Hahaha! Good lord. First I push for a DEBUGGER. Second I demand they test their backups. An untested backup is just a delightful wish.
After months of push back for those two and I've made myself a hateful person to all involved I ask for ALL code to go into repos. Often there is a bunch of "Oh, my code doesn't need to go in, for reasons." No FUCKING NO, your code needs to go into a repo and needs reviewing.
The boss needs all passwords. Okay, not your personal passwords, but if you're not in and you're sys-admin, we need to get into the f-ing box. You can not be the only person with a login. Create more users, give those users permissions. So many companies have one guy/gall who has access to some critical part of the puzzle and no one else knows how to even log into it, let alone all the hacky scripts that are needed to push a change live.
Automatic testing. We almost got there in one company. So close... until one day they ran out of money. We found that an SQL statement wasn't coded right and we hadn't billed 50% of our customers. Ever. No a dime. Not a cent. Accounts never realised. Even in the early days when they only had ten or so customers. The billing record shows they only sent four bills out. Come on people.
After months of push back for those two and I've made myself a hateful person to all involved I ask for ALL code to go into repos. Often there is a bunch of "Oh, my code doesn't need to go in, for reasons." No FUCKING NO, your code needs to go into a repo and needs reviewing.
The boss needs all passwords. Okay, not your personal passwords, but if you're not in and you're sys-admin, we need to get into the f-ing box. You can not be the only person with a login. Create more users, give those users permissions. So many companies have one guy/gall who has access to some critical part of the puzzle and no one else knows how to even log into it, let alone all the hacky scripts that are needed to push a change live.
Automatic testing. We almost got there in one company. So close... until one day they ran out of money. We found that an SQL statement wasn't coded right and we hadn't billed 50% of our customers. Ever. No a dime. Not a cent. Accounts never realised. Even in the early days when they only had ten or so customers. The billing record shows they only sent four bills out. Come on people.