Devvjob indexes active job listings for software development vacancies in the UK. We use NLP and AI to try to understand the job copy to try to filter out some of the lower quality listings that you find online. There's a lot of room for improvement in this regard, but the scope is virtually endless and it's currently only an MVP, so we had to draw the line somewhere.

On the subject of identifying lower quality listings, one of the things we found was that some agencies repeat the same advert many, many times across multiple locations. The worst agency we found for duplicated adverts was Noir Consulting.

This is from a listing for a job in Bath:

.NET Developer applicants should have a skill set that encompasses .NET .NET Core 3.1 / ASP.NET MVC C# SQL Server and Agile. Full training will be provided into .NET 5 Blazor EF Core Azure JavaScript HTML5 CSS3 ML.NET Agile TDD BDD MongoDB and SQL Server 2019. Our client offers a truly refreshing working environment including flexible working hours some home working casual dress code onsite gym and games room and great benefits. This is an amazing opportunity to join a major force in the Internet arena industry with a proud heritage an enduring legacy and a promising future. Salary £40k £60k + Bonus + Car + Benefits.

This is from a listing for a job in Leeds:

.NET Developer applicants should have a skill set that encompasses .NET .NET Core 3.1 / ASP.NET MVC C# SQL Server and Agile. Full training will be provided into .NET 5 Blazor EF Core Azure JavaScript HTML5 CSS3 ML.NET Agile TDD BDD MongoDB and SQL Server 2019. Our client offers a truly refreshing working environment including flexible working hours some home working casual dress code onsite gym and games room and great benefits. This is an amazing opportunity to join a major force in the Internet arena industry with a proud heritage an enduring legacy and a promising future. Salary £40k £50k + Bonus + Car + Benefits.

What are the chances, eh?

Suffice it to say that Devvjob won't show you any jobs advertised by Noir.

]]> https://blog.asgaard.co.uk/recruiters-phone Fri, 19 Mar 21 11:32:01 +0000 https://blog.asgaard.co.uk/recruiters-phone There are a few reasons why recruiters always want a phone call instead of just providing the information up front.

One is that they're salespeople and they are treating recruiting like selling you a job, and they think it's easier to sell you something when they are actually speaking to you. This is a bit silly because a new job isn't something someone just takes on a whim and if they need to sell it to you then it's probably not a good fit, but recruitment is a competitive industry where people are pressured into meeting targets, so you end up with this kind of mindset.

Another reason is that they might be fishing for information. They'll pretend they have a job you might be interested in but they'll keep it vague because they actually just want to get you on a call so they can ask you questions. They might ask about your current employer or ask about other places you've interviewed, because they want some information that will give them a foot in the door with an empl[...]]]> There are a few reasons why recruiters always want a phone call instead of just providing the information up front.

One is that they're salespeople and they are treating recruiting like selling you a job, and they think it's easier to sell you something when they are actually speaking to you. This is a bit silly because a new job isn't something someone just takes on a whim and if they need to sell it to you then it's probably not a good fit, but recruitment is a competitive industry where people are pressured into meeting targets, so you end up with this kind of mindset.

Another reason is that they might be fishing for information. They'll pretend they have a job you might be interested in but they'll keep it vague because they actually just want to get you on a call so they can ask you questions. They might ask about your current employer or ask about other places you've interviewed, because they want some information that will give them a foot in the door with an employer who might have vacancies they can feed candidates into. You should, of course, never tell a recruiter where else you are interviewing, because they'll try to put in their own candidates in competition with you!

A third possibility is that they see you as being someone that they might be able to place into a job in future. They don't necessarily see that happening right now, but they want to get you into a conversation so they can find out more about you and more what would interest you so they can target you in future if something relevant comes up.

In each of these cases, speaking to a recruiter is pretty much a waste of your time. If they have a job they're trying to fill and they genuinely think you're a good match then they'll provide you with some information ahead of a call.

