Software Stories at 1 AM

It's late Saturday night (actually Sunday past 1AM...) But Corey had me laughing so I thought I'd share this "real quick" - He was up late working, and I decided to stay up with him to try and get a few things done. He has been working, for his consulting work, on software. And after he finished and we were brushing our teeth, he was shaking his head at the project he's doing. He's happy to have the job, but he also feels like he totally doesn't know what in the world they are talking about and that he's not qualified. So Google has been a lifeline, and he keeps being amazed that he keeps figuring out the problems! So some of Corey's quotes ~

"Programmers are stupid cause they keep inventing new ways to do stuff."

So he's finished with last weeks tasks, and will get more things on Monday that he doesn't understand. He's ready, knowing they'll ask him "You ready for more (work?)" and he'll say "Allright. Just Talk" and then it's gonna be coming at him like a firehose, and he'll just be trying to write everything down. So I asked him "So what were you working on tonight?" His reply (I recorded a voice recording of this for myself to write down!):

"Today I created a public and private RSA encryption key, and then, with the private key, I was able to, using RSA Shaw 256 encryption algorithm, I was able to create a JWT security token with all the necessary claims that I would need, and then I was able to validate that in my C+ test code, and then, I was able to get a local instance of the KONG API gateway running in a dogger container of lynx on my computer's local host, and then I was able to validate that that JWT token was valid. I haven't been able to messed around iwht how to do it with Yaml files or within Cubernetties, but that's coming next week. And that is my Morning report! And I'm excited to say it!"

Then he shakes his head and says again in disbelief "That is my Monday morning update. What kind of world?!!? I'm sure Medical school is hard... I know the body is complicated, but atleast it's consistent! I think God was like "Ok, that's it! NO more upgrades! We're done! If it can eat the others and survive, it can stay... but no more upgrades. Just pick a butterfly and make it a little different! Then call it good! NO more upgrades! We're solving the same problems we've always solved, '...but hey! We've never solved it in THIS way before!' Computers are like different kinds of aliens and plants put together. One of the reason they have to hire consultants is cause they don't know how to do it either. "DO you understnad this nonsense?" It's like the Emperor's new clothes!"

"And like everybody, as if Cubernetties (sp?) wasn't stupid enough as a name for the technology we are using, when we're looking at the documentation, Kubernetes is abbreviated K8. Like ?!? There is no way that people around the world can keep up with this stuff! And I feel sorry for people that might think "oh, new technology!" cause it's just a mess! This company has hired 7 guys to try and do something that would be like really simple if it weren't for all the new tools that they want to use! They basically want to receive a simple order data and send back the results but they want to do it this really interesting way using all this new technology and everything encrypted along the way (that's not hard) but it's just... (‘◉⌓◉’) ... (that's a wide eyed expression of exasperation)... They (the other programmers) are mocking older technologies that work and have already been proven... I mean it's kinda cool to do it different, but kinda lame. (I googled it, it's -->) "Kubernetes and AWS"  ... ＼(◎o◎)／ I'm struggling with coobernetties cause they have all these security things, so I've created my own cluster in AWS with my own knowds and pods, but I can't get the services to work. (sigh) It's complicated stuff!"

He continues to vent...  "And THEN they review all your changes. You can't just commit code, I mean you have to review it with all their coding standards." (@_@)

Corey said he's going to start looking for a different job, cause "I can't keep this up.... I'm done. Every morning I'm like "Dude, I have no idea what you're talking about." I feel like they're paying me to be in school, cause I'm learning all this new stuff, so it's good, but man!" I asked him about how his education 20 years ago has helped him if things are always new... "I remember vague stuff. but no, I didn't learn any of this in school."

Ok, last bit.... he said that on Monday morning, there will be no stories (aka a unit of work, or tasks) in the "pile" that the actually knows how to do, so it will be more of the same steps into the unknown. Then he said "That's another stupid thing! calling the tasks 'stories'!" Well, not sure how all of that translates but it was a funny conversation and it was funny to see Corey shaking his head in disbelief. I'm impressed with all the work his head does each day, he's got a hard working brain.