Comment On (Unknown)

Maybe there is a reason it only supports around 900 operators? Maybe this is something the original developer(s) put in place to ensure the system would get replaced when it would grow beyond it's specification.

I'm not defending this though.

Yes, it is awful. Suggest using 1000, but it must be between 101 and 999.

WTF indeed.

I suggest you violate my arbitrary constraints.

The lower bound is 101, so I'm guessing it's to do with fixed length fields? So it only has 3 characters, and will only have 3 characters. Perhaps it's using string operations and fixed width fields...

Still, it's a "wtf"

Nice to see that fidelity just doesn't get it here (Europe) nor there. Here, you can't create, modify or change savings plans, the "current" value of funds as displayed in the account information is usually several hours behind the official funds page at Fidelity, you can't search for investment funds unless you know their name exactly ... but then, they're cheaper then others. Probably because they're not spending too much on IT.

And yet, it looks like the number entered at the time of the first error message was already 1000.

laser:

The lower bound is 101, so I'm guessing it's to do with fixed length fields? So it only has 3 characters, and will only have 3 characters. Perhaps it's using string operations and fixed width fields...

Then why didn't it also support 100?

He did try using 1000, before the suggestion (look at the text field). Unless that's 1888, or 1999, or 1009, or etc.

Well I guess the system is dealing with imaginary numbers? I mean theoretically thats possible, since the square root of -1 exists in imaginary.

Feeling rejected... there was only 2 error'd systems today... instead of the usual 3.

I wonder if the Fidelity site had any JS errors? This would be the one time in IE that the error message might actually be correct!

Error: "Unknown is not defined"
File: Base page, not the JS file with the issue
Line: What line # would you like? return.random( guess, true );

I suggest the programmer has limited the operators id's to a maximum of 999. Maybe he thought this would be enough for the lifetime of this program.

And because he was a very dedicated programmer, he even made a feature which offers the next free id.
999 + 1 => 1000.
The failure he made was not to check whether the new id is in the allowed range.

el jaybird:

Please add me to the Fidelity mailing list. My contact information is:

Unknown Unknown
Unknown Unknown Unknown
Unknown, Unknown
Unknown

You can guess my phone number...

(NaN) 555-NaN?

they probably have it check for encoding for other languages (duh)...this is what happens when you accommodate a bi-lingual society. </politicalrant>

el jaybird:

Please add me to the Fidelity mailing list. My contact information is:

Unknown Unknown
Unknown Unknown Unknown
Unknown, Unknown
Unknown

You can guess my phone number...

file_not_found;

JLuc:

I know at least one investment company that's ditching their J2EE portfolio manager software and rewriting in Rails.

So the *real* WTF then is Rails.

PS>Yes, this is a trolling piece of flamebait. If you respond, you have been trolled. Have a nice day. :-)

MadJo@Work:

laser:

The lower bound is 101, so I'm guessing it's to do with fixed length fields? So it only has 3 characters, and will only have 3 characters. Perhaps it's using string operations and fixed width fields...

Then why didn't it also support 100?

#define FILE_NOT_FOUND 100

The real WTF is they hired an ERP consultant...

vt_mruhlin:

Yeah, J2EE was just a fad. Rails is here to stay though.

I was about to make a snyde comment about Rails, but then I saw who made the comment, and realized they were kidding, so instead I say the following:

lol

y0:

this is what happens when you accommodate a bi-lingual society. </politicalrant>

No, this is what happens when your developers are retards.

That suggestion only works the first time.
Then, the next time, when 1000 is no longer unique you need to try 1001, 1002, and so on...

This does not overshadow the root WTF, though.

Was anyone else trying to work out why the third image was a WTF before they realised it was actually an advert?

Timb:

Was anyone else trying to work out why the third image was a WTF before they realised it was actually an advert?

Nope, because this site doesn't have any ads -- AdBlock Plus FTW! :P

So is the WTF that you can only add operators who are clearly Asian?

The best part in the first screenshot is:

Tip: (unknown)

hehe

ParkinT:

That suggestion only works the first time.
Then, the next time, when 1000 is no longer unique you need to try 1001, 1002, and so on...

This does not overshadow the root WTF, though.

How do you know it's hard coded to be 1000? It could just easily be the next available as some poster had suggested or even some random number between m...n. Not that this excuses the WTF, just sayin'

i like how it has been a known issue "for a while."
Not long ago I bought a new computer. I tried to log onto my back account. But since it was a new computer, it didn't remember my id, and neither did I. So I went into the page that allows me to request my ID. Filled out a bunch of verification stuff (name of dog, etc) and then I got a message to the effect of "Temporarily out of Service"
I tried this every day for a couple of weeks before I finally called the bank. Sure enough I was using the wrong id (remembered the password, but not the ID.)
I asked him why the "send me my ID" on the website wasn't working. He responded with "I've been here for just over two years, and I don't think I've ever seen that work!"

Does it begin with 555?

The real WTF is that the second image seems to be shown in less than 16-bit colour. Who does this?