My rule of thumb for recruiters is if I think they're wasting my time, they probably are. I always ask for salary, location and job description up front before agreeing to a call and if they can't provide that then I ignore them. You'd be amazed how many just ignore what I've asked for and try to schedule a call though.

A not uncommon tactic is to pretend that they've had prior contact with you and they're following something up. For example, in the last week, I've had one recruiter email me requesting my phone number to "discuss the application I'd made" (I hadn't). And another one gave me quite a detailed story about how since we've spoken last week (we didn't) he's been in contact with the hiring manager and he thinks my [experience on my LinkedIn profile] is a great match. ]]> https://blog.asgaard.co.uk/godfather-family-dynasty Thu, 11 Feb 21 09:22:17 +0000 https://blog.asgaard.co.uk/godfather-family-dynasty A long time ago I used to play an ancient browser game called Travian. Travian was released in around 2004 and still exists to this day, so you can go and check it out if you want, but I'd really recommend you don't because it's just not a good experience. I imagine it's dated and feels clunky now, but really my issue is that it's just not fun.

It's a persistent world where players grow and build villages by farming resources and ransacking each other. I didn't play it for long, because within a few weeks I realised that I was running my life around it. It's always there, even when you're not, so unless you're OK with losing days or weeks of progress because someone attacked you when you were offline and unprepared, you have to run your whole life around it. Was it fun? No, it really wasn't. It was addictive. Big difference.

So when the Play Store's adverts thrust The Godfather: Family Dynasty in my face, I had mixed feelings. I had some free ti[...]]]> A long time ago I used to play an ancient browser game called Travian. Travian was released in around 2004 and still exists to this day, so you can go and check it out if you want, but I'd really recommend you don't because it's just not a good experience. I imagine it's dated and feels clunky now, but really my issue is that it's just not fun.

It's a persistent world where players grow and build villages by farming resources and ransacking each other. I didn't play it for long, because within a few weeks I realised that I was running my life around it. It's always there, even when you're not, so unless you're OK with losing days or weeks of progress because someone attacked you when you were offline and unprepared, you have to run your whole life around it. Was it fun? No, it really wasn't. It was addictive. Big difference.

So when the Play Store's adverts thrust The Godfather: Family Dynasty in my face, I had mixed feelings. I had some free time, I quite liked the Godfather, it said it was free... but as I got a bit further into it (you don't unlock the 'world' to begin with) - wait, doesn't this look a lot like Travian?

After playing The Godfather: Family Dynasty for a few weeks and becoming interested enough to look at other games in the Play Store, it seems that Travian was the prototype of what I'd called predatory mobile games.

The Godfather: Family Dynasty is pay to win. Well, at least, it's pay to beat other players. The core gameplay loop of TG:FD is that you gather resources (which may involve attacking other players, or being attacked), then use those resources to upgrade buildings and train troops. Every level of upgrade takes longer than before. Before long you're looking at upgrades that take several days to complete. The pay-to-win aspect comes in by allowing you to buy speed-up items.

Calling it to pay to win is slightly misleading though. You pay to speed up tasks by a constant amount. But those tasks take an ever increasing amount of time to complete. The mathematics of this doesn't make it seem appealing.

The only person winning here is the person taking the player's money. In fact, on the server I played on, there was another player complaining that he'd put thousands of pounds into another server only for it to die off as players became bored and the server emptied. He considered it wasted money as it didn't transfer to the new server. That's quite an extraordinary inflationary feedback loop: As you pay more to become stronger than other players, other players will become disheartened and leave, leaving you with no one to play with, making your money wasted.

Ignoring the monetisation aspect, the other problem with these games is that they demand your attention on their own schedule. You can't think "I have a spare half hour, I'll boot up the game" because you there might be nothing in the game for you to do. Conversely, when something is happening in the game, you need to react to it in real time, so you may have to give your attention when it's not convenient for you. Feeling that you have to always be aware of it makes the game addictive, even though it's actually quite boring because there's often nothing to do.

