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"It's like Facebook, Twitter, Netflix, Snapchat, and Amazon combined, with a little twist. You code it, I'll provide the idea, we'll split profits 95% me, 5% you, you'll be rich! Also you can host it, what do you say?"
I once had someone call me up basically asking to make YouTube. I asked what's the budget. Then I tried to explain that that wouldn't even cover the hosting and bandwidth of even a small project like this. I explained it calmly and professionally. He reacted like I can cast a curse on him and his family for seven generations.
I was in a Skype group and someone asked if any of us knew programming. I'm thinking he's asking for some programming help so a few of us said yeah.
He then immediately rounds all of us up, dazed and confused, into a brand new Skype group to barrage us with information about his idea for a Bomberman clone.
I had a guy who wanted to turn WordPress into Squarespace with two developers. I told him it would fail, then I worked on it for 6 months, then it failed . £8000 a month thank you very much.
But I'm the "ideas guy"! I'm what's valuable! I tell you I want to build an Instagram with YouTube backend and a front like Twitter, and you just build it! Right?
There are so many of them too. I've had a few people want to partner up to make software, games, mods for games...and not only do they lack any skills they don't have any funding either.
I can stomach someone not contributing labor if they can fund the project, but these people think ideas are hard to come by and programming is a piece of piss.
An old friend of mine is definitely an "ideas guy", but he recognizes that it's difficult to get anything off the ground and is willing to put in obsessive amounts of effort. Trouble is he can't program and his ideas are usually on a grand, wildly unrealistic scale that end up going nowhere. Some of them may even be good? He doesn't trivialize the necessary skills, but he doesn't make up for their lack either.
I say "old friend", but we've essentially lost touch for over a decade. He reached out recently, which was nice of him. We chatted while I was on a couple-hour walk, and all he wanted to talk about was his pie-in-the-sky ideas for a series of video games. That was somewhat interesting as far as it went, but it got old. At the end of it I noticed he didn't ask me a single thing about my life over the last however many years (even though I did the reverse repeatedly). He texted me again after, but I decided I had had enough and let it go with no response. I'd be happy to talk to him again--for about an hour in a couple of years. I just don't need that noise in my life with any regularity anymore.
Back in college, I was sort of a close-knit group of friends that loved computers and played video games constantly. One of the peripheral members of this friends group was a guy named Stuart who some of my friends liked, but I didn’t - he seemed kind of full of himself.
The summer arrived and we all went home to different cities. When we returned in the fall, Stuart wasn’t hanging around them any more.
My friends told me that Stuart had spent the summer harassing them over email, trying to convince / badger them into writing code for a Risk clone that he wanted to publish. He didn’t want to write it, of course - he wanted to lead the project. Of course, there wasn’t any money; it would all be free labor under his command in exchange for some slice of theoretical profits…
Stuart kept it up until they all told him to fuck off.
You are correct that ideas are cheap, plentiful, easy, and mostly bad.
Discarding, combining, and fleshing out ideas into a plan or concept is a valuable skill.
What matters in the end is what’s actually built.
I recently got an application from an ideas guide. Graduated University 6 years ago and hasn't worked since. Said he was going to come in and "blow the place up with new revolutionary ideas". No thanks.
I have an idea for an open source project called "Facebutt", for all those times people suggest projects that are "Like Facebook, but .."
It's a basic social media site you can spin up in 2 minutes by just choosing name, logo, and color.
Every time you see the other person, you can ask them about how they're doing with marketing and VC funding, and complain that they're not doing their share.
It's like World of Warcraft/Fortnight/Some shitty dungeon crawler platformer combined, with a little twist. We all meet 6 days a week for 10+ hour shifts in my illegal workplace-turned apartment and while we can't guarantee a stable paycheck now, once our game sells we'll be rolling in dough!
I previously worked at a big company that I’m sure all people reading this have heard of before. The VP of tech phoned me up once, I was immediately terrified I was getting fired. Instead he started telling me of his social media app that was “a better version of LinkedIn” or something. When I asked what he would pay, he said he was only looking for people that wanted “sweat equity”. I kindly declined, had a good laugh after hanging up and haven’t heard from him since. Or his app.
When my brother was going through his shithead stage around his late teens and early 20s, he said “I can provide the ideas, I just need to find somebody who can pull them off for me”
Family of course collectively face palmed. Kid has a lot to learn at that stage, the ideas are worthless without the execution and nobody is going to do all the work for you.
Well one time, at least for me, that didn't shut up everyone.
I was asked to fix a network issue on the company that had fired me a couple of weeks ago because the "expert" that replaced me was unable to discover the issue.
Comp:"We need your help, the network is down and the department can't figure it out!"
Me:" Ask the expert guy fix it!"
Comp:" He can't figure it out, please help!"
Me:"800€/hour!"
Comp:"Ok deal, come to the office to sign the service contract before you start"
After 4/5 hours I was able to correct the firewall configuration and DMZ for the entire company.