Captcha: (Unknown)

el jaybird:

Please add me to the Fidelity mailing list. My contact information is:

Unknown Unknown
Unknown Unknown Unknown
Unknown, Unknown
Unknown

You can guess my phone number...

NaN - NaN - NaN0

CAPTCHA: letatio -- we're using lorem ipsum for captchas now?

JLuc:

Some of the worst were projects involving big (usually quasi-governmental) organizations that had way too much budget and time for what they were trying to do.

Funny you should mention that.
I work for one such government institution... Over the past 4 or so years, they have been throwing tens of millions at a large corporation for a web content filtering, email and portal system.
Needless to say, it doesn't work, is insecure, slow and very frustrating. The department said no employee would have an increased workload, but many of us do. And to top it off, the contract is being renewed and the large corporation is getting a few more millions for "maintaining" this "system".

el jaybird:

You can guess my phone number...

865 6696 ?

At least it was decent enough to convert NULL to "unknown"....

But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know.
- Donald Rumsfeld

Again, not really a WTF. The (Unknown) thing is obviously a localisation system to present the appropriate language depending on the settings of the OS.

Yes, it's daft that they didn't use an English or French language variant to fill in the default labels rather than the '(Unknown)' string, but, it's hardly worth a mention here.

Honestly people: a WTF-worthy error should be about awful design rather than typos, minor bugs and default values.

vt_mruhlin:

JLuc:

Or, maybe the whole clever thing is written in J2EE ;-) I know at least one investment company that's ditching their J2EE portfolio manager software and rewriting in Rails.

Yeah, J2EE was just a fad. Rails is here to stay though.

YES! Flame on!

By which I mean - I laughed.

I wonder how efficient the combo box for 'birthdate' would be.

Does it load every valid day for the last 100 years?

Chuckle. Sure it is.

And 640k is as much memory as anyone could ever need ...

It was the grave marked Unknown next to Arch Stanton.

JLuc:

>Probably because they're not spending too much on IT.

Quite possibly, the exact opposite. As an ERP consultant, some of the best projects I've been on were projects where time, money and staffing was tight and something needed to get out the door fast.

Some of the worst were projects involving big (usually quasi-governmental) organizations that had way too much budget and time for what they were trying to do.

Or, maybe the whole clever thing is written in J2EE ;-) I know at least one investment company that's ditching their J2EE portfolio manager software and rewriting in Rails.

Ah, nothing like throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

But, I've read that Rails makes it impossible to write shit code. And that Rails programmers are THE BEST IN THE WORLD!

Ooh look, spam that broke the CAPTCHA.

I had one that told me to enter a number between 0 and 0 (and entering 0 was not ok.)

vt_mruhlin:

JLuc:

Or, maybe the whole clever thing is written in J2EE ;-) I know at least one investment company that's ditching their J2EE portfolio manager software and rewriting in Rails.

Yeah, J2EE was just a fad. Rails is here to stay though.

I think calling J2EE a 'fad' is a bit rich when the majority of enterprise apps are J2EE-based. You can call it crap, cumbersome, outdated, etc. but hardly a fad.

Now Ruby / Rails, that *could* be called a fad since there's currently a handful of Rails implementations out there - time will tell.

I just spent a couple of minutes trying to find what was wrong with the Nike trainers advert, until I realised it was actually a proper advert.

It is Monday though, still quite early in the week. :E

Zock:

el jaybird:

You can guess my phone number...

865 6696 ?

867-5309

Pete:

Again, not really a WTF. The (Unknown) thing is obviously a localisation system to present the appropriate language depending on the settings of the OS.
Re: http://thedailywtf.com/Articles/Price-in-Nonsense.aspx - Pete, welcome back!
Yes, it's daft that they didn't use an English or French language variant to fill in the default labels rather than the '(Unknown)' string, but, it's hardly worth a mention here.

Honestly people: a WTF-worthy error should be about awful design rather than typos, minor bugs and default values.

What part of: "...customer service rep explained that this has been a 'known issue' with their software for a while." ISN'T a WTF?

MadJo@Work:

laser:

The lower bound is 101, so I'm guessing it's to do with fixed length fields? So it only has 3 characters, and will only have 3 characters. Perhaps it's using string operations and fixed width fields...

Then why didn't it also support 100?

They do, it sais: "(...) between 101 and 999 inclusive."

vt_mruhlin:

JLuc:

Or, maybe the whole clever thing is written in J2EE ;-) I know at least one investment company that's ditching their J2EE portfolio manager software and rewriting in Rails.

Yeah, J2EE was just a fad. Rails is here to stay though.

Do you realize how bad it feels to squirt hot coffee out of your nose?

I suspect he was tongue-in-cheeking. I was, kinda. But I wish I coulda seen ya snort coffee ;-)

FWIW, one problem with the portfolio rewrite is that they don't find any Rails developers that know how to work with corporate back-end software. They're all mostly web 2.0 folks. Note also that Rails is doing the web front-end only, not the whole stack. I don't know Rails, just Python so I had to give this a pass, but it was a dream opportunity otherwise.