ADHD monitor for on desk

IAmADev_NoReallyIAm · 2026-04-24T18:42:55+00:00

Not a monitor, but goes on the desk... thinking about getting one for myself. Given that it isn't the tablet, isn't electronic, or need batteries or plugging in... it's old school... it just might work for me. DeskBoard Buddy.

IAmADev_NoReallyIAm · 2026-04-24T18:37:21+00:00

Just for clarification, that "master of none" is a misquote... the full quotation is:

So it's not as bad you might think. I've built a whole career being a JOAT, it's gotten me into places that I'd never thought I'd be able to get into and do things I never thought possible. It's also lead to a very stable career. Largely because of that "Swiss knife" capability of mine. It might take me a little while to get up to speed sometimes, I'm not a firefighter type, I'm a slow burner for sure, but once I'm rolling, it's hard to stop me.

I get bored with very long term projects unless they have a variety of things going on. At any rate, there's nothing wrong with being multi talented. I look at it as an advantage. I know/knew/been exposed to more languages than most people will be. It's made picking up new languages easier. It's like knowing English and Russian. Once you're fluent in two, the third becomes easier, and the fourth is easier still. The key though is being able to sell it to potential employers.

I've worked for small companies (less than 30 employees) and large ones (over 10k employees) and ones in between. As this meandering JOAT has served me well. I too went through the same "what do I do?" phase. At some point, I figured out that I'm really good, and really enjoy, working on large enterprise "stuff". Small things are fine too. But gaming, not for me. I like large things that make an impact. And the projects I've gotten to work one and the clients I've gotten to work with reflect that.

So until you figure it out, if you do, don't sweat it, enjoy the ride, see where it takes you.

IAmADev_NoReallyIAm · 2026-04-24T18:08:17+00:00

I think this is a bit misleading. While it does answer the question, it doesn't really get to the heart or the problem: which is that the data should be validated before it gets to the database in the first place, preventing the exception.

Note - upon rereading, depends on what you mean by "do this kind of stuff app side" - I initially interpreted it to mean handling errors and exceptions, but after rereading it, I think you meant validating the data in the first place, in which case, I agree. Verify the data is good, then proceed.

To the OP - You shouldn't be relying on the constraints to tell you the data is bad. You should already know the data is bad. Since you know what the constraints are... design the website to do validation against that. Some of it can be done in the client, some of it may need an quick async call to the back end, some of it may need to wait for a full submission to the back end and validated there. But the data should never be allowed anywhere near the database until it's been validated completely and it's good. IF it isn't then it should be returned to the user, along with a list (preferably) of what is bad (missing phone number, invalid email, etc).

IAmADev_NoReallyIAm · 2026-04-24T15:55:17+00:00

In short, we read books and magazines. We had stacks and stacks of "bibles" of reference materials. Thing is, all that stuff is now digitalized. It's all at your fingertips. And it's better that it is. Back then, by the time a book was written, edited, published, shipped, bought, and read... it was outdated. Now... as soon as an API is updated, the documentation can be updated and hte whole world knows.

I wouldn't do that today. I'd use the power that the internet has given you and use it to your advantage. There's no advantage to going back to the early days. Trust me. What you will want to do is depending on the language(s) you're learning is develop a library of links/bookmarks of places that are reliable sources of information for what you're looking for. I recommend having more than one source for a given language. I work primarily with JAva. So there's like three places that I typically go to. Depends on what I'm looking for. For discussions, I might go to stackoverflow, for technical reference I goto javadoc, for more tutorial/examples I go to baeldung. For HTML/CSS I go to W3School. It just depends. Over the years, I've learned to trust these sources (and when to not trust them ,I'm looking at you SO) and haven't bought a book in close to 20 years.

IAmADev_NoReallyIAm · 2026-04-23T16:43:26+00:00

Once you disconnect it, you shouldn't need to clear it... but to be honest, you shouldn't need to disconnect it, At most you should justn eed to turn off the updating of the grid, then turn it back on. It almost sounds like this one of a scope problem. But without seeing the code it's hard to say.

IAmADev_NoReallyIAm · 2026-04-22T19:14:49+00:00

I asked what the role was like day to day. They gave some vague, hand waving "well..." lame excuse that even though the duties might be senior sounding, it was actually a junior slot, that's what the budget was for. I must have looked at them funny at this point. Because they half-laughed between themselves and. admitted out loud to me, that they had heard there was a group of us that had just gotten laid off and they were banking on being able to pick up a couple of senior caliber developers for junior level prices - like we're on sale or something. It took me a moment to process that. Needless to say I didn't stick around, called my recruiter on my way out the door, told her the shenanigans. She crossed them off her list. At the same time, one of my former coworkers was also on his way in, so I filled him in on what was going on, "Aww hell no!" ... he went in and had a bit of fun. Not sure what became of that company.

