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// If this happens, I am going to quit and become a barista

blogs.msdn.microsoft.com

95 pointszdw42 comments

Agree with the comment on the page "Should I suggest to the developer that they check if Starbucks is hiring? [/quote] No. The comment was clearly if you needed a million icons on the desktop. Not if he made a coding error."

I gotta admit, I cringe a little when I see cutesy comments like this in professional code. I see it occasionally in our codebase, through stylecop override justifications "OMG this is the right way" or "// i hate this but whatever"

I'll take it over nothing, though.

I'm generally a fan of documenting when you do something and don't like it, though it's generally useful to use something a hair more constructive. At the very least, though, leaving a signifier to future-self or future-non-self that the decision was made as a "least worst option" or a "doesn't matter now, may matter in the future" or otherwise "I don't like this, but doing better is not my immediate problem".

Basically, having any context into why a decision was made is an extremely useful artifact.

More than once, cutesy comments of frustration have led me to inspect something for side effects and avoid them.

Could it not be done through conventional ways like TODO or FIXME?

Sometimes there's not something to fix or do, for example, in pthread-using code. "Just be really fucking careful or we'll all cry a lot."

"And then you can took a look at the commit messages and you cringed more than a little".

Commit history in cowboy projects tends to be really bad.

I've seen a lot of "not so professional" comments in them like:

* empty message

* single word message like "update" or "hack"

* onomatopoeia (arghhh!!!!, yargla!!!!)

* all upper case commit message raging against the company and its lack of recognition

"Should I suggest to the developer that they check if Starbucks is hiring?"

Why, because people actually are putting a million icons on their desktop? Either this one is a swing and a miss on Chen's part, or I'm confused on what his point is.

Because that was the article-author's thought before he dug in and found the real issue. The comment implied that the code would only fail if there were a million icons, and the article-author knew that the code was failing.

Because the developer screwed up in the same code they were being flippant about.

That's implied but the context is shaky. What if, as the comment says, the format string did change from the original spec?

Yeah, but wildcard replacements via regex? Come on.

There's so much bike shedding that regex tolerates that we make games out of it.

https://xkcd.com/1313/

Any coffee snob coders on here that think they would enjoy a part-time barista job??? I would be up to try it out, especially at a small business or cafe that takes care in the quality of their coffee.

Good luck, my wife actually tried that after she left a PM job at Microsoft. No one would hire her because they figured she was just biding time until the next high-paying software gig, and would leave shortly after being hired.

you don't tell them you used to be a 6-figure corporate employee.

Then what do you tell them? Employers will expect that an adult has some kind of work history.

Also, discrimination against overqualified applicants is now illegal in California, but I imagine it still happens.

Leave the barista jobs for people that need them to survive. It's one of the few jobs that takes less than a year of training and pays decent (with tips) for all the people struggling to make ends meet in the new economy.

Developers can do a couple hours of freelancing and make what a barista makes in a full shift.

I spent a year as a Starbucks barista, starting in late 1999, and it was a wonderful job. I think the machines they work on are more automated now, which is great for consistent quality, but I loved the skill building and quality impact I could have by being passionate. It was great to give people the thing that made them happier (that first cuppa the day), and the tips were okay. I really enjoyed many of my coworkers and we socialized outside of work a lot. The side benefit is that when you start work at 5a and your manager needs to limit you to no overtime, you get a lot of daylight for hiking and golf!

Awesome, sounds similar to a friend of mine that worked around that time. I have heard they still use the more "complicated" machines at their original spot in Seattle to keep that taste.

I am no coffee snob, but if you get the chance, I can only recommend volunteering in a cafe, it is busy at times but it is fun and it is for a good cause.

>it is for a good cause.

huh? how is volunteering in a cafe "for a good cause"?

If you are not a coffee snob you may find your volunteer hours better spent at McDonald's.

There's so many good organizations to choose from, no need to limit yourself to just cafe's.

I was thinking specifically about cafes run by non-profit organisations, the one I was helping did run an animal sanctuary, I think that was a good cause.

We have a cafe at our church that's staffed entirely by volunteers.

Coffee?

Worked as a Barista for a small Mom and Pop shop. I enjoyed my time there for various reasons, but it is not intellectually stimulating work (maybe if I had worked for a roaster instead?) and while you can dick around all day inventing new drinks, you're still just dicking around with some variations of coffee, tea, sugar, sugar substitutes, dairy or dairy substitutes. Maybe some soda water or dark chocolate (low to no dairy or sugar variety) to mix things up a bit.

Totally. My now Fiancé asked me on our 3rd date what a midlife crisis looked like for me and I said "Quitting my software job and working (or owning) a coffee shop".

I was a barista at Starbucks for a little over a year before I got into IT/Software-development. I found it to be enjoyable work for the most part.

Lots of socializing, plenty of work with your hands, and it smells pretty fantastic. If I had more free-time in the week I'd probably pick it back up.

Haha I've actually looked into doing this. I'd like to be a bartender or barista part time

let ye who test all your logging strings cast the first stone

Hah, a hippie coder that roamed from place to place (obviously around Silicon Valley?) followed by 12 disciples, with teachable stories along the way, would make a cool book.

I'm torn over these mini dsls that creep into code like printf and regex formatting strings. They are so useful, but so often a cause of bugs.

Any solution to then I've seen like doing them entirely in code (c++ io streams or many of the various regex builders) seen to overshoot too far in the safety direction and destroy their quickness and usability.

There has to be a better way to print stuff out that is useable in languages like C and Java without blowing the budget on code length, object creation, etc.

I once once wrote a zero garbage logging library for high performance java code and i just defaulted to essentially copying into a buffer.

Is this why the barista's are so sloppy in Seattle? They're all ex-Microsoft employees?

They keep inventing new drinks that seem suspiciously like old drinks, but with a few trendy ingredients thrown in. Instead of refining the new drinks until they are just right, they take them off the menu and invent more new drinks.

Embrace Extend Enjoy!

No the seattle ones are burnt out ex-Amazon employees

So that's why the coffee is so bitter and constantly over valued?

They sell counterfeit coffee?

That must also explain why they needless complicate things that should be simple... Like not having Small Medium and Large sizes. No I do not want a tall beverage, I want a small beverage ....

I'd be careful with such comments. You wouldn't want to get a Barista-Screen-Of-Death.

This is what happens when you keep deriving languages/libraries from C, for programmers who don't know C.

Ain't nothing wrong with being a barista.

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