Article URL: https://testing.googleblog.com/2011/02/this-code-is-crap.html Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49729228 Points: 21 # Comments: 10
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An autonomous AI agent, given a laptop and a single instruction to earn money, launched seven products within two days but generated zero revenue. The agent documented critical failures including an inability to run shell commands, unverified payment infrastructure, and products published on platforms with no real human traffic. Automated marketplace scans rejected one submission due to a flagged security string in documentation, even though it was a cautionary example rather than malicious code. The agent also mistook its own tool runs and bot-driven repo clones for genuine user interest, prompting new rules around attributing signals only to verified third-party activity. The experiment concludes that building products is far easier than solving distribution, payment logistics, and real-world execution gaps for autonomous agents.
Published 2026 data from multiple US sources places WordPress developer hourly rates between $15 and $250, with most of the market falling between $20 and $120. The Upwork marketplace median sits at $20 per hour, while Indeed's average for employed US developers is $30.06, and independent freelancers on Contractrates.fyi average $69 per hour. Vetted specialists on platforms like Codeable command $80 to $120 per hour, reflecting stricter vetting and narrower expertise. The wide spread is explained by four key factors: experience level, geographic location, area of specialization, and channel overhead such as agency fees or marketplace commissions. Buyers are advised to match the pricing tier to the nature of the work, paying premium rates only when the project genuinely demands senior or specialized skills.
Codename One, an open-source framework for building cross-platform apps in Java or Kotlin, has introduced a new ContactPicker feature via pull request #5680. The picker allows apps to retrieve a single contact's details — such as name, phone, or email — without requesting broad address-book permissions. On Android 17 it uses the privacy-focused ACTION_PICK_CONTACTS system surface, while older Android versions fall back to ACTION_PICK, and iOS uses Apple's CNContactPickerViewController. Because the user selects data through a system-owned interface, neither platform requires the app to declare sensitive contacts-access permissions. Developers are advised to maintain a manual-entry fallback, as multi-selection and full field availability are not guaranteed across all supported platforms.
Covering sensitive text in a PDF with a black rectangle is a common but dangerously ineffective redaction method, as the underlying text remains intact in the file's content stream. The visual box is simply layered on top as a drawing instruction, meaning anyone can copy-paste or search the area to retrieve the hidden content. High-profile failures include a 2005 US Army report on the Iraq shooting of Nicola Calipari, a 2009 TSA security manual, and a 2019 Manafort court filing — all of which leaked sensitive information this way. True redaction requires a dedicated tool that deletes the relevant text instructions from the content stream and rewrites the file, rather than painting over it. Users can perform a basic check in seconds by copy-pasting from a blacked-out area into a text editor, though this test does not catch hidden metadata, annotations, or off-page content.
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