Back in 2016 (wow, almost a decade now…) I got a job with a group who used Word docs to email instructions on how to update your code with their changes. For example, “In file xyz.php, go to line 123 and replace with .”

One of my first tasks was getting that group set up with git. But I will never forget that was their best way to version control code… in 2016.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I requested a code snippet and instructions for work, I got an email, with a word document attached.

In the word document there was a screenshot of the code I needed.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago

This only could’ve been better if this was a picture frame a phone of the monitor with the screenshot open in whatever the default screenshot app is for the is.

[–] Beanie 2 points 2 months ago

Wow, massive red flag. How quickly did you quit?

[–] [email protected] 28 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Was their office under a rock somewhere? How had none of them stumbled upon what every other programmer in the world does?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago

PHP extension might be telling. Consider that phpBB had an extention system that didn't have any kind of hooks. All extensions were installed by modifying the code in place. They did not use any of the diff formats already out there; in a gross case of Not Invented Here, they made their own. Took them a while to make their own patch tool to automatically apply their custom diff, and it was buggy as hell.

So that shop might have just been following the lead of one of the most successful PHP apps.

Someone will be along to say "PHP is good now, actually", but I don't care. The community was shit back then, and I don't see why anyone should care beyond legacy software at this point.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Man that's wild. There were devs sending these instructions?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago

To be honest, I sincerely doubt they were devs, maybe support staff... I mean, come on, I'm just an engineer and even I can think of a better way to do that, even if I absolutely must not use any CVS.

[–] ertai 13 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I don't. No. This isn't real. He's lying, surely he's lying. It's just a person on the internet making a joke right?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I'd believe it's real. In 2016 I was at a company trying to migrate off an old IBM mainframe and green screens. It wasn't like an airline with complex or critical code; it was just a barely functional ERP for a warehouse. Source control was the furthest thing from their minds. Some companies and IT departments are very reluctant to change, regardless of how much time and money it save.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The kind of place where "backups" means playing Russian Roulette with one set of old ass tapes, if you're lucky.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

Yeah, it was all tapes. We only had to use them once when I worked there: after finding out the UPS connected to the mainframe was a dud. And then it really was roulette because the first two tapes were unreadable, so we ended up with three week old data.

[–] drcobaltjedi 7 points 2 months ago

My first like real programming job, in 2019, version control was "download the project from the share drive, update the code, then add your new code back to the share with todays date in the folder name".

Everyone, except 1 dude liked SVN or mercurial, wanted the boss to just get us on git. It became the general standard for a reason. None of us liked the version control system we had, but HDD space was cheap so the boss wasn't that concerned.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I wouldn't do version control that way, but I've used Word to keep track of what I'm working on during integration tasks. It's nice because you can drop in code, error messages, and screen captures. E.g.: the tool looks like this: (image) but gives an error like this: (error message) and I think the problem is in file.py around lines XYZ: (code snippet) when I run the command (command used), and I think the answer is in (a couple links I found).

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

I've used word/onenote or FOSS equivalents the same way, they're fine as a scratchpad for notes. As you said it's nice being able to shove images in there. There are so many things that don't belong anywhere else that I will forget after even a half hour break.