<!--
So this guy we just interviewed at my
current job wrote this little script
to see if a product update for some
company had come out. Every 10 seconds
the script urllib'ed the page, checked
the length of the html - literally
len(html) - against the length it was
last time it checked. He wrote a blog
post about this script. A freaking
blog post. He also described himself
as "something of a child prodigy"
despite, in another post, saying he
couldn't calculate the area of a slice
of pizza because "area of a triangle
with a curved edge is beyond my
Google-less math skills." Seriously
dude? I haven't taken geomtry in 20
years, and pi*r^2/8 seems pretty
freaking obvious.
The script also called a ruby script
to send him a tweet which another
script was probably monitoring to text
his phone so he could screenshot the
text and post to facebook via
instagram.
I think the "millenials" - who should
be referred to as generation byte - get
undeserved flak, as all generations do,
for being younger and prettier and
living in a different world.
But this kid calling himself a prodigy
is a clear indication of way too many
gold stars handed out for adequacy, so
to ensure that no such abominable
script ever does anything besides
bomb somebody's twitter account, this
comment shows up exactly 50% of the
time, and I encourage others to do
the same.
-->
/*
Yeah, there's some shitty code here.
There are some things that shouldn't
be done. I did them. Sometimes, I had
my reasons. Sometimes, I was just being
lazy. But guess what? You're sitting
there reading the source on some guy's
blog. So fuck you.
*/
If that's what made him your favorite, you really need to read his earlier post that really blew up in popularity. It's a great read. http://stilldrinking.org/programming-sucks
Guess he didn't know about the last-modified header. Reminds me of a few other instances of modern coders ignoring parts of the http spec, like not acknowledging the use of codes outside of 404 and 200, instead putting the information on the page in a way that has to be parsed for the text
That just seems like poking fun at a job applicant for no reason. Assuming last-modified headers weren't accurate on the website (as one would expect with some poorly crafted sites these days), that will indeed get the job done with a minimum of fuss and effort; assuming this is a one-off script, actually parsing the page would be pointless.
Perhaps posting it to his blog was excessive, but it is a way of getting shared code out there.
<!-- So this guy we just interviewed at my current job wrote this little script to see if a product update for some company had come out. Every 10 seconds the script urllib'ed the page, checked the length of the html - literally len(html) - against the length it was last time it checked. He wrote a blog post about this script. A freaking blog post. He also described himself as "something of a child prodigy" despite, in another post, saying he couldn't calculate the area of a slice of pizza because "area of a triangle with a curved edge is beyond my Google-less math skills." Seriously dude? I haven't taken geomtry in 20 years, and pi*r^2/8 seems pretty freaking obvious.
The script also called a ruby script to send him a tweet which another script was probably monitoring to text his phone so he could screenshot the text and post to facebook via instagram.
I think the "millenials" - who should be referred to as generation byte - get undeserved flak, as all generations do, for being younger and prettier and living in a different world.
But this kid calling himself a prodigy is a clear indication of way too many gold stars handed out for adequacy, so to ensure that no such abominable script ever does anything besides bomb somebody's twitter account, this comment shows up exactly 50% of the time, and I encourage others to do the same. -->
Found my new favorite blogger; s'cept for PG.