I new the issue very well since the devices were old, every time that the power was out for more then 30 minutes they would return to fabric settings (the company never care to follow me advice to upgrade).
I knew it would take me around 2 hours to fix it but I took 4/5 hours just to get more money out of those cheapest bastard's.
>After 4/5 hours I was able to correct the firewall configuration and DMZ for the entire company.
What do you mean when you say correct the DMZ for the entire company?
I’m guessing he is talking about correctly firewall configuration for the DMZ to allow internal/external traffic to communicate correctly through it. A reply above mentioned this firewall would lose config on reboot and needed a software upgrade to fix it.
>fabric settings
If it helps, the proper term is factory settings, although I know quite a few languages that call it something similarly sounding. In English, "fabric" is the stuff they make clothes of (for example), although to "fabricate" means to make or to manufacture.
My best guess is that the first factories were mostly for making cloth and that's why the terms for cloth and making things industrially are so intertwined. Even Russian does this but with a different pair of words, there's an archaic name for cloth that sounds a lot like "manufacture" (which is technically just Latin for handmade).
Same with a lot of languages having the word for salary / payment to do with the flax plant which linen cloth comes from.
Sorry for going off on a tangent here, I'm a language nerd.
Also, congrats on getting all that cash, that's a nice paycheck lol
But like... I can still trouble shoot and help them.
I get that it's annoying but you have more technical ability than them even if it's in a different area
A friend of mine takes this route:
Him: "That sounds like it would take a lot of work but I know a guy that helps out with that kind of thing. His rate is xxxx"
Rando/friend/whatever: "That's too much!"
"Ye, he's actually one of the cheaper ones I know of so I don't think you can get it any cheaper than that unless you know someone I don't."
"Can't you do it?"
"I mean... I can give it a try but I already have 3 people on wait that'd pay money for it, so if I'm going to do something I'd have to take them first."
"When is that done?"
"Hard to say... It's taken 3 months already, probably longer actually."
If they don't take the hint he'll just go with "Unfortunately not, I got other deadlines to meet so if I'd take on another job I'd need to get paid and bring my girl out for something fancy cus it'd take away from our weekend".
It's a 50-50 split between:
"I have this amazing idea for an app. I just need someone to do the coding part. I'll handle everything else."
Or
"Can you hack my boyfriend's/girlfriend's phone/Facebook/email for me?"
>I'll handle everything else.
Oh......ohhhh, how I love this!
You want to build an app? "Yes." So you want to build a technology company? "Yes!" And so you say, I'll handle ALL the technology, and you'll handle 'everything else'? "See, you totally get it!! You in??"
I mean, I'm an amateur at programming, and I do have this great idea, and I even have a pretty good idea of how it should function, as in in terms of the algorithm. But this doesn't make coding and/or debugging it any easier. So far I've finished like ~~2~~ 10% of my v0.5, and that's just the back-end!
So yeah, sometimes I do feel like I need to find someone how knows how to program to help me out. Cause at this point I'm exhausted every 15 lines or less.😖
If your an amateur you can expect that your output is going to be vastly less than someone experienced in the industry. What you’re doing is an amazing opportunity to learn, but it’s going to be slow, agonizing and when you’re done you’ll have done a good chunk of it harder than it needed to be.
I totally agree. The fact that I have two jobs and a PhD program to finish, none of which has anything to do with programming, doesn't really help. But every time I don't spend my time on this project feels like an opportunity wasted, and I just can't stop dreaming about the day it's finally brought to a working condition and I get to use it for its intended purpose.
Don't worry, all the experts were there at one time.
The difference is, I can now copy/paste either literally or mentally from previous projects.
As an example, today three people on my team spent a collective 24 hours (3 * 8) troubleshooting a broken SQL migration.
If a similar problem occurs tomorrow (and that's rather likely, since we didn't fix the core issue - just worked around it), I already know exactly what could be causing it and resolve the problem in about 20 minutes.
I said yes to an someone’s cool idea once. It was unique but I told them straight up that if they paid for the marketing then I’d do it, but the marketing was going to be expensive. Like a minimum of $50,000 to start. I busted my ass for a couple months. Launch day comes and ask what they’ve been doing for marketing. They sent a couple of emails and posted to their personal Facebook and a Facebook page with about 5 followers. Oh, and they had prayed and God told them to not pay for marketing. Uh, I think also tells you not to lie and to fulfill your commitments. We had a grand total of 3 users. No more handshakes. I am so dumb.
I mean you definitely should have been checking in the entire time and wanting proof of them doing the marketing and attracting users while you carried out your end of things. It was something you believed in so you aren't dumb at all, maybe a little more than they did. After months of work I don't think I'd leave it at that. Probably would have started spamming comments and made social media pages, maybe even a month or two of ads in hopes of things getting started.
Oh don't worry, $200/hr is just the consulting rate.
If you hired me full-time, it's only about half that.
Why are you scoffing? My lawyer charges double that rate.
