Nerd rant

Memo to the HTML designer in the freelance project I’m working on:

The fact that you needed to redefine the same CSS class fifteen different times in different scopes, to work around the one instance that works completely differently but has the same name, should perhaps have been your first clue that you’re doing it wrong.

Also, using umpteen subtly-different classes with names like “red-links-01” is just plain stupid.

Thank you, me.

Memo to the java developer in the freelance project I’m working on:

Adding complex workarounds for problems that don’t actually exist does not make you an expert coder. Trying to bullshit me with misused buzzwords when I point this out isn’t going to impress me, either.

Thank you, me.

Anyway. Had to get that off my chest. One of the things about freelance work is that you often find yourself working with people who are not exactly the cream of the crop. (Then again, that was true before I started freelancing, too, so perhaps I shouldn’t complain too loudly...)

Sometimes this is nice, because it makes it very easy to look like a fucking rock star if you have even half a clue what you’re doing. But it can be tiring coaching the latest crop of beginners into the idea that somebody may someday need to, you know, maintain the code they’re writing. Or that the mock-up is not the final product. Or that if you’re doing the same thing on five different pages, maybe you should reuse the same code, instead of rewriting it with completely different methods every time. You know, little stuff like that.

Oh yeah, almost forgot:

Memo to JBoss, attn its over-enthusiastic cacheing mechanism:

I hate you.

Thanks, Me.