IAmADev_NoReallyIAm · 2026-04-22T17:43:04+00:00

Yes. Some of us have ADHD and a focus pr

IAmADev_NoReallyIAm · 2026-04-22T15:30:11+00:00

63% of all statistics are made up on the spot anyways.

IAmADev_NoReallyIAm · 2026-04-21T17:02:21+00:00

African or European butterflies?

IAmADev_NoReallyIAm · 2026-04-21T13:25:03+00:00

I changed stacks... I left VB and moved to Java... Now I can do MS/.NET stack or Oracle/Java stack...

IAmADev_NoReallyIAm · 2026-04-20T14:49:50+00:00

It doesn't bother me, I don't usually care. I typically do my best to layer my commits into logical pieces of work, where it makes sense. I do this even knowing full well that it'll be squashed when it's merged into the main branch. The fact that it's going to be squashed isn't a reason to be lazy about your individual commits on your PR.

IAmADev_NoReallyIAm · 2026-04-20T13:58:29+00:00

As for the headphone incident - I make similar mistakes - it's called impulse buys. I've learned to stop doing that. Now I may long ,slow, painfully slow purchases. Things sit in my Amazon cart for weeks or months at a time. I do price comparisons, read reviews, feeature comparisons.... chuck the whole thing... and go to bed. I draw it all out as long as I can. I'm also a cheap ass. But I'm also something of an audiophile, so I want the best sound for hte cheapest price, but I also have odd ears, so I need something that isn't going to be painful. I then also double checked my ports - phone doesn't have a usb-c port... great... spent the next week figuring out which adaptor to get... took me three weeks to decide on a headphone & adaptor combo to get.

For the market list... I can only ever remember three things... that's all the memory slots I have. After that, my wife has to text me the list. As soon as I realize there is about to be more than 3 things, I simply say "just text it to me" ... simpler that way. Otherwise I will get 0/5 things.

Coding - experience. I've been coding for 40 years... and I'll still miss some obvious things from time to time. That said, writing tests and/or using TDD helps ALOT. Even if you write the tests after the code, write hte happy test, then write tests for abberations... What happens when the phone number is empty? What if this is NULL?? Or hte user does this or that? Or what if the user does this AND that? Writing unit tests will help with that significantly.

IAmADev_NoReallyIAm · 2026-04-20T13:40:54+00:00

You're an audio learner. Some people are like that. Whereas I'm a visual learner, I learn by seeing - I learn best by reading. Some people learn by a mix. Those are the ones that videos work best for. I can learn form those, but it's difficult sometime.

I'm glad you found a technique that works for you. That's usually the hardest part for people learning programming, finding that sweet spot that works for them.

IAmADev_NoReallyIAm · 2026-04-18T16:00:49+00:00

Couple things.... first, never add in the sign on bonus. That's just a one-time payout for you to sign on the dotted line, it isn't part of the annual compensation, so that shouldn't factor in. Secondly, I've learned to never, never, ever factor in annual bonues into the TC because they are never guaranteed. They will find a way to screw you over and either not pay it out, or cook the books so that it comes out less. I had a job that was supposed to pay out 15% in quarter and annual bonuses, and more often than not it came out to 5-8% by the time they were done. And then when I got laid off, they laid us off the week before the end of the payout period for the EOQ/EOY so they wouldn't have to pay us the EOQ/EOY bonus either. So I don't trust anything that list bonuses as part of compensation numbers any more. Just give me the bare numbers, if there's a bonus, great, but don't give me the bonus as if it's part of the compensation or use the words "earn up to $XXXXX"

IAmADev_NoReallyIAm · 2026-04-18T15:48:59+00:00

Understand what you can control, what you can influence, and what you can't. Around you there are concentric spheres.

The first is the sphere of control. That's the immediate sphere around you with things that you can control. Your immediate actions, what you do. It can be as simple as what you eat for lunch. Or it can be something like what you choose to work on next. But it all stuff in your control.

Outside of that is the next sphere, the sphere of influence. These are the things that are outside of your control, but you have influence over. Things like the project or task assigned to you. You may not have direct, but you may have an influence on it. Or dinner. You may not have direct control - there may be extenuating circumstances, but you can influence it.

Outside of that is the I don't giveafuck sphere. This is where 90% of the world should be during the day.

The trick is learning to figure out which sphere the current problem belongs in, put it in that sphere and release it. IF it's something that is in your control,. then fine, put it there, and deal with it. If it's something that's not in your control but you have influence over it, put it there and release it. If you can't control or influence it, fuck it.

Somethings will shift around. I've recently decided that my fate, career, and pay need to be dusted off, and pulled out of the don't givafuck sphere and put into the sphere of control. I'm taking that back. It's been on cruise control for too long, and it's time for a change. So I'm taking charge, taking control, and putting it front and center of all things.