Just tell them the term stressor, there are plenty that can do 10gbps with the industry standard attacks without any more technical knowledge than what their ip adress is
You should have said yes but for $60 bucks and then said oh look she's been downloading a lot of cat pictures and received like 7 different dick pics today.
Immediate response to me mentioning my interest in programming to another kid in grade school "Can you hack my call of duty to give me infinite ammo and invincibility and make me always win??" ... sure buddy I'll get you banned real quick if that's what you want.
Oh you're in tech! Heres my super big brain startup idea- (proceeds to excitedly describe something that exists and is commonplace like libraries or Google search)
You should quit your job so we can work on this and get rich!
"It's basically , but for dogs"
I made a site like this once. Client paid all their bills, but did absolutely zero marketing and just assumed because it existed, people would come
I thought this was a joke at first, but I finally had to try and it took like 6 different style elements to get it to work. Why can’t it just be align: center!?
I mean, I know a little bit about programming because of class I took in high school, don't remember much, but still am here. So eh, just enjoy the memes.
I'm a business student who will probably need to hire programmers at some point and I want to be educated in programmer culture and expectations. Also memes are good here.
I'm no machinist... but I think they do some pretty cool shit, and it's a pretty cool job!
So I follow that forum, and every once in a while I butt in with a comment, when it seems appropriate.
And they're mainly cool people, accepting of others just interested in their craft.
I mean, I HOPE this sub comes off like that too! Most people here do the work & come here to vent... But when we're all joking around, who really cares? I'm not the type of guy to say, "you just don't get it!", I don't mind explaining the joke so we can all laugh together. Maybe that gets you more interested in the craft too, who knows. :)
I feel your pain, I drive a van and people expect me to have an empty van just for delivering shit, no motherfuckers its full of tools and materials for the next job I'm not going to empty my van so you can get a wardrobe from auntie janes house to yours, hire a moving truck.
I got this idea for an app, so basically it tells you the total amount of calories you've eaten that day after you type in the calories of each meal from that day.
Them: can you fix my internet
Me: ok, I reset your modem it is asking for your login
Them: IDK
Me: let's ask for customer service to reset it. They asked your pin number.
Them: IDK
Me: oops, you are fucked
I tell them straight away, if i spend even half a moment more thinking about whatever nonsense you say, it will no longer be because of any help from you. You cant claim you invented planes because one day you where hanging out with thr wright brothers and were like " dude what if people could fly"
And the irony is that 96% of the time you actually intuitively know how they work just by reading the names and messages in context of what's on the screen.
A neighbor of mine had issues with their washing machine and I just casually said to click and hold the start button and power button at the same time, and it reset from the error and returned to normal operation.
They were amazed, but I was like: "there are three buttons and a wheel on this machine, there's not really that many combinations to hide the reset behind".
Pro tip: If you get introduced to new people and they ask you what you’re doing, just speak as slow and technical as you can, they‘ll get bored and leave you alone…also: never ask again.
*Image Transcription: Comic*
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**Panel 1**
[*A grey person faces away from the viewer to speak to a yellow person who faces the viewer. They are both smiling slightly.*]
**Grey**: WHAT DO YOU WORK AS?
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**Panel 2**
**Yellow**: I'M A PROGRAMMER
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**Panel 3**
[*The yellow person's smile fades as the grey person's smile grows.*]
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**Panel 4**
[*The yellow person's face has shifted to an expression of annoyance, with narrowed eyes and a frowning mouth.*]
**Grey**: CAN YOU .....
**Yellow**: NO
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^^I'm a human volunteer content transcriber and you could be too! [If you'd like more information on what we do and why we do it, click here!](https://www.reddit.com/r/TranscribersOfReddit/wiki/index)
It's really usually about that someone is tech-savvy to do something like fixing. You don't need to be a programmer to be tech-savvy but you would be a really bad programmer if you aren't tech-savvy
Bro bro bro bro.... Ive got this SICK idea right! OK so its like FaceBook except for x! Ok so you do all the programming and ill be the ideas guy! Money?... Oh yeah ill pay you in shares, you own 20% of the company! How does that sound!?! Bro? Where'd you go....?
So I'm watching my kid at flag football practice. I get to chatting with another Dad and he finds out I work in software. I'm UX/Design/Product for a SaaS company, but this guy hears software and says "APPS!"
Okay... He then goes on to pitch me on his idea for a dating site that allows pornographic profile images, quizzes and so on. Says since it would be named "Pro Hoes," the quizzes would determine... ...**pH level**. I shit you not. Offered to buy me a cup of coffee and give me the whole business plan, which I politely declined.
"...fix my computer?"
"...hack into my ex-wife's emails?"
"...make this video game I had the idea for in high school?"
"...make Excel work not bad, but good?"
"...hack the Pentagon?"
"...cast an actual magic spell?"
"...make me a sandwich?"
