jowiar
(1) Add job listings to submission page

(2) $

~~~
derrida
This will work.

------
justinlau
TRWTF is that this a site like this already and is _hillllarious_ :
<http://www.thedailywtf.com/>

Just kidding. I suppose there's a niche for shortform "sighs" too.

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pja
_Told during the final stretch of a four month project that all the colors in
the app had to be readable for people with Color Blindness_

Surely in these days of accessibility awareness this ought to be a design goal
by default unless otherwise stated?

~~~
coderdude
I'm more surprised that people actually expect us to have this in the back of
our minds at all times. There's a reason they didn't go replacing all stairs
with ramps.

~~~
enf
Architects spend a _lot_ of time worrying about accessibility requirements.
Accessibility, fire safety, and car parking are the major factors that shape
buildings.

~~~
coderdude
Definitely a fact, but I wasn't suggesting that it isn't. Everyone knows there
are clear and obvious benefits to having a site that is accessible to everyone
as opposed to only the majority.

What I mean by the stair/ramps remark is that stairs weren't suddenly removed
from the architect's toolkit when the wheelchair was invented. Since ramps are
clearly not used in all instances they are not always appropriate or
desirable.

The same goes with web design, which is as much art as is architecture. Not
all sites are going to select between a limited range of colors to cater to a
relative few if those colors happen to clash horribly with their intended
design.

~~~
bmalee
But if you've only space for stairs _or_ ramps, then you'd have to use a ramp,
which everyone can use, rather than stairs, which most but not all people can
use. Similarly, if you can only have one colour scheme, you ought to be
picking one which everyone can read, not just most people. It's not as if it
inconveniences non-colour-blind people.

~~~
coderdude
It's not always the case that you would choose a ramp over stairs given the
choice of only one or the other. For example, there aren't many two-story
homes that have a ramp leading to the second story. (Not to say they don't
exist, just that they are a glaring exception.) That's what I mean by not
always appropriate or desirable.

I feel I might be getting astray here. I simply think it's odd to impose on--
what is as much an art form as it is a medium for communication--the
restriction of only being able to use a certain color scheme. I'd be bummed
out.

Luckily you don't have to sacrifice any aesthectics. SparkFun does a good job
of making their stock status icons accessible by employing a combination of
color and shape to help color-blind people recognize the status easier.

Here's a good example: <http://www.sparkfun.com/products/10388>

~~~
bmalee
I'm sure colourblind people would be even more "bummed out" that your design
was unusable. Since, as you go on to mentioned, you don't have to sacrifice
aesthetics for the sake of accessibility, I don't see why accessible design
would be a problem.

While I take your point that ramps in particular aren't always appropriate,
that doesn't mean that accessible design in general isn't.

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Lewton
The voting system is quite.... Completely broken :) While the marker
disappears, you can still keep clicking, voting as much as you'd like

~~~
chargrilled
I think i've fixed that now!

Fingers crossed.

~~~
nbpoole
Not quite. Your rate limiting seems to be cookie based, which makes it easy
for someone to circumvent just by replaying their initial request (or by
deleting the cookie you set).

~~~
chargrilled
Ooops.

There's about a half dozen people down_vote DOSing the server right now.

~~~
tudorachim

      sudo iptables -I INPUT -s <offending ip> -j DROP

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dmils4
Reminds me of Clients From Hell (www.ClientsFromHell.net). And a text only
version of Dilbert. Nice!

~~~
icebraining
There's also Not Always Right[1], but it's not tech related (and they're
stories, not just sighs).

[1]: <http://notalwaysright.com/>

