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A lot of times I would have just liked to have handed them one of my personal libraries to show that I actually know what I am doing. I do understand the problem with that, they actually cannot know if you were the one who wrote it. Although, if they seen it and were willing to talk about it, they would know instantly who the author was.
About 20 years ago I spent some time fixing and then playing around with a program that I had found on a bulletin board. It was a lot of fun, but I never would have claimed to have created the original.
A couple of weeks latter, a young man comes in for a job interview and he decides it would be a good idea to show us a program he had written. In less than 30 seconds I got up and fired up the same program on my machine. I think the actual code had originally been written before he was born (I could be wrong). Suffice it to say, he did not get the job. 
INTP
"Program testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to show their absence." - Edsger Dijkstra
"I have never been lost, but I will admit to being confused for several weeks. " - Daniel Boone
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As a Dutch saying goes: Quote: Beter goed gejat dan slecht bedacht
(Better stolen than badly conceived)
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I can't remember a situation in person like the one you are describing.
But I was fooled once the other way around.
I was a team member in a project for a very difficult customer. During the time at their facilities short before the acceptance meeting, one of them came to my place and did some things in the machine triggering a blockade.
I needed to debug online to find out what the problem was and he started "this is not acceptable", "there must be always a way to go out or at least do a reset in the SCADA GUI" and "blah blah blah"...
I knew it was not my error (we had to build up from a basis that they gave us), but theoretically we were hired to deliver a running line so I had a solution a couple of hours later. He tried to repeat the blockade but he couldn't and went away...
A couple of days later I randomly found out that the problem of the blockade had happened to another worker of theirs during the installation of a line in another country. So he triggered it in my station and when I fixed it, he set my solution in a patch that got distributed worldwide.
My boss tried to get some money out of that, but he couldn't.
What pissed the ![Elephant | [mastadon]](https://codeproject.freetls.fastly.net/script/Forums/Images/elephant.gif) out of me is that I confronted that [censored] and he didn't even apologize or thanked me.
But... I got the respect of all other workers in the customer's automation department. And two of them even came to me to thank me for the patch and to apologize for what that bugger did to me and told that the guy was pretty hated by almost everyone that had the bad luck to work with him.
Quote: Have you ever seen someone claim other peoples code?
But this? Yes, at least once a week or several times per month...
if you knew how many plagiarists try it here in the site and get blocked in the S&A Watch[^]...
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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Ah! The old still the credit for someone elses work ploy. I've ran into that I few times. My reaction, whether it happened to me or one of my colleges, was to go over their head an tell them who actually solved the issue. The worst they could do is fire me, and that is something I never worried about. If they did that, then it would not be a company I wanted to work for anyway.
INTP
"Program testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to show their absence." - Edsger Dijkstra
"I have never been lost, but I will admit to being confused for several weeks. " - Daniel Boone
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Neither do I fear to get fired.
And they actually did know who did the patch.
I was tempted to say "goodbye guys, I go home" but I didn't want to abandon the rest of the team just like that.
In projects were I was alone, I had more liberty for such acts.
I did once walked out from a facility because a mid-low manager was pissing me off, but they called me to please come back before I reached the car.
M.D.V.
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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Check out the regular reports of plagiarism in the Spam & Abuse forum. 
I once had it the other way round - I posted a solution on StackOverflow based on a solution I had previously posted in response to a similar question here. Someone then posted another solution on the SO thread, copying my original solution from here, and accusing me of plagiarising my answer from myself. 
"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."
- Homer
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An ex co-worker wrote his LinkedIn profile in such a way that made it sound like he almost singlehandedly wrote all the software when he actually barely worked on some of the projects.
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I used to do a lot of tech interviews -- I'd receive resumes where the candidate appeared to have done everything on a project, using a wide range of in-demand technologies. During the interview I'd figure out he had done a trivial part and didn't understand most of the technologies involved, much less use them.
This taught me about reading resumes. These resumes typically stated the technologies used in the project but did not specifically claim the candidate worked with them. Technically, these guys didn't lie, but anyone reading the resume quickly would assume wrongly.
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[this is 40 years ago but ...]
I was coding for a graph plotter (physical pens pushed left / right by server motors, on long rolls of paper driven forwards / backwards on a roller) using a 'backend' driver. The driver was very buggy but we had been sent the source code. I fixed loads of bugs, made some sections more efficient, and added missing features. I then sent it to the supplier as a kind of issues / bug report. There was no acknowledgement from them; but later they issued a new release which only consisted of my fixes (with minor source code layout changes). I do not know whether we were charged for the upgrade or not.
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Well what do you know. An original hacker. That is were the term came from, MIT students (I think) modifying the original code that was supplied with the equipment, a printer as a matter of fact. They would make improvements and send them back to the company. The company would use them in the next release. Latter on the company changed there policy to closed source, so sad. 
INTP
"Program testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to show their absence." - Edsger Dijkstra
"I have never been lost, but I will admit to being confused for several weeks. " - Daniel Boone
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I was working for a company where the team lead was very close to the manager. I made a fix to some of his code and got in trouble because of it. It turned out that he had seen my fix and then had gone to the manager and proposed my fix as his solution to the issue. When I later reported my fix in the weekly reports, I was censured for claiming his work as my own! I had only been with the company a short while whereas he had been there for years - therefore...