The Godfather branding is a very superficial layer. Occasionally the likeness of one of the characters appears on your screen, but that's about the only connection to the Godfather it has. The game itself is mostly focused on building a lot of troops and throwing them at other people, which has no obvious connection to The Godfather at all. The Godfather is a film about family and business with crime sprinkled in liberally. This is a game about building armies. The game is developed by a Chinese developer and if you told me that nobody developing the game had ever heard of the film before being involved with the game, I'd believe you. The English is also quite dubious.

I'm surprised that Paramount Studios have allowed The Godfather's brand to be associated something that comes across as a bit cheap. At the time of writing, The Godfather film is almost 50 years old. It's a classic film that has stood the test of time and is still regarded as a world class piece of art. TG:FD is not a world class piece of art. It is hard to overstate just how far TG:FD is from being a world class piece of art.

But then it seems par the course - Pirates of the Caribbean has a very similar looking app... actually, hang on, that UI looks very familiar. And what's this, Game Of War also looks remarkably familiar...

Overall I think this is just the cheap world of mobile games. There are a huge number of games that are all basically the same, but adapted in relatively minor ways to fit different franchises or art styles. The Godfather: Family Dynasty is just one among many of a set of clones of basically the same game. The only way it stands out is by attaching itself to a hugely successful movie franchise, but then fails in-game to connect to what made the movies interesting.

]]> https://blog.asgaard.co.uk/app-store-reviews-reliable Fri, 29 Jan 21 11:05:57 +0000 https://blog.asgaard.co.uk/app-store-reviews-reliable Are app store reviews reliable? Well, anyone who knows anything about app store reviews, or online reviews in general, knows the answer is no. App reviews are gamed by developers and the overall rating generally corresponds to how much the developer games the system rather than anything useful.

But that's not really what prompted me to write this.

There is an internet drama being played out between Reddit's WallStreetBets (WSB) and some hedge funds. WSB has pumped up the price of Gamestop stock, which has led to various hedge funds losing a huge amount of money. This should be fine - the hedge funds were gambling on something that didn't happen, and they knew the risks.

However, in response to this, some platforms have restricted the trading of Gamestop stocks. This infuriated a lot of people who were investing in Gamestop stocks, as the platforms' behaviour influenced the price of the stock.

Predictably, a lot of people started leaving one-star reviews on the Play Store, and, for ex[...]]]> Are app store reviews reliable? Well, anyone who knows anything about app store reviews, or online reviews in general, knows the answer is no. App reviews are gamed by developers and the overall rating generally corresponds to how much the developer games the system rather than anything useful.

But that's not really what prompted me to write this.

There is an internet drama being played out between Reddit's WallStreetBets (WSB) and some hedge funds. WSB has pumped up the price of Gamestop stock, which has led to various hedge funds losing a huge amount of money. This should be fine - the hedge funds were gambling on something that didn't happen, and they knew the risks.

However, in response to this, some platforms have restricted the trading of Gamestop stocks. This infuriated a lot of people who were investing in Gamestop stocks, as the platforms' behaviour influenced the price of the stock.

Predictably, a lot of people started leaving one-star reviews on the Play Store, and, for example, Robinhood's rating plunged from around 4.2 to 1 star.

Unpredictably, Google has since removed hundreds of thousands of one star reviews from Robinhood, restoring their original rating of 4.2. Google has questions to answer about why they're deleting reviews that voice legitimate user complaints.

Personally I think it's time we dumped store ratings. They're artificial and unhelpful at the best of times, and if app stores are going to artificially manipulate them then they're completely without use.]]> https://blog.asgaard.co.uk/amazon-app-store Sun, 03 Jan 21 18:45:58 +0000 https://blog.asgaard.co.uk/amazon-app-store Today, I was trying to get Wellburrito onto the Amazon App Store.

