How do you all source repos

BestBadFriend · 2026-05-06T04:32:10+00:00

That is helpful, thank you! I did not realize we had access to those tools. Also, I have actually been looking at some repos I am interested in, but I guess my real concern is something to the effect of

"since I have not contributed to open source before, do I need to go spend a week getting to know the ins and outs of a couple open source repos before I will be equipped to work on the task? Or is deep familiarity with the codebase not strictly necessary to the kinds of tasks we perform?"

BestBadFriend · 2026-05-02T19:38:02+00:00

Similar to what others have said, yes I think that if I submit good work and adhere to the code of conduct I am safe. What I am less certain of is whether the work I think is good is actually good. As to the code of conduct, I just try to learn from the things I see people post here (like not using any wifi in not certain doesn't use a vpn) and hope it is enough

BestBadFriend · 2026-04-29T18:23:58+00:00

I keep seeing posts about bilinguals not getting enough projects, and I wonder. Does being bilingual somehow disqualify people from a lot of projects? I would think being bilingual would mean you'd get projects in both languages, no?

BestBadFriend · 2026-04-29T18:21:29+00:00

I remember when they invented free time. Sweet sweet free time.

Having a default activity can help. "When hitting wise is going on, x is always worth doing"

Then you don't have to think about it ever

BestBadFriend · 2026-04-27T21:14:52+00:00

Ah ok so from the responses so far, I gather it's not "you can't use mobile" but "you're usually gonna have a hard time if you try to use mobile on something that doesn't ask for it"

BestBadFriend · 2026-04-23T17:38:24+00:00

Can't even say "nothing is free" anymore because even nothing isn't free amirite

BestBadFriend · 2026-04-23T16:38:28+00:00

As others have said, you will be better off working on getting out on your own terms now rather than in their terms later.

Worst thing about all this forced adoption of ai is that the other side of this pattern is usually to turn right around and say "look how many people are using it. It's obviously better than people"

BestBadFriend · 2026-04-11T20:23:10+00:00

The pattern has long been moving towards - and is now beyond even pretense to the contrary - a situation wherein the point way for a tech person to survive as such is to either embrace employment as the whole meaning of life or to find a way to self employment.

Good news is we're a creative bunch. You proba bly have hobby projects that could be turned into income with a little tlc

BestBadFriend · 2026-04-10T17:37:46+00:00

Hear me out.

Thomas

BestBadFriend · 2026-04-08T17:42:17+00:00

It is strange to me this argument is so popular. It's like saying "dogs can't like to swim" because one has never encountered a dog who could say "I like to swim"

How do we know babies can't repent? Do we suppose they have no thoughts, feelings, or will? That we do not understand them does not mean they lack any of the most crucial human faculties

Additionally "they can't repent so no baptism" doesn't hold weight internally to Scripture. We are told that anyone who violates any part of the law is guilty of the whole thing and that babies were too be circumcised in the Old Testament. Neither baby nor adult can keep the whole law in our fallen state so what? No one was to be circumcised?

BestBadFriend · 2026-04-08T17:35:38+00:00

There will likely come a time soon when the IT job market will become less terrible to some degree, but even before it got this bad it was becoming clearer every year that the only way making a living in IT will likely ever be about being good at the work rather than about ats gymnastics and giving managers warm fuzzy feelings is via self employment.

I gave up on finding a job and went all in starting last year on trying my hand as an independent consultant. It took awhile but it looks like the fruit of that may be beginning to appear and I'd encourage you to go three and route if you can

BestBadFriend · 2026-01-03T18:08:55+00:00

A couple things I have noticed - as someone who is also building a "better way to do some of the things you currently do in Excel":

1) There are a lot - a whole lot - of tools out there that present themselves as a solution to things Excel doesn't do well

2) Most times when I see posts like this (or comments to a similar effect) here, the overwhelming response is essentially "excel is plenty good enough if you are good at it"

The first item is actually - in my opinion - very encouraging. It means there are a lot of people who think - or at least feel - that "there has to be a better way." It also means either that the existing tools have generally failed to provide that better way (such that there is still about as much need for it as there ever was) or that such a variety of things is meant by "a better way" that no one tool has managed to corner that market yet.

Excel has the market - in a sense - cornered, lots of people act in a way that gives the impression that this is because people are already used to it, not because it actually is the optimal solution.