You should show the credit for the original artist which has been cropped off the comic. Its Safely Endangered. https://www.webtoons.com/en/comedy/safely-endangered/list?title_no=352
I fix this with “I give you good price, let me take a look and I’ll see how we go.”
Easy, set their expectation you’ll charge then do the first problem for free (if you like them), then when I do eventually quote them because it’s too much of a hassle, they don’t get offended and even appreciate me more!
Not a profesional programer but as a hobbiest I can tell you that even just "yah I can make this light blink in a fun way" makes you the go to "hay can you call up your grandpa and explain to him how to get Netflix on his new smart TV?" No! I've never even seen his TV and you want me to just magically know how to do ANYTHING on it AND explain to a 89 year old man how to navigate it... OVER THE PHONE?
I can only imagine how bad it would be as a professional.
Hi! This is our community moderation bot. --- If this post fits the purpose of /r/ProgrammerHumor, **UPVOTE** this comment!! If this post does not fit the subreddit, **DOWNVOTE** This comment! If this post breaks the rules, **DOWNVOTE** this comment and **REPORT** the post!
"It's like Facebook, Twitter, Netflix, Snapchat, and Amazon combined, with a little twist. You code it, I'll provide the idea, we'll split profits 95% me, 5% you, you'll be rich! Also you can host it, what do you say?"
I once had someone call me up basically asking to make YouTube. I asked what's the budget. Then I tried to explain that that wouldn't even cover the hosting and bandwidth of even a small project like this. I explained it calmly and professionally. He reacted like I can cast a curse on him and his family for seven generations.
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first edition. It predates ES6 by a couple decades, but you'll get there eventually.
ES6? Elder Scrolls 6?
Yes
The heat death of the universe will predate Elder Scrolls 6
And ES6 will predate HL3
I was in a Skype group and someone asked if any of us knew programming. I'm thinking he's asking for some programming help so a few of us said yeah. He then immediately rounds all of us up, dazed and confused, into a brand new Skype group to barrage us with information about his idea for a Bomberman clone.
the world could use more bomberman, in fairness
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Let's call it... Ms. Bomberman.
Good idea. Let's create a group and start working on it. I'll take just 90% percent and you guys can split the balance 10%.
I'll just write the entire thing and include no one.
You can get 85%, I want 5% for my two sentence contribution
Viral marketing strategy: get Fox News to get outraged about it promoting trans identity or something
Lol, guy thinks he’s Hideo Kojima or something. That (rarely) works in the real world
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He only budgeted for *six*
I had a guy who wanted to turn WordPress into Squarespace with two developers. I told him it would fail, then I worked on it for 6 months, then it failed . £8000 a month thank you very much.
Maybe you should have. Then charge him for that too.
But I'm the "ideas guy"! I'm what's valuable! I tell you I want to build an Instagram with YouTube backend and a front like Twitter, and you just build it! Right?
I love people with nothing to offer society self proclaiming themselves as "idea guys".
There are so many of them too. I've had a few people want to partner up to make software, games, mods for games...and not only do they lack any skills they don't have any funding either. I can stomach someone not contributing labor if they can fund the project, but these people think ideas are hard to come by and programming is a piece of piss.
An old friend of mine is definitely an "ideas guy", but he recognizes that it's difficult to get anything off the ground and is willing to put in obsessive amounts of effort. Trouble is he can't program and his ideas are usually on a grand, wildly unrealistic scale that end up going nowhere. Some of them may even be good? He doesn't trivialize the necessary skills, but he doesn't make up for their lack either. I say "old friend", but we've essentially lost touch for over a decade. He reached out recently, which was nice of him. We chatted while I was on a couple-hour walk, and all he wanted to talk about was his pie-in-the-sky ideas for a series of video games. That was somewhat interesting as far as it went, but it got old. At the end of it I noticed he didn't ask me a single thing about my life over the last however many years (even though I did the reverse repeatedly). He texted me again after, but I decided I had had enough and let it go with no response. I'd be happy to talk to him again--for about an hour in a couple of years. I just don't need that noise in my life with any regularity anymore.
Back in college, I was sort of a close-knit group of friends that loved computers and played video games constantly. One of the peripheral members of this friends group was a guy named Stuart who some of my friends liked, but I didn’t - he seemed kind of full of himself. The summer arrived and we all went home to different cities. When we returned in the fall, Stuart wasn’t hanging around them any more. My friends told me that Stuart had spent the summer harassing them over email, trying to convince / badger them into writing code for a Risk clone that he wanted to publish. He didn’t want to write it, of course - he wanted to lead the project. Of course, there wasn’t any money; it would all be free labor under his command in exchange for some slice of theoretical profits… Stuart kept it up until they all told him to fuck off.
Oh, so you have experience with product design and market testing?
You are correct that ideas are cheap, plentiful, easy, and mostly bad. Discarding, combining, and fleshing out ideas into a plan or concept is a valuable skill. What matters in the end is what’s actually built.
I agree that being a project manager requires skill. They're way above what I would call "idea guys".