I left as soon as I could.
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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Can't blame you, who would want to work with people like that.
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This is among the reasons I like version control. It helps keep people honest. Or it keeps them busy trying to get around revision control ...
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I once had to write an interface for a PLC I had never worked with. Their docs had a sample to read from it but nothing on how to write to it. I figured out how to do it and the company's rep asked me to send him the code. Imagine my surprise when the next revision of their documentation included MY code as a sample of how to write to it. Of course, there was no acknowledgement what so ever.
"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"
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Rick York wrote: included MY code as a sample of how to write to it. Of course, there was no acknowledgement what so ever.
And that's what it annoys me most... damn... saying thank you and giving a note of "written by XXX" is not that much energy wasted.
M.D.V. 
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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I forgot to mention the REALLY annoying part - they removed my "written by" note in the code. That really chapped my backside.
"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"
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I had developed some novel aircraft telemetry monitoring analysis code for my current employer - who did not pay well and my manager treated me like a second class citizen because I impressed his manager with my working code. Anyway, that's another story. Needless to say I was looking for another job to escape to.
I went for an interview with another company doing similar work on helicopters, not a direct rival. I spent all day there meeting managers and engineers who all treated me with respect and friendly professionalism. They went into great detail about how they did their telemetry work. They bought me lunch at their canteen and talked a lot about what I had developed. A few of the questions were along the lines of, "We have a problem doing X, how would you solve it?" This was a great bragging opportunity for me as I was a young programmer who hadn't ever been treated this well in my current position. After lunch one of their engineers came up with some follow-up questions, based on my answers earlier. They then asked if I could meet with more of their people tomorrow and offered to put me up at hotel overnight. I realized they weren't interviewing me, they were picking my brains on how to solve issues they had - I was being used as an unpaid consultant (not counting lunch and hotel expenses). I was quite shocked as they had appeared to be a large, reputable company.
At this point, I had been there over six hours and, as the technical questions got very specific, I said I couldn't say any more due to confidentiality and security restrictions. They immediately wrapped up the questioning and started talking about when I could start and hinting at how much they would pay me, even offering some minimal relocation expenses. It turns out they paid as poorly as my current employer and the relocation expenses was an advance on my salary which I would have to pay back over a year. I made excuses about catching the last train (I actually drove down) and made an exit. A random guy working in the office was assigned to escort me off site and I chatted with him. He quite openly referred to the company as interesting to work for when things went well for but a "skinflint" operation who often fired people who complained too much and that things hadn't been going well recently.
I obviously didn't take the job and, in less than a year, the company went bankrupt and were bought out by a foreign rival. Maybe I could have saved them with my technical knowledge and amazing code skills, but probably not.
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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I am not surprised. Although I have never experienced that myself.
One time I did have access to another companies internal code (with NDA of course), to help me develop a means of communicating with it. Their code was actually very well written. I did a code review and found a few bugs that they were unaware of. Their lead engineer was surprise and happy that I found them and thanked me publicly via their company email w/CC's. It is always nice to get credit from strangers that you have never actually met.
INTP
"Program testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to show their absence." - Edsger Dijkstra
"I have never been lost, but I will admit to being confused for several weeks. " - Daniel Boone
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No but I have had someone claim my entire job, I had a contract with Dell Australia leading a small team of 4, a year after the contract finished successfully I happened across the junior devs linkedin profile where he claimed he was the lead developer on the project.
I let him live as he had moved to the US and was concentrating on sharepoint, which he was welcome to.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity -
RAH
I'm old. I know stuff - JSOP
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30 years ago, I once sat down an wrote a flat DB style coding library. I did not stop or sleep for three days (72+ hours). When it was finished, and fully tested, I finally crashed. It took me another 3 or 4 days to fully recover from that incident. Being occasionally obsessive compulsive does have it draw backs.
I have not and do not ever intend to break that record. 
INTP
"Program testing can be used to show the presence of bugs, but never to show their absence." - Edsger Dijkstra
"I have never been lost, but I will admit to being confused for several weeks. " - Daniel Boone
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Drift into work around the usual 9:15, pull an all-nighter while in the zone, and leave early the next day, so maybe 31 hours. But it happened several times.
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Any Student: I once coded for three minutes straight!
Then I headed for QA ...
And they count "opening VS and staring blankly at the homework question" as "coding". 
Me? I'm not sure: I remember one whole-weekend session, so that would have been Friday, Saturday, and Sunday and then some of Monday - about 60 hours?
I don't do those any more!
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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All at once without a "break"?
Coming at or 07:00 or 07:15 am and leaving at 03:30 am
Considering a block over more than a day?
A week with 93 work hours.
John R. Shaw wrote: I have not and do not ever intend to break that record.
Same here... I do not have any intention of trying to get even close to those two "records"
M.D.V.
If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.
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I have successfully blocked them out in hopes of never repeating them.
"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"
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