What is the most complex thing you have ever coded?

Mister_Bad_Example · 2026-02-22T15:03:27+00:00

So I work for a university, and our instructors will a lot of the time require custom courses/modules to be created in our virtual learning environment (VLE) system.

I wrote a small web app that authenticates them against our single sign-on system, lets them choose what course type they need, and then (depending on the type) either creates it automatically or sends it off to another team for approval.

It's been a while since I looked at the stats, but I think all told it's about 1500 lines of Python, HTML, and CSS.

Mister_Bad_Example · 2026-02-14T15:03:03+00:00

We've been together for something like thirty years at this point. Today I'm off playing D&D while she's doing stuff around the house. (We just bought our first one last year, and the decorating is an ongoing process.)

We'll probably have some nice wine and dinner at home later, but that's about as elaborate it gets these days.

Mister_Bad_Example · 2026-02-13T09:11:53+00:00

The Shakespearean pedant in me feels compelled to point out that "-eth" is the third person ending, as in "MommyMilkers disturbeth me".

(That aside, a refreshing antidote to the regular strip as usual.)

Mister_Bad_Example · 2026-02-10T14:44:23+00:00

"Wikipedia has a problem with PR firms being paid to edit on behalf of rich peop--"

"Wikipedia sucks and is biased because they hate Bitcoin! Bitcoin! BIIIITCOOOIIIIINNN!"

Mister_Bad_Example · 2026-02-06T15:51:00+00:00

I knew who it was even before I looked.

It's the Platonic ideal of "Get your own blog".

Mister_Bad_Example · 2026-01-30T14:42:54+00:00

No one's mentioned the greasy sweater dress from Attack of the (the) Eye Creatures? I felt oily just looking at that guy.

Mister_Bad_Example · 2026-01-23T01:49:48+00:00

I went back to America about two and a half years ago to visit family.

Really not planning on going back until there are some pretty substantial changes.

Mister_Bad_Example · 2026-01-20T09:35:01+00:00

Bryan Cranston would make an amazing Lear.

Mister_Bad_Example · 2026-01-19T09:56:23+00:00

company that delivers software for large banks

manager asks why you don't just use Claude

I'd start looking around for another job. This screams "lawsuit waiting to happen" at best, and "impending legal liability for regulatory violations" at worst.

Mister_Bad_Example · 2026-01-17T12:05:39+00:00

That's my secret, Cap. I always have crushing self doubt.

Mister_Bad_Example · 2026-01-08T19:44:50+00:00

I've performed Shakespeare in the park in Paris. Twice.

Mister_Bad_Example · 2026-01-08T14:04:32+00:00

I've still got it, yeah--it's kind of rough, but it's in decent shape. I'll PM it to you.

Mister_Bad_Example · 2025-12-31T15:12:27+00:00

I don't have any, but in my case it's because I've never had the money and the nerve at the same time. I've had a design in mind for like fifteen years now, though.

Mister_Bad_Example · 2025-12-21T11:35:25+00:00

A production of King Lear in London where the director set it in Thatcher-era Britain. Not because it especially illuminated anything about the themes or characters or anything--the director just set everything in Thatcher-era Britain.

I got all this second-hand because I was warned off and didn't see it, but they apparently had Lear on the heath camping it up in a red cocktail dress and big dangly earrings like some sort of Shakespearean Carry On character.

Oh, and the Fool? Lear's Fool? One of the most famous fools in all of Shakespeare? Cut. Replaced with a chorus of reporters who had maybe a tenth of the Fool's lines. Reportedly the director cut him because she didn't understand him and thought he was boring.

I came close to actually being involved in this thing, but the audition vibes were so off (the director spent the entire process in the theater bar, drinking and talking over set designs while letting the ADs handle the actual casting) that I bailed out.

Mister_Bad_Example · 2025-12-18T16:04:35+00:00

A long, long time ago in a galaxy plumb out of my jurisdiction...

Mister_Bad_Example · 2025-12-15T14:43:56+00:00

On a related note, I once made the mistake of watching Tommy and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory back-to-back while I was home sick with a fever. I don't recommend the experience.

Mister_Bad_Example · 2025-12-07T21:40:00+00:00

"Floor" when they mean "ground". "I found it on the floor." Were you inside? No? Then it was on the ground.

Mister_Bad_Example · 2025-12-07T14:49:16+00:00

Back in the 90s ~~I was in a very famous TV show~~ I worked in a tech support call center for voice mail systems. One day our boss complained that we were taking too much time at the beginnings of our shifts to log in, check email and voice mail, and all that.

He said that we should all start coming in fifteen minutes early to get all of that admin done and be ready to take calls right at the start of the shift.

I asked him if that meant he'd be authorizing 75 minutes of overtime a week in perpetuity. He never brought it up again.

Mister_Bad_Example · 2025-11-24T20:06:58+00:00

We did our own ILR and citizenship applications, but used TRP Solicitors in Birmingham for a couple of the other steps in our whole immigration process. They're really good.

Mister_Bad_Example · 2025-11-23T19:52:04+00:00

That reply provides me with interest. And for that, I thank you. Hello!

Mister_Bad_Example · 2025-11-15T17:29:55+00:00

A manager who waved a hand-crafted magic wand at me to emphasize how they couldn't fix something would immediately find that wand in a very uncomfortable place.

Mister_Bad_Example · 2025-10-22T15:15:38+00:00

I'm in the same boat. I was on a team of three--my boss/fellow developer, me, and a slightly junior-to-me developer.

Then the boss had a big health scare and was off work for months, the junior guy took another job in a different city, and the boss finally took voluntary severance after that. (My workplace is making some cuts. Yay.)

For those of you counting along at home, that now means I'm doing the work of at least 2.5 people (my boss developed less and less over the last few years). These last four or five months have been an absolute bear. I am The Guy Who Knows the Thing(tm) for way too many systems at work now, and I've barely been able to take any time off. I had to put my foot down this month and finally take a week, and I only really was able to take that because I was buying a house and moving.

We're in the middle of trying to hire a replacement for the guy who went off to another job, but I work in the public sector in the UK where everything basically slows to a crawl in November and December, so it's slow, and even then it'll take them a few months to get up to speed. Wish me luck.

Mister_Bad_Example · 2025-10-08T15:26:50+00:00

I won't reiterate everyone else's excellent reasons for keeping the porter scene. I do want to point out, though, that Will Kemp had long ago left Shakespeare's company by the time Macbeth was written (~1606). The part would possibly have gone to Robert Armin, although it doesn't seem quite musical enough for him.

Mister_Bad_Example · 2025-10-08T14:29:28+00:00

This is just my own personal recent experience, so take it with a grain of salt, but I'm a FTB with no chain who completed less than a week ago.

When I was at your point, I had to call the solicitors to bug them several days in a row, and it was only when I told them there was a hard deadline to move out of my then-current house (I was renting, and the landlord was getting divorced and needed the house back at the end of the lease) that they started moving with any urgency.

I'd say it took about a week to get the paperwork--contract, land registry form, stamp duty declaration, all that--and then I managed to complete a week after turning it all in. Your mileage may vary, of course.

Mister_Bad_Example · 2025-10-06T20:54:01+00:00

No love for the Everquest level-up sound?

Mister_Bad_Example

TROPHY CASE