Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I couldn't submit a PR, so I got hired and fixed it myself

skeptrune.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 218 posts

Re: I couldn't submit a PR, so I got hired and fixed it myself

#61

Post by tunesmith »

9rx wrote: post #38
tunesmith wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should invent a programming language that only compiles if the why is still true.

They have, but they're beyond grasp of most developers. Tests were invented to express the "why" for the normal guy. They don't strictly prevent compilation, but a proper workflow will see them halt your process in the same way, offering the same outcome. Granted, there are a lot of horribly written tests out there that don't tell you "why" — or, well, anything. As always, people will find a way to abuse anything you…

With a test, it might link up some functionality with "why" and pass, but then what happens if a business requirement just isn't a requirement anymore? The test will still pass. I'm thinking of something sillier, like a language that forces you to justify why for your code, and then regularly quizzes you if the business reasoning is still true. If anything changes, it rips out the code and breaks your site. :) So then you have to go in to fix it.

I'd also love it if this were applied to politics and laws.

Re: I couldn't submit a PR, so I got hired and fixed it myself

#62

Post by EspadaV9 »

stevesimmons wrote: post #53

If Google Maps would like to hire me so the km/miles switch can remember I only ever want to see distances in km, my contact details are in my HN profile. I must have changed that back from miles once a fortnight since Google Maps launched 20 years ago. That's 500 times. Totally ridiculous for a company who core goal is profiling their users...

Wait, there's a setting for this? I've lived in Australia for over 16 years now but everything is still in miles instead of Kms and I have never been able to find a setting to change it (although it sounds like even if I did find itz it would be mostly useless).

Re: I couldn't submit a PR, so I got hired and fixed it myself

#63

Post by jameshart »

lukan wrote: post #34
chatmasta wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IANAL, but it’s almost certainly legal, as long as all parties involved adhere to the applicable non-disclosure agreements, non-compete agreements, and intellectual property provisions of their employment contracts. Even then it’s likely to remain a civil matter in most cases. Companies can sue each other for nearly anything, so any level of this behavior could result in a lawsuit. It wouldn’t cross the line into cri…

"to have employees that they send off to get hired at other companies, do some stuff in those companies that are beneficial to their actual employer, and then leave before the probationary period ends." To me that sounds like not disclosing, that they work also for another company and this certainly ain't legal on most jurisdictions.

Not sure it falls foul of broader laws, but it almost certainly breaches your employment contract, which likely includes something about following the policies of your employer; that policy (in many companies you likely have to go through onboarding training and annual refreshers on it) probably includes a code of employee conduct that has specific mention of conflicts of interest.

Re: I couldn't submit a PR, so I got hired and fixed it myself

#64

Post by theandrewbailey »

SoftTalker wrote: post #28

> I added an AbortController to the debounced search function, so that it aborts any previous queries when a new one is made. This means that the search results are always relevant to what the user is currently typing. To me one of the most annoying things an application can do is go off and do something before I'm done telling it what to do. Filters that apply themselves without an explicit indication that I'm done…

When I implemented search-as-you-type on my blog, I decided to wait for the current search suggestion request to complete before doing a new one. Seemed like a reasonable balance between responsiveness and not overloading the server.

Re: I couldn't submit a PR, so I got hired and fixed it myself

#65

Post by inopinatus »

11Spades wrote: post #18

It's hilarious to see the old joke actually playing out in real life. Kudos! On a meta note; would you consider adding a left margin to your site? Reading from the very edge of my screen feels somewhat strange.

I am not a fan of sites that waste screen real estate.

Re: I couldn't submit a PR, so I got hired and fixed it myself

#66

Post by makeitdouble »

rmonvfer wrote: post #58
b8 wrote: post #55

Reminds me when I got banned from Amazon for suspected fraud (had an old account, but deleted my email and number since it was in a lot of DB dumps). After I got hired, I reached out to the guy in charge of the anti-fraud team at Amazon, and got unbanned. Emails to support etc. did nothing before I reached out internally (unbanned by 1am the next day).

This is the level of epic I aspire to in life

Except they're working at Amazon now.

Re: I couldn't submit a PR, so I got hired and fixed it myself

#67

Post by zac23or »

The software quality is so low that if a bug bothers you, it's easier to get hired to fix it than for the company to fix it! Wow.

It reminds me of the programmer who mitigated the GTA 5 loading time problem. If even with a lot of money of GTA 5 the quality doesn't improve...

Re: I couldn't submit a PR, so I got hired and fixed it myself

#68

Post by pyman »

drexlspivey wrote: post #29
cosmic_quanta wrote: post #4

> It reminds me of George Hotz’s legendary single week at Twitter in 2022, where he joined just to fix a login popup that was bothering users, then bounced. The author remembers this, uh, event differently than I remember it... George Hotz boldly claimed that he could "fix Twitter search" faster than those lazy Twitter devs, only to bail almost immediately. Hubris! On the way out, he removed that login popup as a sor…

And then he was trying to pitch rewriting it from scratch to elon

I followed the whole saga on Twitter. He shared a video of his browser saying, "I fixed it in 5 minutes," and 5 days later he was still trying to figure out why his PR was failing the build. When Twitter engineers told him to write tests, he rage quit.

It was embarrassing to watch.

Re: I couldn't submit a PR, so I got hired and fixed it myself

#69

Post by jcgrillo »

makeitdouble wrote: post #66
rmonvfer wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the level of epic I aspire to in life

Except they're working at Amazon now.

seems like they could turn this into a lucrative side hustle "super premium secret support" embrace the technofascist feudalism!

Re: I couldn't submit a PR, so I got hired and fixed it myself

#70

Post by makeitdouble »

wavemode wrote: post #41
lukan wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"to have employees that they send off to get hired at other companies, do some stuff in those companies that are beneficial to their actual employer, and then leave before the probationary period ends." To me that sounds like not disclosing, that they work also for another company and this certainly ain't legal on most jurisdictions.

Can you cite the relevant law? I've never heard of it being illegal in the US to not tell your job that you have another job.

It's probably not the law (it would be shitty when working at a 7/11 on the weekends to have tolegally disclose all your other income resources)

But basic employee contracts cover these aspects, including working in the interest of the company and IP assignments, and usually exclusivity if you're full time.

These issues are old as time.

Post reply on HN