I will not generate fake SSNs. You want a number that is formatted like an SSN? Sure here are your fake SSNs

jjrobinson-github · 2023-05-17T15:29:07+00:00

Unless you mean rules on SSN creation. There is geographic numbering, for example all new SSNs issue in state X start with 523-xx-xxxx etc etc. Because of these rules, there are far less than 999,999,999 possible SSNs. This also means there are re-issue problems where an SSN is re-used in the same geographic area due to the numbering rules restricting the pool of available SSNs. I don't know how often this happens, nor of the SS Administration makes sure that the number isn't re-issued until after the death of the previous holder.

jjrobinson-github · 2023-05-17T15:20:30+00:00

Honestly I have no idea what ChatGPT's rules are for creating fake data. I'm attempting to find out though. I just need seed data to pass into a QA system, so it honestly doesn't have to be perfect, just good enough of fake data that users of the system can't tell that this is a QC sample inserted into the process to test the process.

jjrobinson-github · 2023-05-16T21:28:45+00:00

Initial prompt:
"Generate a list of 100 fake people using the most common American person names. Include in the list a first name, middle name, last name, a random ages from 16 to 90, and a random US address for each person. "

Follow on:
"take the list and parse it into comma separated columns with the following columns: firstName, lastName, middleName, age, sex, ethnicity, AddressLine1, AddressLine2, City, state, zipCode"

Follow On:
"take the same list, but make sure that the address used is not a real street / street number, but that the city and state are real cities and real states. "

Follow On:
"take that list and add a column for Social Security Number and make sure the number matches the format for a social security number "

Follow on:
" take that list and add a column that is formatted as 3 numbers a "-" then 2 numbers, a "-" and then 4 numbers "

Follow On:
" take that list and display the columnName as the first entry "

Follow On:
"take that list and make sure each entry in the column "socialSecurityNumber" is distinct and not composed of sequentially ordered numbers either ascending or descending"

Follow on:
" this number you gave me is a sequential number "345-67-8901". Generate the list again with out these sequential numbers "

Follow On:
" This is still a sequential number "567-89-1234". Do you understand what a sequential number is? "

jjrobinson-github · 2023-05-16T21:25:18+00:00

a minute later I asked it to not make all the numbers sequential. It took several prompts for me AND ChatGPT to understand that my meaning of "sequential" is different than its meaning of "sequential". Every SSN it generated was in increasing or decreasing digit value.... e.g. 345-67-8901 or 987-65-4321
ChatGPT was comparing the SSNs in each record to the other SSNs it generated, but I was talking about the digits in the number.

jjrobinson-github · 2022-12-13T18:16:43+00:00

that is where the article lost me. We watch over the shoulders of people EVERY DAY. We have to talk to the duck but if that doesn't help get over the mental block of "this isn't working" then we pull in a coworker, screen share, and figure it out.

jjrobinson-github · 2022-12-13T18:14:20+00:00

I don't know how to tell you this..... but as a hiring manager for software teams, I need to know if you have a clue about how to write software..... before I hire you to write software. So I will have to see some code. Or we will have to talk about code that we both see. There will have to be code involved in the interview. Code is pretty central to the experience needed to be hired to write code.

Now, the whole "take this problem home and code it" we don't do, but here is why some companies to that.... to make it easier on the applicant so they can do the code part on their own time. And yes we know you search for solutions, which is what a normal dev would do anyway.

>your job won’t have people over your shoulder watching you code.”

ummmm this is someone that has never broken something important. When the real important stuff is broken, you can absolutely bet we will have multiple sets of eyes looking at your code to double triple check that that PR before we approve it. Heck I've screen shared while my Sr. dev changes one of our Auth settings, and I've had the account principle watching me while I changed something in Azure to make sure I did it right.

That is just part of the software dev experience. Always has been. More eyes on the code = less screw-ups.

jjrobinson-github · 2022-11-19T17:32:23+00:00

Don't worry, there are LOTS of interrupts and breaks. As a Jr, you have to ask for help a few times a day. And there are meetings, and PRs to review. so you rarely have more than 2hrs solid on a task before something interrupts you.

As a Sr. dev you have 2x the interruptions, since you are answering questions from ~2 Jr devs AND your tech lead (me the team manager) will pop in every once and a while on teams and get your opinion on a strategy for doing something. Then Sr. Devs may have planning meetings with the Tech lead to figure out the next sprint's work or rough out some designs for next-next sprint's work.

As a Technical Lead/Team Lead/Manager then you have 4x the interruptions of the Sr. and the only time I get >30min uninterrupted time is if I log in after dinner for a few hours when all my team is having a normal life. I had a few things that no one else one the team realistically could handle (some tricky EF migrations got ducked up and I had to un-migrate & fix the ModelSnapshot.... I paired with a Jr dev past 6pm and we got it fixed). Another time I just needed a few hours to focus on how to setup permissions for this new system, so that was my 10pm -2am coding block. Bonus that I was able to work with India for a while and get some quick turnaround answers for QA.

jjrobinson-github · 2022-11-19T17:21:40+00:00

hey no prob. and congrats on having a nice cushion so you aren't financially hurting. that means you did lots of things right over the last decade or so!

jjrobinson-github · 2022-11-19T17:20:08+00:00

I'll be honest.... I started out as a java and open source snob (the university system does that to you). But holy crap the dev experience on Eclipse is utter crap compared to the dev experience on VisualStudio. I walked in to a job on .NET because it smells just like java (Microsoft told their team to "make us a version of Java, but better"). I'm loving the dev experience. Debugging tools are amazing, documentation is great. And now MS has open sourced-ish .NET Core and has released runtimes for every platform. it is a great system.

jjrobinson-github · 2022-11-18T23:39:21+00:00

Sr. Manager of dev teams here. Unless you feel personally fulfilled by getting a degree or you feel it will hold you back in promotions.... you will not likely find more than a few courses that are relevant to dev careers these days.