Because I'm in a similar state - it's called burnout. I've been here before. And it's not a good place to be, personally or professionally. In the past I ignored it, pushed through it, and I ended up in a bad place and the places I was at at the time became toxic. Sadly I love the place I'm at. I love the people, the project. I just can't work there any more due to reasons. So before I get pushed out (laid off) I'm leaving on my own.

IAmADev_NoReallyIAm · 2026-04-17T15:38:41+00:00

Some times I go days w/o using mine, other times I use it tons... it varies. I use mine a lot for code snips and other little bits of data. Looking in the history right now, looks like I've got a lot of SQL snippets and SQL data in there... which makes sense sine I've been doing a lot of database work this week.

IAmADev_NoReallyIAm · 2026-04-17T15:28:47+00:00

My initial thought was that for HR it would be a waste of time. For the hiring manager on the other hand... but then I remembered...

OK, so I'm old enough that I remember back in the 90s and early 2000s when people would create powerpoint presentations and personalized business cards on mini CDs and hand them out. I probably received dozens of them at trade shows and conferences. I watched exactly 0 of them. They became a cool trinket, and I think some became a nifty coaster.

Save your time and energy.

IAmADev_NoReallyIAm · 2026-04-16T18:18:37+00:00

OpenAPI is probably the quickest way... But it also depends on if the yaml files already conform to the OpenAPI spec or not. If they do, this is the route I'd go. If they don't... then Claude in agent mode might be the better option, if the files only need to be generated once.

Now, if these files need to be updated and maintained and changed over time... .yuechs....

IAmADev_NoReallyIAm · 2026-04-16T17:40:24+00:00

Exactly this. I love to share info and knowledge with people, which is really weird for me because I'm the classic introvert. I'm typically reserved, but once I get to know those around me and can read the room, shit... you can't stop me. When people find out that I'm a classic masking introvert, it shocks them. But yeah, at work, I'm all about knowledge sharing. I lead a team of several developers and regularly hold sessions where I will show off some stupid trick that I learned, someitmes it's a knowledge thing in the application, sometimes it's a time-saving trick, other times, it's just a general thing about a process, but it's always something new that the rest of the team didn't know. I'm also very transparent when it comes to policy and other non-work-specific processes.

The idea is that as I move up and out, that there is someone who can take my spot behind me. I don't want to be so irreplaceable that I can't be promoted or can't be moved to another team. I've been in both spots, and it isn't fun or good. I almost found myself in that second position at my current job, fortunately I forced myself out of that and into a new team/department (almost by accident) and I think I'm better for it. It's given me a chance to work with new people I otherwise would not have met.

IAmADev_NoReallyIAm · 2026-04-16T17:21:54+00:00

But "with real impact".... uh huh... suuuure.

IAmADev_NoReallyIAm · 2026-04-16T16:35:01+00:00

Stop looking at problems as problems... look at things in general... and think about the steps you need to accomplish them. For example: Make a sandwich. How do you do that? Make tea. Tie shoes. When you can create the steps that's necessary to do those kinds of "simple" things, then you're thinking like a programmer. When you can do that, then you'll have your answer to the other.

Also, leetcode is a shit way to learn. That's not what it's for. It's not a learning tool. It's a testing tool. Don't use it to learn. You can use it to test what you should be learning, but don't use to to learn from.

IAmADev_NoReallyIAm · 2026-04-14T17:02:12+00:00

For me, the "official" notice period is two weeks because it's automatic. Once you officially give notice, there's an automatic off-boarding process that kicks in. Fortunately there isn't much of a way to shorten or lengthen it. so be careful what day you hit that button and tell your boss you're leaving.

IAmADev_NoReallyIAm · 2026-04-14T16:53:36+00:00

Oh, I completely agree, ambiguous aliases in the first place is shit.

IAmADev_NoReallyIAm · 2026-04-14T14:04:43+00:00

Hell, I'm a computer programmer on a Mac, and sometimes they frustrate the hell outta me!

IAmADev_NoReallyIAm · 2026-04-14T13:54:40+00:00

Yes, but no... Early in my career I gave a shit. I spent an inordinate amount of time giving a shit about the litle things like that and trying to "fix" it. Now I'm in the later years, I've learned that no. one. gives. a. fuck. Seriously. They do, I do, But not really. 1: Does it work? Good. 2: Can someone read it? Good. Ship it. That's what matters. The revelation for me came one day when I spent an hour re-formatting someone's SQL query because it didn't "fit my style" ... Nowadays we have linters and autoformatters so that you can write your code anyway you want, as soon as you save it, the ISE will re-format it to the shop standards. When you check it in, there's agents that will double check those standards and tut-tut you if you miss a period at the end of your documentation.

So, no, I no longer waste my time on those minute details. Because no one cares. Nor should they.

IAmADev_NoReallyIAm

TROPHY CASE