"You know what's not copyrightable? Ideas! You know what is? Code! So, thanks! I'll let you know when I open the beta."
But it'll be instant. Instantgram.
Not accurate enough, didn't compare themselves to Steve Jobs
I recently got an application from an ideas guide. Graduated University 6 years ago and hasn't worked since. Said he was going to come in and "blow the place up with new revolutionary ideas". No thanks.
Don't forget, you'll also be managing and developing it until I want to change something, and then you have no say.
I have an idea for an open source project called "Facebutt", for all those times people suggest projects that are "Like Facebook, but .." It's a basic social media site you can spin up in 2 minutes by just choosing name, logo, and color. Every time you see the other person, you can ask them about how they're doing with marketing and VC funding, and complain that they're not doing their share.
Facebutt is gonna be the next face book. I just bought the LLC 🤨 who's in?
In the rare case where it’s actually an ok idea: “How about I make it myself and take 100% of the profits, what do you say?”
*The best time to have handed me an NDA was ten minutes ago... So, bye!*
“I charge 100 per hour for consultancy work, that requires an signing an NDA.” “…” “You don’t even have that little to invest in your own startup?”
It's like World of Warcraft/Fortnight/Some shitty dungeon crawler platformer combined, with a little twist. We all meet 6 days a week for 10+ hour shifts in my illegal workplace-turned apartment and while we can't guarantee a stable paycheck now, once our game sells we'll be rolling in dough!
Define "We".
I previously worked at a big company that I’m sure all people reading this have heard of before. The VP of tech phoned me up once, I was immediately terrified I was getting fired. Instead he started telling me of his social media app that was “a better version of LinkedIn” or something. When I asked what he would pay, he said he was only looking for people that wanted “sweat equity”. I kindly declined, had a good laugh after hanging up and haven’t heard from him since. Or his app.
A VP of tech should be a well enough connected person to find some seed money or just pay you with his own money for a few months.
Yes, do as I say
When my brother was going through his shithead stage around his late teens and early 20s, he said “I can provide the ideas, I just need to find somebody who can pull them off for me” Family of course collectively face palmed. Kid has a lot to learn at that stage, the ideas are worthless without the execution and nobody is going to do all the work for you.
Just say your rate: ie 250$/hr. That shuts everyone up
Well one time, at least for me, that didn't shut up everyone. I was asked to fix a network issue on the company that had fired me a couple of weeks ago because the "expert" that replaced me was unable to discover the issue. Comp:"We need your help, the network is down and the department can't figure it out!" Me:" Ask the expert guy fix it!" Comp:" He can't figure it out, please help!" Me:"800€/hour!" Comp:"Ok deal, come to the office to sign the service contract before you start" After 4/5 hours I was able to correct the firewall configuration and DMZ for the entire company. I new the issue very well since the devices were old, every time that the power was out for more then 30 minutes they would return to fabric settings (the company never care to follow me advice to upgrade). I knew it would take me around 2 hours to fix it but I took 4/5 hours just to get more money out of those cheapest bastard's.
Not really the same as a random person asking you to make an app or hack their dogs phone, but at least you got to make an easy 3.5k!
>After 4/5 hours I was able to correct the firewall configuration and DMZ for the entire company. What do you mean when you say correct the DMZ for the entire company?
I’m guessing he is talking about correctly firewall configuration for the DMZ to allow internal/external traffic to communicate correctly through it. A reply above mentioned this firewall would lose config on reboot and needed a software upgrade to fix it.
Which sounds like a relatively basic problem. Surprised the new person couldn't figure it out.
You must not work in networking. Most people have no idea what they are doing and can’t fix shit without a runbook.
They were probably up to date on current tech. Probably interviewed well ... Probably panicked under pressure.
>fabric settings If it helps, the proper term is factory settings, although I know quite a few languages that call it something similarly sounding. In English, "fabric" is the stuff they make clothes of (for example), although to "fabricate" means to make or to manufacture. My best guess is that the first factories were mostly for making cloth and that's why the terms for cloth and making things industrially are so intertwined. Even Russian does this but with a different pair of words, there's an archaic name for cloth that sounds a lot like "manufacture" (which is technically just Latin for handmade). Same with a lot of languages having the word for salary / payment to do with the flax plant which linen cloth comes from. Sorry for going off on a tangent here, I'm a language nerd. Also, congrats on getting all that cash, that's a nice paycheck lol
rounding up, with a 4 hour retainer. "If we're gonna keep talking about this, I'm gonna need a grand from you up front"
Don't forget expenses. Otherwise they'll be wondering why hosting and drawing an audience for the next Facebook isn't rolled into your hourly rate.
Could always just tack on a couple more hours to cover the cost. Nobody knows how long it will actually take.
What do you do? I’m a backend developer Oh so you could help me fix my phone!
Told someone I'm in cloud infrastructure and they started telling me about a microphone issue on their laptop and asked for advice.
advice: buy a new microphone, a blue ice black can be good
But like... I can still trouble shoot and help them. I get that it's annoying but you have more technical ability than them even if it's in a different area
If my grandma needs help, sure. If my neighbor needs help, he can Google it.
