Sometimes I still see job postings that are like “MUST KNOW OBJECT ORIENTED PROGRAMMING” and I’m wondering who in 2026 isn’t at least passably familiar with it.

But then again I also see job posts that are like “must know Java or JavaScript”

Sure, could be. They didn’t have any automated checks, and I saw errors like “that’s too many parenthesis” and “you’re trying to use a library you didn’t add to the dependencies list” sail through.

I feel sorry for you and hope you cna find more fulfilling work that will let you grow, but I dont’t know what the job market is like right now

Where I work, there’s really no emphasis on code quality or testing. There’s also like no mentorship or senior developers leading the way.

They hired a guy with 1-2 years of experience and I feel really bad for him. Not only is he learning very little, he’s learning actively bad patterns. No one is teaching him about automated testing. Code reviews are just “you skim it. Don’t spend more than 30 minutes”.

Management of course loves LLMs and wants more usage.

guessing there is a correlation with MAGA.

Stupid, selfish, people.

This joke is why I will say to DMs getting railroad-y, “are you sure you wouldn’t rather write a book?”

No disagreement here.

I realized when reading one of the other comments that my similarly sized complaint is it creates a lot of potential for problems at the game level as well as narrative when people make their characters in isolation. I kind of assumed that comes packaged with “and you all meet in a tavern”.

Like, everyone makes a fighter and shows up to session 1. The dm’s going to have a head scratcher thinking about balance, and some players might be annoyed they don’t really have a niche of their own. A weird party like that can work, but it’ll be a happier experience if folks talk about it ahead of time.

It can work, as clearly shown by your rather wholesome example and many people’s games. But it’s also leaving a very large surface area for problems. Unlike real life, you can just avoid that by making your characters together.

Maybe I should have said in my previous thread that while the “you all meet for the first time” is kind of cliché, there are more serious problems at the game level. And like it can work if everyone makes a fighter, but you can also make everyone’s lives easier if you discuss up front.

So as a senior, you could abstain. But then your junior colleagues will eventually code circles around you, because they’re wearing bazooka-powered jetpacks and you’re still riding around on a fixie bike

Lol this works in a way the author probably didn’t intend. They are wearing extremely dangerous tools that were never really a great idea. They’ll code some circles, set their legs on fire, and crash into a wall.

I think the best game I’ve done started as “it’s a DND world and you’re a band on tour”.

It started with a simple “the bridge is out on the way to your next show”, then there was a battle of the bands, a sketchy record label, and then the players organized a recall of the mayor that was in bed with the capitalists. That game went great places.

Yeah I don’t think I would happily play another “and then you all meet for the first time and work together” game unless it was like intentionally subverting the trope. It adds so many problems and suspension of disbelief problems.

Yeah I think DND 3e had some wacky stuff with templates. Big effective level penalties if I recall for most of them

People are emotionally driven. Admitting something scary is more emotionally taxing than pretending it’s fake.

It’s not really that different from like

my_get_mock = Mock(side_effect=Some exception("oh no"))
result = some_func(http_getter=my_get_mock)

There’s many ways of writing bad code and tests, but mocks and patches aren’t always a bad tool. But sure, you can definitely fuck things up with them.

Javascript has mocking with jest: https://jestjs.io/docs/mock-functions

There’s an example there of mocking our axios (a common library for network requests, a la python requests)

It’s been a long time since I’ve used java, but mockito exists: https://site.mockito.org/javadoc/current/org/mockito/Mockito.html#2

(Usage note for anyone unfamiliar, but despite the name java and JavaScript are radically different languages.)

I vaguely remember Java also has mocking libraries, as does JavaScript. (Though JavaScript isn’t a language I’d hold up as the ideal.)

with patch("some_file.requests.get", side_effect=SomeException("oh no")):
  result = func_using_requests()

Though not every language makes mocking as easy, and multiple responsibilities in a single function can quickly get messy.

I used to be better at math and coding. If I pulled up my old project euler solutions I’m not sure I’d understand them anymore.

Pretty much every time I go to one of the local grocery stores I see a crew of firefighters roll up in their truck buying food.

I just link people to good posts I find on here.

You’re not going to get a typical apathetic person to change anything.

…what? Go do something else instead of watching YouTube-style content then. Read a book. Take up knitting. Do crosswords.

You can live a full life without Internet videos.