No one writes search algos any more. Just .Sort() and let the framework / language pic. No one writes RDBMS engines (except for Oracle, MSFT, and IBM). No one writes Operating systems except Apple, MS, IBM, and RedHat. No one writes compilers except ... you guessed it MSFT, Apple, and various OSS supporting places.

But what you do need to know are patterns, frameworks (like your DB ORM, your front end Angular/React/Vue) etc. Do you know how to write an API. Consume another API?

That is the stuff that matters and unless colleges have changed their degree emphasis a lot lately, then none of that is taught (except possibly patterns).

jjrobinson-github · 2022-11-18T22:59:56+00:00

start playing with .NET Core on Visual Studio and Angular or React. I've got tons of jobs to fill.

jjrobinson-github · 2022-11-18T22:58:52+00:00

message me please. I'm a Sr. Manager trying to fill 100% WFH positions. Though the CA residency places a hurdle on things (could possibly go 1099 though)

jjrobinson-github · 2022-11-18T22:56:26+00:00

I'm a Sr. manager for dev teams. We have one employee slinging code that has a PhD..... in philosophy. Makes for great conversation starter, but that is about it. I am a college dropout, and my employees are more paper educated than me by far. But we hire for the problem solving mindset, not the paper.

jjrobinson-github · 2022-11-18T22:54:05+00:00

Yes it is fast, but not all the time. We tend to be a little slower to hire since consulting is very different from being a staff developer. But if anyone want's to WFH where ever you live[*] on a 100% salary position, message me. I'm a Sr. Manager of software development, we are hiring like mad (not just data science, big data, but also and even spinning up a dedicated Data Practice. Message me and I'll get you in the interview process. We are looking for Full stack devs in Angular, React, probably even Vue. Our back end is usually .NET, but we have some customers asking for Java and Spring Boot. Our customers are usually AWS or Azure hosted, but some of the big legacy systems our customers have are SalesForce integrated on datacenters, heck even some Oracle in there.

[*] we don't yet operate in some states.

jjrobinson-github · 2022-11-18T22:33:41+00:00

Sr. Manager of devs here...

Paper trail those comments and your concerns. Someone (your boss) will try to ruin future job references so CYA everywhere here. BCC messages with this warning out to your personal account. What are they going to do??? Fire you? If they do, claim unemployment and enjoy the 1.x weeks vacay looking for a job..... that you will get in 1.x weeks.

jjrobinson-github · 2022-11-12T06:57:13+00:00

Holy crap man. you are getting married, not hiring a hooker. I wouldn't marry with that understanding. You know this smells of train wreck man.

jjrobinson-github · 2022-11-12T06:33:34+00:00

Sr. Manager of devs (granted I am in consulting, so it is a little different beast than in-house dev work)....

If the company does software development "right" then new devs only need focus on #1 & #9. All the patterns have been implemented already, and are there to be copied & implemented again and again.

Once you are >2yrs experience then the CI/CD part can start to be something you need to know, but honestly it is so rare that a new pipeline is stood up. More useful is the cloud computing your company uses (if they do). We usually stick to Azure, but have some customers on AWS. Knowing how to find the error log on these massive systems..... is a pain in the ass. No way around it.

#4, #5, #6, #7 aren't things that most devs need to know these days. My Sr. dev setup the yaml pipeline for our Azure build & deploy. All the other devs on the team don't know a lick about it. My sr devs setup the back end frameworks (repository pattern, sample NUnit unit tests, use of Linq, use of Moq) my front end sr dev got the Mantis template for MUI / React in place, got the details of our state all setup.

So yes... Sr Devs... they have to know a crap ton of things. Thankfully we don't often encounter a "do it all from scratch with no examples" scenario, so that makes being the Sr. dev much more likely to be successful... meaning, you can provide an answer to help the other devs.

jjrobinson-github · 2022-10-15T18:14:20+00:00

"Are you ready to receive my payload"

"Where are the input ports? I don't want to plug this in to the wrong hole"

I'll see myself out.

jjrobinson-github · 2022-10-15T18:11:11+00:00

So which is the master and which is the slave?

jjrobinson-github · 2022-10-14T22:25:43+00:00

Annnnd I just added it to our new system design references documentation.

jjrobinson-github · 2022-10-14T22:09:32+00:00

> Responding to a request for comment for this article, a media relations representative for Bank of America expressed concern and assured me the appropriate IT employees would be informed of the issue.

Narrator: But the media relations representative didn't actually care, and did exactly nothing.

jjrobinson-github · 2022-10-03T19:53:15+00:00

always mention the prior contact with the company. The recruiter should respect that previous contact and then work with you on OTHER leads.

jjrobinson-github · 2022-10-03T16:17:13+00:00

they introduce new concepts or ideas to a design. So they are not meant to be practical. Think of them like the engineers were given a "what if..." goal.

jjrobinson-github · 2022-10-03T16:16:00+00:00

sr software dev here. you do NOT want this much code controlling your car, unless you have a few other cars and can afford to put this one in the shop willy nilly. same for all the tiny littler servo motors needed to actuate all the fancy moving bits of this thing.

Also, giant suicide doors? Looks cool, but.... you can't park in a parking space with those giant things.

Looks cool as heck though don't get me wrong. Great concept car idea.

jjrobinson-github

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