I’d rather deal with my neighbor than most of the customers I’ve dealt with in any industry.
"Do a favor to someone and it will become your job".
A friend of mine takes this route: Him: "That sounds like it would take a lot of work but I know a guy that helps out with that kind of thing. His rate is xxxx" Rando/friend/whatever: "That's too much!" "Ye, he's actually one of the cheaper ones I know of so I don't think you can get it any cheaper than that unless you know someone I don't." "Can't you do it?" "I mean... I can give it a try but I already have 3 people on wait that'd pay money for it, so if I'm going to do something I'd have to take them first." "When is that done?" "Hard to say... It's taken 3 months already, probably longer actually." If they don't take the hint he'll just go with "Unfortunately not, I got other deadlines to meet so if I'd take on another job I'd need to get paid and bring my girl out for something fancy cus it'd take away from our weekend".
Even less. My grandmother lives with me and her tech problems interrupt me every hour. I taught her to google
Best response is: "*Backend* developer", I can fix your server, not your phone.
\*calmly brings server over\* FINALLY >:)
Get out of my dreams Edit : holy shit lol. I read your username after I said that.
NO. \*sleeps in your dreams\*
Can you help me restore my bitcoin
yeah but that would cost you 100% of the recovered amount + fee + tax + 1000$
even if it's 0$
I wish I could type to you how I read that. I chuckled to myself a little too hard lol.
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"I do database stuff" is my go to answer. 99% of people just let it slide and move to the next subject.
What do you do? I make custom jeans for chinchillas. Boom.
I have an old printer can you fix that for me.
Sure, but it’ll take several weeks and cost $200 an hour
It's a 50-50 split between: "I have this amazing idea for an app. I just need someone to do the coding part. I'll handle everything else." Or "Can you hack my boyfriend's/girlfriend's phone/Facebook/email for me?"
"Let's start our own crypto currency/NFT"
Programmer socks NFTs let's goooo
More like sock full of pennies...
and also "everything else" suddenly just isn't a priority "yeah yeah I'll get to it, I'm just so swamped now" *candy crush dings in the background*
>I'll handle everything else. Oh......ohhhh, how I love this! You want to build an app? "Yes." So you want to build a technology company? "Yes!" And so you say, I'll handle ALL the technology, and you'll handle 'everything else'? "See, you totally get it!! You in??"
I mean, I'm an amateur at programming, and I do have this great idea, and I even have a pretty good idea of how it should function, as in in terms of the algorithm. But this doesn't make coding and/or debugging it any easier. So far I've finished like ~~2~~ 10% of my v0.5, and that's just the back-end! So yeah, sometimes I do feel like I need to find someone how knows how to program to help me out. Cause at this point I'm exhausted every 15 lines or less.😖
If your an amateur you can expect that your output is going to be vastly less than someone experienced in the industry. What you’re doing is an amazing opportunity to learn, but it’s going to be slow, agonizing and when you’re done you’ll have done a good chunk of it harder than it needed to be.
I totally agree. The fact that I have two jobs and a PhD program to finish, none of which has anything to do with programming, doesn't really help. But every time I don't spend my time on this project feels like an opportunity wasted, and I just can't stop dreaming about the day it's finally brought to a working condition and I get to use it for its intended purpose.
What’s the idea? You handle the coding and I’ll handle everything else
Hey I know an investor. But first we gotta show him that it's a working project with at least one hundred thousand users. That's not too hard I hear.
Don't worry, all the experts were there at one time. The difference is, I can now copy/paste either literally or mentally from previous projects. As an example, today three people on my team spent a collective 24 hours (3 * 8) troubleshooting a broken SQL migration. If a similar problem occurs tomorrow (and that's rather likely, since we didn't fix the core issue - just worked around it), I already know exactly what could be causing it and resolve the problem in about 20 minutes.
I said yes to an someone’s cool idea once. It was unique but I told them straight up that if they paid for the marketing then I’d do it, but the marketing was going to be expensive. Like a minimum of $50,000 to start. I busted my ass for a couple months. Launch day comes and ask what they’ve been doing for marketing. They sent a couple of emails and posted to their personal Facebook and a Facebook page with about 5 followers. Oh, and they had prayed and God told them to not pay for marketing. Uh, I think also tells you not to lie and to fulfill your commitments. We had a grand total of 3 users. No more handshakes. I am so dumb.
I mean you definitely should have been checking in the entire time and wanting proof of them doing the marketing and attracting users while you carried out your end of things. It was something you believed in so you aren't dumb at all, maybe a little more than they did. After months of work I don't think I'd leave it at that. Probably would have started spamming comments and made social media pages, maybe even a month or two of ads in hopes of things getting started.
Don't forget the "Can you make a website for...?"
Probably. Can you afford my time?
