Coder Lee Yongho

It was the first time he heard of it. YongHo couldn’t believe that a person who is acknowledged by the company and someone who worked as an open source contributor was only a high school graduate.
“And it wasn’t like I developed programs in high school too. After graduating, I went to military service and that was 1999? I think. People said the most promising job was an IT programmer.”
YongHo quietly nodded while listening to An ByungHoon. An ByungHoon was answering his question by telling YongHo his own story. “And so, I decided, just like that. ‘Ah! I should become a programmer’. I searched and I found something like a government supported cram school.”
“Ah, it still exists.”
“Byte Education was famous.”
“I know that place too.”
“Really? Anyway, I graduated from that place and do you know what I heard when I first went to work?”
YongHo couldn’t even imagine. He didn’t even graduate university. He wouldn’t understand jargons that are used in the IT world. An ByungHoon continued speaking.
“Gov-zom.”
“Gov-zom?”
“Government-supported-zombie. It was a word that belittled the progammers who pa.s.sed through the government supported programme.”
“Oh……”
“And 2, 3 years pa.s.sed like that? When I got used to work and my ability for developing increased, they didn’t call me gov-zom anymore.”
“Well, you, manager, have really high ability.”
“What would a 2 or 3 year programmer know? I just copied what others were doing.”
“Yeah right. I heard from others but You were awesome in the past too.”
“Really? Anyway when I got rid of the gov-zom tag, a new tag was put on me. Do you know what it is?”
“……”
“Coder b.a.s.t.a.r.d.”
“Doesn’t coder and programmer mean the same thing?”
Developer, programmer, coder, software engineer. They were all words with similar meanings. But An ByungHoon was saying that coder had a different meaning.
“I got called coder b.a.s.t.a.r.d since I can only do coding.”
“There was someone who called YOU that?”
“There were many. Originally, I didn’t really set an aim or a direction I would go. I just set on this path because people told me it was promising. And I got greedy after a while. I did my best to not get disdained so here I am now.”
“……”
“It’s good to have an aim like DB developer, server developer or client developer early one but I think it isn’t bad to experience various things. After doing that for a while, you will naturally find something you find interest in and wouldn’t it be fine if you start digging deep then?”
After posing himself for a little bit, An ByungHoon spoke.
“Running and arriving at the goal isn’t everything.”
“I get what you mean.”
“You understand? As expected of YongHo. To understand the near 40 years of my life just by listening. Aren’t you amazing?”
“No I didn’t mean that……”
“Well! Let’s get to work!”
Perhaps An ByungHoon was embarra.s.sed but he stood up first.
“Wait for me!”
YongHo followed.

The excruciating integrated tests looked like it was finally going to end. From the unit tests to the integrated test, about one month had been spent. On people’s faces, a little hope that it will end could be seen. YongHo also thought that the integrated tests were the end.
“Is this the end?”
“You can say we have crossed over the first stop.”
“That means……”
“Yes. It isn’t over yet.”
The unit tests and the integrated test were tests that were held with in the developer company, so they needed to be checked by the QA team, an outsider.
“The QA team is in Seolleung so we usually have to go there, but because the project is quite big this time, they will probably come here.”
“I think the tests are more difficult compared to developing programs.”
“It is, it is difficult. There are engineers who specialize in doing tests.”
“Speak of the devil, but they sure don’t look like gentlemen.”
“Shh.”
A total of around 7 people were coming. There was a variety of people. Very fat, thin as an anchovy, and normal sized.

YongHo was now doing a whole person’s worth of work. No, he was doing more than that. The proof was that he was facing a person in charge from the QA team.
“This doesn’t make sense.’
“Which part are you saying doesn’t make sense……”
“It’s strange that there is not a single error. There wasn’t a case where there weren’t any bugs at all.”
They finished testing all the test cases. The person in charge of YongHo from the QA team tilted his head.
“Let’s have a drink outside.”
On other teams, instead of the person from the QA team, the developers were the ones tilting their heads and murmuring.
“Why is this suddenly not working?”

YongHo asked the person in charge of testing, who looked similar to him in age, while handing him a drink.
“If you are from the QA team, are you from KO Telecom?”
“Oh, we are also an outsourcing company.”
“……”
“If an error occurs after the test, we have to take responsibility. So everyone is trying really hard on the tests.”
“How’s work?”
“Well, I just do it. I think there’s less overtime compared to others though.”
“Is the pay good?”
“They pay is well… I’ll have to get a license related to testing and enter a famous company.”
“To say there’s no overtime work… I’m so envious of that. We have overtime work every single day.”
“But then, don’t you get payed a lot?”
“I don’t know. I never received any pay for overtime work or any other extra work.”
“Nothing’s easy, huh?”
10 minutes pa.s.sed by quickly as they were talking. YongHo and the person from QA team hurried inside.

A flood of bugs.
Even after unit tests and integrated tests, after the  QA team had a look, there were bugs that could fill many pages of A4 paper. YongHo was getting tired too. Since he finished his, he was looking at other people’s sources.
Perhaps YongHo was rumored to be really good but work kept finding its way over to him. However, his income was still 880000won as always.
“Who the h.e.l.l made bugs like this?”
YongHo, who had the bug window, couldn’t understand at all. How does a person make a program that even after one month of testing has pa.s.sed, there’s still errors.
Bugs that flooded out like mad. And the overtime work and the weekend work because of that. Moreover, after all that happened, what was increasing was not his salary but his fatigue. YongHo became sensitive.
“Sunbae.”
“Why.”
“Be quiet a bit.”
“What.”
HyeJin looked around and gave him a hinting glance. YongHo who understood the signal pretended to ma.s.sage his shoulders and neck while looking around.
A few people were staring at YongHo. They seemed to be saying ‘are you that good?’. He forgot why Kim WonHo was hostile to him while he lived with An ByungHoon.

Translator’s note

Regular chapter 4/4 for last week

Sorry about the mix up…. Next chapter will be uploaded ASAP

Thx for reading!

Translator : Chamber
Proofreader : Maled