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No code on this one, just a shameless story.
A few years ago I was working for a not very nice person (no comments). We were doing a small application for Microsoft (we were an MS vendor), and they asked us to convert it to SharePoint Web Parts.
Well, at that time (looooong time ago) we were just starting with SharePoint so we didn't know how. Instead of taking the time to learn and do it right, the boss spent COUNTLESS HOURS copying how a SharePoint site looked like, pretty much taking CSS and submenus and he went to Microsoft to give the demo. Luckily I was not there, I wouldn't be able to lie like that.
Luckily the MS guys didn't pay much attention to the demo, they just kind of saw the UI and the meeting went on.
The point is: how shameless do you have to be to blatantly lie to your customer? (and your only one for that matter)
Oh well... some people go in life being dishonest ...
Not me. Honesty is like virginity. You can go around in life being dishonest, but once you lose it you never get it back!
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Unfortunately, most businesses work that way. Ethics seldom exist in business.
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Tis sad tis true, tis true tis sad. 
Just because the code works, it doesn't mean that it is good code.
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CIDev wrote: Tis sad tis true, tis true tis sad.
That quote is, "Tis true, tis pity, and pity tis tis true." Hamlet, act 2, scene 2.
See ma? I didn't just take geek classes in college.
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U r completely right dude! Now a days it more about Money then Ethics! And unfortunately that's true every where. 
Richard Menezes
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it's called Sales.
worked for a guy that was "12 credits from a Software Engineering degree" is what he'd tell his hires. Didn't know jack about software engineering, but could sell a freezer to an Eskimo. He routinely sold my time & talent by overcommitting me to deadlines and technologies.
I was there 7 months. 
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There is sales and then there is sales...
You can't build your company on a lie. You can sell stuff you don't have, like Bill Gates did but that is one thing. You can't show something and lie straight to that other person's face.
Oh, forgot to say. This guy was also fired from Microsoft 2 years before for trying to steal from them And then he started selling products TO Microsoft hahahaha
Just my humble opinion
My new toy: www.cloudclipx.com
-- If I have 8 hours to chop down a tree, I spend 6 sharpening my ax!
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I don't believe this ever happened.
Sounds like a total LIE to me.
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I know it is hard to believe.
My new toy: www.cloudclipx.com
-- If I have 8 hours to chop down a tree, I spend 6 sharpening my ax!
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xavier morera wrote: Honesty is like virginity. You can go around in life being dishonest, but once you lose it you never get it back!
I've never sold out... 
I'd blame it on the Brain farts.. But let's be honest, it really is more like a Methane factory between my ears some days then it is anything else...
-----
"The conversations he was having with himself were becoming ominous."-.. On the radio...
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As someone in this thread will note, its called sales. My way of dealing with those lying bastards is to try to get myself as high in the decision making tree as possible. I've been bit too many times by sales. After they sell a system that CAN'T work, you get the blame because you weren't competent enough to do the job, while the salesman smiles and spends his commission on a new car.
I was doing a conveyor system once and after it was done, I did some timing tests and told the salesman who happened to be on platform at the time, that it was doing 22 cartons a minute and could be ramped up to a maximum of 40 CPM. He goes, "Sssh, sssh, we sold it saying it could do 80." Dumbfounded, I exclaimed it could never do that! He pointed to the existing system that was working at the maximum it could with the existing human workflow, and said it would never need to.
This attitude combined with the one that software could ALWAYS overcome hardware problems, came back to bite them big time on two projects. Unfortunately, I was on one of them. The other system worked only if everything worked perfectly. The first thing you learn in material handing is NOTHING works 100%, 90% at best, that and FIFO doesn't work. But the system I was on, I got to function at 65 CPM. The floor manager was extremely pleased with it. But corporate was not. The contract said 120 CPM and they weren't going to sign off on it until they saw it do 120. I made myself unpopular by doing math (I always pi$$ people off when I do math) and found if everything worked perfectly, the hardware maxed out at 114. The salesman not only had used the wrong formula, he designed it with only a 1% safety margin using that formula. So the fallout---my manager was fired and the salesman is still there. I left shortly after this wonderful manager had been fired and they had brought in the bozo who virtually nothing about software.
Psychosis at 10
Film at 11
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Great article. That's what I guess happened to him.
My new toy: www.cloudclipx.com
-- If I have 8 hours to chop down a tree, I spend 6 sharpening my ax!
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xavier morera wrote: Oh well... some VERY RICH people go in life being dishonest ...
FTFY
IIRC, Bill Gates hired lots of temps and stuck them in a previously empty office during the first sales visit by IBM. Who started it?
But I thought the post was about those sham-wows seen on TV. 
Gary
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I used to work in the car computing industry. It was standard practice to show screen shots and videos of an interface that didn't really exist. The comments to me when developing an interface was always: It doesn't have to work, it just has to look like it does.
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But that is different and I would even say that it is acceptable. You can say "look at this, it is how it is going to work".
But can you say "here is the product, look how nice it is and it works" when in reality it is just smoke and mirrors?
My new toy: www.cloudclipx.com
-- If I have 8 hours to chop down a tree, I spend 6 sharpening my ax!
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Ha! Well I guess I can claim ignorance on the ethics side for what I created. I have no idea how they presented them to potential clients.
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Then you are not guilty. This guy did it with all the bad intentions! hahaha
My new toy: www.cloudclipx.com
-- If I have 8 hours to chop down a tree, I spend 6 sharpening my ax!
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Why is he copying the code?! He could just call the function this stuff is in again, and have it be properly recursive as a bonus.
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That is a really brilliant bit of code. 
Just because the code works, it doesn't mean that it is good code.
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Completely agree to you. And am the one responsible for their deliverables, as I am their lead.
Richard Menezes
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Don't mention that there's an error, just show him the code and ask him why he shouldn't be fired for being a total moron! If he is actually any good, he'll laugh about it and say, "Oh yeah, you're right, maybe you'll have to let me go!"
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While trying to find a possible infinite loop, I added the second line below:
while true do begin
Reset(CurrFile);
ReadLn(CurrFile,Pierce);
The break statement to exit the while loop depends on making it to a specific line in the file. Since I already read some lines before this, I thought just in case the line I was waiting for was above them, I would reset the file. After debugging this a few times, I realized that I was an idiot, and I moved the reset to just before the while...
The United States invariably does the right thing, after having exhausted every other alternative. -Winston Churchill
America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence without civilization in between. -Oscar Wilde
Wow, even the French showed a little more spine than that before they got their sh*t pushed in.[^] -Colin Mullikin
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I'm sure I've done that one. More than once.
Hangs head in shame...
Software Zen: delete this;
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