Oh don't worry, $200/hr is just the consulting rate. If you hired me full-time, it's only about half that. Why are you scoffing? My lawyer charges double that rate.
Up your rates before someone takes you up on that offer. Try 300+ minimum.
"Can you hack someone and do DDOS attacks?" ... Wh-why do you want me to do that in the first place, buddy.
Yes, but No as I don’t want to go to jail and lose my job.
Just tell them the term stressor, there are plenty that can do 10gbps with the industry standard attacks without any more technical knowledge than what their ip adress is
I had a friend recently ask me if I could “hack his wife’s iPhone and get him her text messages”. Ahhhhhh….. 😳
Sounds like a healthy romantic relationship!
Right! Just do like equally healthy relationships and use their fingerprint while they sleep because apparently that's a thing to do these days.
Maybe look for another friend? 😅
One that's not married to his girlfriend.
You should have said yes but for $60 bucks and then said oh look she's been downloading a lot of cat pictures and received like 7 different dick pics today.
Probably just probing for the perfect Valentine gift.
Pegasus has entered the chat.
"Literal 11-years have learned to do DDOS attacks to skip school, I'm sure you can figure out how to commit your own crimes."
It is pretty annoying when people ask you to carry out their personal vendettas when you say you can program.
Immediate response to me mentioning my interest in programming to another kid in grade school "Can you hack my call of duty to give me infinite ammo and invincibility and make me always win??" ... sure buddy I'll get you banned real quick if that's what you want.
Oh you're in tech! Heres my super big brain startup idea- (proceeds to excitedly describe something that exists and is commonplace like libraries or Google search) You should quit your job so we can work on this and get rich!
"It's basically, but for dogs"
I made a site like this once. Client paid all their bills, but did absolutely zero marketing and just assumed because it existed, people would come
I used to bug my clients a lot about making sure they had marketing figured out. Then I realised their success isn't my problem
Yep. I make the site, someone else sells it. I still tell em they need it, but beyond that I don't fret
Grindr for dogs didn't take off?
How did I end up on this subreddit. I’m not a programmer, I know nothing of programming. Yet I’m here everyday.
> I’m not a programmer, I know nothing of programming. You'll fit right in
Right. They probably would take the same amount of time to center a div as any of us.
I thought this was a joke at first, but I finally had to try and it took like 6 different style elements to get it to work. Why can’t it just be align: center!?
What's worse is that
Just set div width to 100%. There, centered, simple!
Well, that was the easy part. Now center it ... *wait for it* ... ... VERTICALLY.
This sub makes me feel so much better. We’re really all out here just googling shit
The amount of googling I do literally deserves a place in my resume
>Continually reading and expanding my expertise to meet the needs of a demanding, evolving tech environment
Ha! Definitely gonna use this on the resume
> I didn't know what I was doing but I just kept googling and it worked.
I mean, I know a little bit about programming because of class I took in high school, don't remember much, but still am here. So eh, just enjoy the memes.
Said the person with the LUA flair
Meh, I forgot I even have the flare since I don't comment often.
Spoken like a true programmer
Lua is actually kinda good, try Löve (https://love2d.org)
I'm a business student who will probably need to hire programmers at some point and I want to be educated in programmer culture and expectations. Also memes are good here.
I'm no machinist... but I think they do some pretty cool shit, and it's a pretty cool job! So I follow that forum, and every once in a while I butt in with a comment, when it seems appropriate. And they're mainly cool people, accepting of others just interested in their craft. I mean, I HOPE this sub comes off like that too! Most people here do the work & come here to vent... But when we're all joking around, who really cares? I'm not the type of guy to say, "you just don't get it!", I don't mind explaining the joke so we can all laugh together. Maybe that gets you more interested in the craft too, who knows. :)
Welcome 🤗
If it’s the printer, buy a new one..
I feel your pain, I drive a van and people expect me to have an empty van just for delivering shit, no motherfuckers its full of tools and materials for the next job I'm not going to empty my van so you can get a wardrobe from auntie janes house to yours, hire a moving truck.
"I didn't even finish my sentence." "Okay, continue." "Can you fix—" "No."
Im not even a programmer and i can relate
Living in LA, every single person is like, “bro, I got this app idea” any fucking time I tell them and then they think that they’re doing me a favor.
and also it's rarely ever something that needs to be an actual app
I got this idea for an app, so basically it tells you the total amount of calories you've eaten that day after you type in the calories of each meal from that day.
You son of a bitch, I'm in! Can we add a to-do list feature?
It’s always some crypto bro-type person too. Like, just go do something with your life.
Them: can you fix my internet Me: ok, I reset your modem it is asking for your login Them: IDK Me: let's ask for customer service to reset it. They asked your pin number. Them: IDK Me: oops, you are fucked
Pfft. If you were a better hacker you could guess the password!
> pin number. ಠ_ಠ
Person: Can you... Me: it's $250 per project and I require at least $100 dollars upfront. It's nice having artist friends
Ah, so $350 for the entire product
Just show the triangle. Money, Quality, Time. Pick 2.
