Cancer Survival for Software Developers

Paul Pareti writes "Doug Reilly has published an affecting, personal piece about Surviving Cancer if you're a Programmer. You don't have to be a sufferer to benefit from reading it, especially his conclusions, including the perspective-lengthening advice: 'Make sure you are not indispensable!'"

Wow

[Eightyford]

Make sure you are not indispensable!

Wow. That just may be the first ever selfless good deed.

You forgot step six...

[Anonymous Coward]

6. Prophet

Re:You forgot step six...

[kalirion]

Depending on the TOS, step 4 may disqualify you...

Re:Yeah right

[kpainter]

Employee Bob: "Boss, I hate to bring bad news but I have incurable cancer. I need to review the comments in my code right away and make sure that someone can step in for me when I am gone".

Boss: "Bob, this in a strange way, is very fortunate. Meet Rajii here from India. He was going to be replacing you anyway. Its a win-win!"

Maybe not the Employer's biggest concern

[kpainter]

Once they find out you are going to die of a long, painful and VERY EXPENSIVE death, I am guessing they are more concerned at how much their medical insurance costs are going to increase because of your illness. Maybe they are thinking it would be better if you were hit by a bus (since you are going to check out anyway). And, oh yeah, make sure those comments are up to snuff.

Re:This should be standard practice

[weegiekev]

That's just common courtesy if nothing else. If you think something is odd while you're writing it, imagine how it's going to look to someone else coming to it cold. I've lost count of the time I've seen wasted (and have wasted myself) investigating weirdness in code, or even removing things that look completely wrong only to have something break subtley in an apparently unrelated area.

Or for my favourite variation on this, spend ages investigating the weirdness, trying to clean it out whilst complaining "Who wrote this mess!?" only to find your name written at the bottom of the file.

And lets face it, we've all done it!

Re:If you are indespensible..

[eviloverlordx]

That doesn't just apply to cancer, either. It applies to diseases like MS, and even simply going out of business.

I agree, Microsoft is a disease, and it keeps spreading.

Re:If you are indespensible..

[Bellum Aeternus]

Yeah - I need to bone up on that reading with accuracy thing I keep hearing about...

Re:Prostitute Schedule for Mar. 8 at the MBOT in S

[Anonymous Coward]

$40!! $60!!! $100!!!!! Where the hell am I going to get that kind of money?!! I'm an open source programmer! I have no money!

Re:Got that one covered ....

[blowhole]

What's the olive oil for?