That’s decades of legacy for you…

I bet each step/arrow/decision had a good reason at some point, but most of them probably back when computers lived in caves and hunted their tapes using spears and rocks.

I feel like we’re slowly reaching a point where the complexity is collapsing in on itself - just look at the absolute chaos a modern web app is.

Prudes…

Java’s Duke just stands there, fully nude and is giving NullPointerException fucks.

Or requires a timestamp with zone offset, but ignores the zone offset, so you have to send the timestamp itself with a zone offset of zero relative to the systems timezone, but can’t just omit the zone offset, because it’s required.

Again, did you actually read the comments?

Is SQL an API contract using JSON? I hardly think so.

Java does not distinguish between null and non-existence within an API contract. Neither does Python. JS is the weird one here for having two different identifiers.

Why are you so hellbent on proving something universal that doesn’t apply for the case specified above? Seriously, you’re the “well, ackshually” meme in person. You are unable or unwilling to distinguish between abstract and concrete. And that makes you pretty bad engineers.

Did you read the comments above?

You can’t just ignore context and proclaim some universal truth, which just happens to be your opinion.

Nope.

If there’s a clear definition that there can be something, implicit and explicit omission are equivalent. And that’s exactly the case we’re talking about here.

None. The project was ultimately cancelled for unrelated reasons.

I had lengthy discussions about that because two companies conventions collided.

We talked literally hours about the benefits of build numbers, branch specific identifiers and so on.

I find it really weird that something as simple as the basic functionality of nextcloud seemingly can’t be implemented in a stable and lightweight manner.

Nextcloud always seems one update away from self destruction and it prepares for that by hoarding all the resources it can get. It never feels fast or responsive. I just want a way to share files between my machines.

There are other solutions, I know, but they’re all terrible in their own way.

That’s exactly not the thing, because nobody broke the contract, they simply interpret it differently in details.

Having a null reference is perfectly valid json, as long as it’s not explicitly prohibited. Null just says “nothing in here” and that’s exactly what an omission also communicates.

The difference is just whether you treat implicit and explicit non-existence differently. And neither interpretation is wrong per contract.

It can, but especially during serialization Java sometimes adds null references to null values.

That’s usually a mistake by the API designer and/or Java dev, but happens pretty often.

Using the Rabbit R1 instead of generic ML was too obvious.

Well, yes, but the underlying issues still persist, so it’s not exactly a sustainable strategy.

I have to say, I’m getting more and more frustrated by the bad code I have to write due to bad business circumstances.

I want clean, readable code with proper documentation and at least a bit of internal consistency and not the shoehorned mess of hacks, todos and weird corner cases.

They re-invent everything for no reason. Every mundane device has been “re-invented” using big data, blockchain, VR, now AI and in a few years probably quantum-something.

The entire tech world fundamentally ran out of ideas. The usual pipeline is basic research > applied research > products, but since money only gets thrown at products, there’s nothing left to do research. So the tech bros have to re-iterate on the same concepts again and again.

Summary: nothing of value

None of the things you mentioned were in my description. You made that up completely. I talked about meetings, no scheduling information.

She’s not entitled to asking multiple times day if you’re done yet.

Did I even imply that? No. You made that up.

I work above senior, have done management and tech lead.

Hearing only what you want, not what the other person said makes you almost perfect management material.

Seriously, look at my comments and your replies. You answered to a completely different reality.

Nah, I think you’re mixing things up here.

“Toxic” is just a label you’re putting on everything you don’t like and you’re also putting a ton of implications behind it.

If Stacy wants a feature, and she’s the official representative, I need to clarify what that feature means. A manager can’t shield me from having to research the technical implications, that’s my job.

Also, you can ignore calls all you want, if there is a genuine need to communicate, you need to have that call at some point. That’s actually your first point in the list above.

I think you never worked in a role above code grunt. As a senior developer, my job is to do all what I described above. I need to do all the technical legwork a manager can’t. I need to write everything down. I need to get feedback from stakeholders. That’s nothing a manager can do and that’s nothing a junior can do.

I code something like half an hour a day.

uNuSeD rAm Is WaStEd RaM!!!

I feel like these memes of hating everything other than lone coding is because you keep working for toxic companies.

No, it’s because we are working with humans and their deeply flawed organizations. As much as people hate corporations and love startups, both are always a mess. Every organization I’ve seen from the inside is barely functioning. Cruft, interpersonal conflicts, incompetence, or simply very bad market situations.

Software engineering kind of has to get involved with almost all of that. If you need to get approval from department A and Stacy just keeps changing what she wants, you’ll have to carry that chaos into the development and it will usually percolate through half the engineering department, because hardly any interface is actually a stable attack surface. That means meetings, calls, meetings, reviews, meetings, and fucking Stephen again wants to pitch this weird framework he’s so in love with, meetings, budget calls, because there’s no way, simply changing the field length can take that much work, meetings, …