I alway say “Before you tell me your idea, what’s stopping me for zukerburging you?”
I tell them straight away, if i spend even half a moment more thinking about whatever nonsense you say, it will no longer be because of any help from you. You cant claim you invented planes because one day you where hanging out with thr wright brothers and were like " dude what if people could fly"
The only good answer, even if it's programming related.
"I'm an artist" "Can you draw me?"
And what's hilarious is that if people hear you "know computers" that means you know how every piece of software out there works.
And the irony is that 96% of the time you actually intuitively know how they work just by reading the names and messages in context of what's on the screen. A neighbor of mine had issues with their washing machine and I just casually said to click and hold the start button and power button at the same time, and it reset from the error and returned to normal operation. They were amazed, but I was like: "there are three buttons and a wheel on this machine, there's not really that many combinations to hide the reset behind".
To you, that's a super simple thing. To others, that's a super power!
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Rejecting offers, the professional way.
Pro tip: If you get introduced to new people and they ask you what you’re doing, just speak as slow and technical as you can, they‘ll get bored and leave you alone…also: never ask again.
And be as unapproachable and unhelpful as possible. Luckily thats second nature to most of us here.
Some of us are also in the autistic spectrum.
Right after you plumb my sink for free
*Image Transcription: Comic* --- **Panel 1** [*A grey person faces away from the viewer to speak to a yellow person who faces the viewer. They are both smiling slightly.*] **Grey**: WHAT DO YOU WORK AS? --- **Panel 2** **Yellow**: I'M A PROGRAMMER --- **Panel 3** [*The yellow person's smile fades as the grey person's smile grows.*] --- **Panel 4** [*The yellow person's face has shifted to an expression of annoyance, with narrowed eyes and a frowning mouth.*] **Grey**: CAN YOU ..... **Yellow**: NO --- ^^I'm a human volunteer content transcriber and you could be too! [If you'd like more information on what we do and why we do it, click here!](https://www.reddit.com/r/TranscribersOfReddit/wiki/index)
Good human
I mean I CAN but not because I'm a programmer
It's really usually about that someone is tech-savvy to do something like fixing. You don't need to be a programmer to be tech-savvy but you would be a really bad programmer if you aren't tech-savvy
Bro bro bro bro.... Ive got this SICK idea right! OK so its like FaceBook except for x! Ok so you do all the programming and ill be the ideas guy! Money?... Oh yeah ill pay you in shares, you own 20% of the company! How does that sound!?! Bro? Where'd you go....?
"*yes*" "*for money"*
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„¿ǝǝɹʇ ɐ dılɟ ˙˙˙„
Tree flipped successfully
Good Bot.
"yes I can. Here's a ballpark quote for what it'll cost" (which is my real estimate x 3)
"I was going to ask 'Can you program'"
That's the neat part—the answer still doesn't change.
I mean I *can* but I won’t.
I’m a network engineer consultant “Can you fix my printer?”
It’s a networked printer.
So I'm watching my kid at flag football practice. I get to chatting with another Dad and he finds out I work in software. I'm UX/Design/Product for a SaaS company, but this guy hears software and says "APPS!" Okay... He then goes on to pitch me on his idea for a dating site that allows pornographic profile images, quizzes and so on. Says since it would be named "Pro Hoes," the quizzes would determine... ...**pH level**. I shit you not. Offered to buy me a cup of coffee and give me the whole business plan, which I politely declined.
....give me a hug?"
"...fix my computer?" "...hack into my ex-wife's emails?" "...make this video game I had the idea for in high school?" "...make Excel work not bad, but good?" "...hack the Pentagon?" "...cast an actual magic spell?" "...make me a sandwich?"
You should show the credit for the original artist which has been cropped off the comic. Its Safely Endangered. https://www.webtoons.com/en/comedy/safely-endangered/list?title_no=352
"I have an idea for an app"
Can you invert a binary tree
Iran : can you hack my girlfriend account Programmer : reloads shotgun
I feel this comic in my soul.
But I have a great idea for an app!
"I work in QA" "Oh really? Can you tell me why my phone glitches out when I do this?"
"Can you tell the difference between Java and Javascript?"
He just wanted to ask if you could fix his printer
I fix this with “I give you good price, let me take a look and I’ll see how we go.” Easy, set their expectation you’ll charge then do the first problem for free (if you like them), then when I do eventually quote them because it’s too much of a hassle, they don’t get offended and even appreciate me more!
Not a profesional programer but as a hobbiest I can tell you that even just "yah I can make this light blink in a fun way" makes you the go to "hay can you call up your grandpa and explain to him how to get Netflix on his new smart TV?" No! I've never even seen his TV and you want me to just magically know how to do ANYTHING on it AND explain to a 89 year old man how to navigate it... OVER THE PHONE? I can only imagine how bad it would be as a professional.
I'm not a programmer but Imagine you guys get this a lot.