As you may have noticed, I try to anonymize code before I post so that it cannot easily be traced back to any individual or company. When Jonathan Spalletta sent me some of the code that he came across while working at the world's number one auction website, I thought I might make an exception to the rule. After all, it is kind of interesting to see a piece of the inner workings of one of the top five websites. But I've decided to stick to my principles and conceal what company these snippets found on a single ASP page came from ... 

<% L_Title_text = "iBay Site Search : New to iBay?" %>
<title><% = L_Title_text %></title>

 

... note that this is Method 1 for commenting out ... 

<center><h2>Site Search</h2></center>
<% 'search form %>
<!-- <table width="100%" cellpadding="5" border="0"> -->
<!-- <table width=600 cellpadding="5" border="0"> -->
<table width="450" cellpadding="5" border="0">

 

... the iBay coders seem to really hate hard-coding text directly as HTML ... 

<% 
  if NoCatalogs = true then
    L_NoCatalogs_text = _
      "<p>No catalogs are available for searching. New catalogs " & _
      "may be propagating. Please wait 10 seconds and try again.</p>"
    Response.write "<p><b>" & L_NoCatalogs_text & "</b>"
  end if
%>

...

<font face="Verdana,Arial,sans-serif" style="font-size: 10pt">
  <% L_Find_text = " for documents containing"%> 
  <%=L_Find_text %>: 
</font>

 

... I should note that the following comment is not mine ... 

<% ' this is all crap %>
<% if Request("advanced") = "yes" then %> 
  <%  Response.write "<p>" %> 
<% end if %>

 

... here is Method 2 for commenting out ... 

<% 
  Response.write "<!-- <p> -->"
%>

 

... and finally, Method 3 ... 

<%         
' search image button
'<td valign="center"><input type="image" align="bottom" name="Search" 
' src="Images/SearchButton.gif" border="0" width="50" height="28"> 
' </td>
%>

 

... some try to solve the problem, others just write about it ... 

<% 
  ' this next <br> causes too much 
  ' whitespace when there is no query
  Response.write "<br>"
%>

 

... this last one was particularly interesting, especially considering that the page had nothing to do with OWA, Exchange, or anything but searching for auctions ... 

<% end if ' End of check for OWA messages. %>
<% end if ' End of check for first Exchange message. %>
<% ' End of Microsoft Exchange Public Folder Results Setup Section. %>