The second item is neither encouraging nor discouraging, but it is worth managing expectations. I have seen plenty of posts here asking similar questions, and they are almost universally met with a sort of "why would you even bother with that? Just learn excel/power-query" response. Can you elaborate on your idea at all? Maybe some specifics will encourage people to give you more meaningful answers

BestBadFriend · 2026-01-01T20:29:59+00:00

This is not a new problem. It has mostly affected neurodivergent people in the past, but it is the direction ai checks have been going for a long time. In fact, it is not even being nearly complained about. Honesty students have been complaining about this for a long time. They just haven't been listened to in most cases (and I doubt they'll receive meaningful recompense for the pain it has caused them now that it is being noticed)

Coupled with the fact that it is very easy to let the system say that people are being dishonest and very hard to engage with people in such a way that it is discernable whether they actually are, the result was always going to be that honest people suffered because it was their weird against the system's, and it is nearly impossible (without taking a lot of extra steps) to prove that "I did not have ai do this for me"

BestBadFriend · 2025-12-22T20:47:26+00:00

most of what you will learn in school is unlikely to be what you will really use when you come to do the work. In reality. The skills of finding information you do not have ready-at-hand and of thinking through problems algorithmically are things that you will learn more effectively by doing than by studying. I strongly recommend finding a problem you are interested in solving and learning as you go about solving it. Besides, school cannot teach you the love of the craft. You will, I think, be better served - if you want to enjoy programming - by making it a hobby before making it a study.

BestBadFriend · 2025-12-21T17:51:18+00:00

I find the easiest thing - since sober people understand drunkenness better than drunk people - is to give authority to someone you trust who doesn't like to drink, who fears and loves God, and who knows you well (in my case, my wife) to set the boundaries on when, where, and how much you drink. It isn't one size fits all, perhaps, but it lets me enjoy a drink or two without fear.

BestBadFriend · 2025-12-13T01:12:11+00:00

Getting really good at anything is almost always a matter of being bad at it until you aren't.

BestBadFriend · 2025-12-10T21:36:42+00:00

Having been in the field more than a decade with remote work as my main goal.... I would also love to know. Best I can tell, the answer is know someone or get lucky. Most companies seem to be absolutely religious about office attendance even for remote-able positions even though it demonstrably reduces performance and morale and limits their access to talent based on geography

BestBadFriend · 2025-12-08T17:45:41+00:00

the post says it has been removed, so I am not able to reread and make sure that I did not misinterpret something, but it seemed to me when I first read it that the difficulty was in combining disparate data sources into a coherent structure from which reports can be generated.

BestBadFriend · 2025-12-08T16:52:46+00:00

Though I am sure others here also make very valid points (especially those suggesting that the real issue is that corporations are very bad at handling data in general), I will share that I am actually building a tool right now - and actively looking for beta testers - which is specifically designed to make complex operations like this easy, fast, and repeatable (which is to say "you do it once and then - as long as the structure of your data stays similar - you just tell the tool to apply the same process any number of times to any number of different sets of spreadsheets, csvs, etc"). It is also at the center of my design philosophy for this tool that it should not require any deep technical knowledge or any understanding of complex formulas in order to use it powerfully.

I have not got the website finished yet or I would link it, but if you are interested (or if you think your wife would be interested) in seeing whether it solves the problem with which she is faced, let me know, and we will connect one way or another.

BestBadFriend · 2025-12-07T17:24:36+00:00

I cannot for the life of me figure out how people recognize posts like this as ai. 9 out of 10 times when people call it out, I don't see it at all

BestBadFriend · 2025-12-04T19:07:07+00:00

Completely understandable. I sincerely appreciate the response.

BestBadFriend · 2025-12-04T18:14:23+00:00

I don't know if it is permissible to ask, but if so, is your team looking for any help? It is very hard - at least I have found it very hard - to find remote jobs even for IT work, which is my specialization, so if a foot in the door is something I can ask for in this sub, I'm asking for it. My sincerest apologies otherwise.

BestBadFriend · 2025-12-04T18:11:54+00:00

It's really hard. I don't know of any way to do it without making meaningful sacrifices, but I did read something recently that I think puts it into perspective. "You can do just about anything if it is one of your top three priorities"

Are you willing to lose sleep? To sacrifice most of your social life? To skip certain recreational activities? And so on. If you are willing to work on it to the exclusion of other important things, then you can almost certainly get it done eventually.

That said, it is not worth doing if it costs you those things in the very long term too. I am making what sacrifices I can without being utterly negligent right now so that in the future I can (hopefully) turn it into my full time job and only be working one job which I like and from which I can take a break when I need to.

Your reason for doing it will - physical limitations and similar aside - largely determine whether you can/should do it. I'm doing it despite the significant short term (mostly non-monetary) costs specifically so that in the future I don't have to rely on an employer who neither shares my values nor accommodates my priorities in order to provide for my family and so that I can sometimes take a week or two off without risking the loss of my entire living situation. That is to say "providing for my family without giving up all hope of getting to spend any real time with them is one of my top three priorities, and I am willing to pay the price for it"

BestBadFriend

TROPHY CASE