Today I Am An Engineer

Content "Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it." - Brian W. Kernighan

Content Never Ask A Woman Her Age A Man His Salary A programmer Their personal projects state

The eternal gap between developer perception and user reality. Developers proudly declare "the interface is so intuitive it needs no documentation" while users are literally trying to eat the product. Nothing says "intuitive design" like watching someone attempt to consume your USB stick like it's a candy bar. The only documentation needed here is apparently "not edible, please insert into computer." Next time a product manager says "it's so user-friendly we don't need a manual," just silently email them this image.

When the interviewer asks you to write a loop but you've been optimizing code since the Pentium era. Why waste precious CPU cycles on branch prediction and loop overhead when you can just manually unroll that bad boy? Sure, it looks like you're writing code with your face, but technically you're just doing the compiler's job for it. Modern problems require ancient solutions that haven't been relevant since 1997. Your interviewer is either going to hire you immediately or quietly escort you from the building. No middle ground.

Content Patch 1.0.3 Fixes doors getting stuck Fixes users sometimes getting stuck Adds new air vents

The classic education bait-and-switch in three acts: First panel: An automatic transmission. "Here's a nice, simple abstraction with a few options. Just put it in drive and go!" Second panel: A manual transmission with extra steps. "Now go home and figure out how to drive stick while also doing donuts in a parking lot." Third panel: A literal spacecraft cockpit. "For your final exam, please land this Apollo module on the moon with half the fuel and a critical systems failure. You have 90 minutes. No pressure." Computer science degrees should come with trauma counseling.