• dohpaz42@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    91
    ·
    8 days ago

    Back in 2016 (wow, almost a decade now…) I got a job with a group who used Word docs to email instructions on how to update your code with their changes. For example, “In file xyz.php, go to line 123 and replace <code> with <code>.”

    One of my first tasks was getting that group set up with git. But I will never forget that was their best way to version control code… in 2016.

    • floofloof@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      28
      ·
      8 days ago

      Was their office under a rock somewhere? How had none of them stumbled upon what every other programmer in the world does?

      • frezik@midwest.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        7 days ago

        PHP extension might be telling. Consider that phpBB had an extention system that didn’t have any kind of hooks. All extensions were installed by modifying the code in place. They did not use any of the diff formats already out there; in a gross case of Not Invented Here, they made their own. Took them a while to make their own patch tool to automatically apply their custom diff, and it was buggy as hell.

        So that shop might have just been following the lead of one of the most successful PHP apps.

        Someone will be along to say “PHP is good now, actually”, but I don’t care. The community was shit back then, and I don’t see why anyone should care beyond legacy software at this point.

    • BastingChemina@slrpnk.net
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      28
      ·
      8 days ago

      I requested a code snippet and instructions for work, I got an email, with a word document attached.

      In the word document there was a screenshot of the code I needed.

      • dohpaz42@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        10
        ·
        8 days ago

        This only could’ve been better if this was a picture frame a phone of the monitor with the screenshot open in whatever the default screenshot app is for the is.

      • 0x4E4F@sh.itjust.worksOP
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        8 days ago

        To be honest, I sincerely doubt they were devs, maybe support staff… I mean, come on, I’m just an engineer and even I can think of a better way to do that, even if I absolutely must not use any CVS.

    • ertai@programming.dev
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      12
      ·
      7 days ago

      I don’t. No. This isn’t real. He’s lying, surely he’s lying. It’s just a person on the internet making a joke right?

      • adhocfungus@midwest.social
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        7 days ago

        I’d believe it’s real. In 2016 I was at a company trying to migrate off an old IBM mainframe and green screens. It wasn’t like an airline with complex or critical code; it was just a barely functional ERP for a warehouse. Source control was the furthest thing from their minds. Some companies and IT departments are very reluctant to change, regardless of how much time and money it save.

          • adhocfungus@midwest.social
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            6 days ago

            Yeah, it was all tapes. We only had to use them once when I worked there: after finding out the UPS connected to the mainframe was a dud. And then it really was roulette because the first two tapes were unreadable, so we ended up with three week old data.

    • drcobaltjedi@programming.dev
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      8 days ago

      My first like real programming job, in 2019, version control was “download the project from the share drive, update the code, then add your new code back to the share with todays date in the folder name”.

      Everyone, except 1 dude liked SVN or mercurial, wanted the boss to just get us on git. It became the general standard for a reason. None of us liked the version control system we had, but HDD space was cheap so the boss wasn’t that concerned.

    • Rolando@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      8 days ago

      I wouldn’t do version control that way, but I’ve used Word to keep track of what I’m working on during integration tasks. It’s nice because you can drop in code, error messages, and screen captures. E.g.: the tool looks like this: (image) but gives an error like this: (error message) and I think the problem is in file.py around lines XYZ: (code snippet) when I run the command (command used), and I think the answer is in (a couple links I found).

      • 2pt_perversion@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        8 days ago

        I’ve used word/onenote or FOSS equivalents the same way, they’re fine as a scratchpad for notes. As you said it’s nice being able to shove images in there. There are so many things that don’t belong anywhere else that I will forget after even a half hour break.

  • glimse@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    27
    ·
    8 days ago

    Here I was thinking it was childhood depression that creates comedians but it was fetal alcohol syndrome all along

  • BallsandBayonets@lemmings.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    13
    ·
    8 days ago

    Wine and cigarettes wouldn’t do that to a baby. I’m not exactly sure what would. Conceiving the child with Satan himself, perhaps? Or any billionaire human? To get those levels of evil.

  • blaue_Fledermaus@mstdn.io
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    8
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    8 days ago

    At least it’s the “only” editor that handles tabs correctly. Tabs are to go to the next tabstop, not advance a fixed amount.