I didn't expect it to pass validation first time because it has dependencies on a few Google services that I wasn't sure existed on Amazon devices. I expected it to fail with a message saying this, and then we'd have to discuss whether or not to launch a limited version of it with those dependencies removed.

That didn't happen.

What actually happened was that it failed validation with the following message:

Your app submission does not meet one or more of our acceptance criteria for some or all targeted devices. Failure reason(s) are listed below: We are unable to test your app as it does not function as intended. The app exits/ force closes/ freezes/ displays an error message after being launched. Please fix the issue and re-submit the app.

This is a resoundingly unhelpful message. We're not going to randomly change our code and hope it passes validation. Why doesn't Amazon include the logcat output so[...]]]> Today, I was trying to get Wellburrito onto the Amazon App Store.

I didn't expect it to pass validation first time because it has dependencies on a few Google services that I wasn't sure existed on Amazon devices. I expected it to fail with a message saying this, and then we'd have to discuss whether or not to launch a limited version of it with those dependencies removed.

That didn't happen.

What actually happened was that it failed validation with the following message:

Your app submission does not meet one or more of our acceptance criteria for some or all targeted devices. Failure reason(s) are listed below: We are unable to test your app as it does not function as intended. The app exits/ force closes/ freezes/ displays an error message after being launched. Please fix the issue and re-submit the app.

This is a resoundingly unhelpful message. We're not going to randomly change our code and hope it passes validation. Why doesn't Amazon include the logcat output so we can see what the crash actually is?

As such, Wellburrito will not be available through Amazon for the foreseeable future.]]> https://blog.asgaard.co.uk/Wellburrito-mood-tracking-app Fri, 01 Jan 21 19:57:44 +0000 https://blog.asgaard.co.uk/Wellburrito-mood-tracking-app I'm very pleased that we have released the first public version of Wellburrito.

Wellburrito is more than just a mood tracking app, it's a full wellbeing app focusing on mood and custom metric tracking as well as cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) exercises.

Technically, Wellburrito is developed using the Ionic framework. Data is intentionally stored purely locally on the device, i.e. without a server, for the user's privacy. For this we use an SQLite database, which is optionally backed up to Google Drive on a regular schedule. Android does actually take care of restoring the database on app reinstallation through Google Play, as well, if the user has it enabled, via Android's auto-backup feature.

On the mid to long term roadmap is reducing dependency on things beyond our control that aren't really of the quality or flexibility we'd like. For example, we'd like to expand the reminders system such that users can interact directly with reminders. When a medication remi[...]]]> I'm very pleased that we have released the first public version of Wellburrito.

Wellburrito is more than just a mood tracking app, it's a full wellbeing app focusing on mood and custom metric tracking as well as cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) exercises.

Technically, Wellburrito is developed using the Ionic framework. Data is intentionally stored purely locally on the device, i.e. without a server, for the user's privacy. For this we use an SQLite database, which is optionally backed up to Google Drive on a regular schedule. Android does actually take care of restoring the database on app reinstallation through Google Play, as well, if the user has it enabled, via Android's auto-backup feature.

On the mid to long term roadmap is reducing dependency on things beyond our control that aren't really of the quality or flexibility we'd like. For example, we'd like to expand the reminders system such that users can interact directly with reminders. When a medication reminder comes up, we'd like to be able to press a little "Yes, I've taken it" button. When the mood journal reminder comes up, it'd be good if the user could select a mood within the reminder. Those things are currently not possible because the reminders library we're using doesn't support it. Unfortunately, getting the control we need means writing our own library.

Similarly, we'd like charts to better fit with the look and feel and branding of the app, but we've pushed the current charting solution to its boundaries.

There are a few little things like this which seem like relatively small features but require a large amount of work. We've pushed these back to a future version for the moment, in favour of getting something functional in front of users.

In terms of features, we'd also like to implement much deeper analysis. Currently we have superficial analysis and reporting of trends and correlations, but there is a lot more we could do with this. Again, this is a 'version 2' feature.

