• 1 Post
  • 59 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: June 20th, 2023

help-circle
rss
  • I’m also a software engineer (at least in title). I agree with the social skills but a different thing came to mind. The ability to actually watch and understand what people are trying to do. I’m lucky as all my software is internal to my company. I don’t make what we sell, I make what tests the products we sell. And yes I test the tests and also test the test’s tests 😭.

    I’ll give an example. I have an operation where the operator is to scan a number off a paper before testing. That number is for traceability we need to know which test results are for which unit. Previous engineer said since it’s scanned off the unit it will never be incorrect as long on the printed barcode is correct(separately validated) so no need to verify format.

    I ran into an issue where units had an extra zero either before or after the number. So if number was 12345 sometimes it would be 012345 or 123450.

    I went to watch the process. The operator scanned the unit( I watched them work all day, this was 1 unit out of a whole days work) and when they put the scanner down the scanner’s corner was on the 0 button of the keypad.

    We did a 2 phase remiduation. Stage 1. Operator instructed to log in and then place keyboard on shelf away from workplace. Stage 2. Verify the number is in correct format in code. Yes the code update is simple but in our field needs weeks of work to test, validate, and release.

    Actually watching the operator closely identified the problem. The code was not the issue, the code passed all requirements and tests. The issue was the tests and requirements did not match the user’s experience but if I stayed in my cube as for weeks I would not of been able to find the bug.



  • I had that experience last week. I half blame the language though cause the way it works is you don’t initialize a variable, first time you use it the language automatically makes the variable and default value is 0.

    I had a variable countoot that I had a formula calculate. Then a simple if countoot > 0 do this else do that. The program kept doing that. I knew countoot should be 2. I manually did the formula … The answer was two.

    I did the same formula in 3 other programs and it worked correctly. I spent between 1.5 to 2 hours a day for like 3 days banging my head on the desk trying to figure out why it would work. Fourth day me and 2 other guys were trying to figure it out when I finally really looked closely. I realized the formula result was stored in ccountoot(notice 2 c) and the if statement was based on countoot(notice 1 c)…yeah I felt so stupid when correcting the typo fixed the problem.


  • The difference is in exact wording Agile: the software shall properly authticate a user within our active directory.

    Documention : user authentication will be provided by functions ”valisate username” as described in section 14,7 subsection 4, ”validate password” as described in section 16.2 and validate the correct pasword as described in section 23.4.Proper authication to the correct use group shall comply with the requirements in document 654689 section 64.7 subsection 17

    Yes there is a difference and one is better…


  • I don’t know about Georgia but at least in New Jersey that’s not allowed. Not only that buts it’s defense choice of attorney.

    Several years ago, I was in legal trouble. I was recommended a lawyer by a distant family friend. That lawyer happened to be the wife of the lead prosecutor.the lead prosecutor was immediately dismissed from the case and another prosecutor appointed.

    I got off with a light sentence and have cleaned up my life. That said who knows what would of happened if I had a different lawyer, the prosecutor was notorious for being hard and firm in his cases. I probably would of fared worse but he couldn’t touch the case and a junior prosecutor was assigned. As I said different state so different lawyers but kind of makes sense. You can’t monitor opposing benches communication or shared knowledge or deals…a lot of political questions not typically worth dealing with.



  • I know that for FDA or BSI we can’t offer anything at all. We can’t even let them use our building water to drink, they must bring there own water.

    One time we worked with the FDA to help expose some new auditors to a real audit(we were not really being audited but told to treat it like a real audit). One of the new auditors didn’t bring anything to drink, assuming there would be water provided. Nope, the senior auditor made them sit there all morning being thirsty and when we broke for lunch the new auditor went across the street to CVS and bought a bottle of water. I felt kind of bad for them. But every other day they arrived with a big bottle of water :-D


  • Another fun similar idea is drunk chess. Each piece has a value(for example pawns is 1), there are tables you can look up it’s standard in chess. Each piece you take, you take its value in shots(highly recommend shots of beer). There are strategies this brings up. For example your opponent hangs a queen in early game, you can take it but now you would need to 6 shots making you likely to mess up the late game.