You can read more about the Wellburrito wellbeing, mood tracking and mindfulness app on the official page.

You can download the Wellburrito wellbeing app on Google Play.]]> https://blog.asgaard.co.uk/ionic-native Fri, 01 Jan 21 10:21:58 +0000 https://blog.asgaard.co.uk/ionic-native Ionic is a framework for developing mobile apps. I've completed a few successful projects using Ionic. I like Ionic. I think that as far as cross platform mobile development goes, Ionic is pretty good.

Ionic was built on Cordova, and has been gradually moving away from it with Capacitor. I like Capacitor better than Cordova. I think they've done a really good job.

Ionic Native is a set of Cordova plugins that they've provided a wrapper for. If you look at the list, it looks very impressive. If you try to use any of them, though, it's a toss up as to whether you end up with something production standard. Some of the plugins there shouldn't be on the list because they're just broken.

The Local Notification plugin is a good example of this. Currently, it's pointing at the underlying Cordova plugin version 0.9.0-beta2. At the time of writing, this is around three years old. The most recent version is 15 months old. So not only is the plugin not actively maintained, we'[...]]]> Ionic is a framework for developing mobile apps. I've completed a few successful projects using Ionic. I like Ionic. I think that as far as cross platform mobile development goes, Ionic is pretty good.

Ionic was built on Cordova, and has been gradually moving away from it with Capacitor. I like Capacitor better than Cordova. I think they've done a really good job.

Ionic Native is a set of Cordova plugins that they've provided a wrapper for. If you look at the list, it looks very impressive. If you try to use any of them, though, it's a toss up as to whether you end up with something production standard. Some of the plugins there shouldn't be on the list because they're just broken.

The Local Notification plugin is a good example of this. Currently, it's pointing at the underlying Cordova plugin version 0.9.0-beta2. At the time of writing, this is around three years old. The most recent version is 15 months old. So not only is the plugin not actively maintained, we're also out of date even by the plugin's standards.

Unfortunately it doesn't work very well on modern Android operating systems. Trying to schedule a repeating notification causes the plugin to go into an infinite loop until the OS steps in and kills it, so the workaround is to set a notification with a large 'count'. This causes very slow interaction with the notification in future, presumably because the operating system is dealing with a notification instance per count. This is something you can work around by scheduling, say, 100 days in advance and making sure your app reschedules when you're getting close to the end of the 100 days. You shouldn't have to do this, but it's an option.

However, there's a much more serious problem in that the plugin can't schedule notifications that persist past the device rebooting. There are a few use cases where this may be acceptable, but for a general notification system, this is a deal-breaking limitation that you don't find out about until testing (and physically testing notifications is tedious and error prone enough already).

Then there's the in app purchases plugin. The IAP plugin is bizarre. When dealing with subscriptions, there is no way of simply querying whether the user owns a subscription, because the 'owned' field isn't reliable. When the plugin starts up, a subscription goes through a variety of states, but always starts with owned = false. Maybe it reaches owned = true, maybe it doesn't. The point is that owned = false is never a useful piece of information because there's no guarantee it's correct. This means that there is no completely reliable way of determining whether a user's subscription has expired. You have to look at the subscription billing period and be aware of when it may have expired, and if you go a certain length of time with successful communication with the plugin but without seeing owned = true you then assume that it must have expired. This is absurd, and I would be extremely surprised if the underlying billing library exposes subscription information in this way.

Ionic should not be providing wrappers (and exposure) for these plugins unless they meet a certain standard. It's a waste of developers' time to attempt to use sub-standard plugins and will fuel a perception that it's difficult to achieve production quality software using Ionic.

Update: Another one - Ionic Native Audio doesn't work with Capacitor because it hard codes audio assets as existing within the www/ directory. In Capacitor, this directory has been named public/ so the plugin can't find any of your audio assets. Again, why is this being advertised by Ionic, with Capacitor instructions?

See also Ionic Native quality issues.]]>