Comment On Classic WTF: Now That is a Way to do States

Although I've taken the rest of the year off, I wanted to share a few fun classics this week. "Now That is a Way to do States" was originally published on 2005-01-31, and amazingly, no one has submitted a worse way to "do states" to this day...

It's hard to believe, but a good seven months ago, I honestly thought that using an autonumber as the primary key (instead of OH, NY, etc) was a bad way of implementing a States table in a database. Of course, thanks to everyone who's submitted things over the months (you guys rock, by the way), tblState would simply have been tossed in the "not using best-practices" category. But I think we can all agree that this state-handling routine from Kurt Payne would definitely fit in the Whisky Tango Foxtrot category ...

while ($AppSub <= $#FILE)
{
 $AppLine = @FILE[$AppSub];
 @data = split(/\|/, $AppLine);
 $AppDisplayName = @data[0];
 
 # Look for the Quick App record
 if ($AppDisplayName eq "Contact Us Form")
 {
   # Now read the 55 records
   $AppTitle = @data[0];
   $AppProg = @data[1];
   $AppSuccess = @data[2];
   $AppEmail = @data[3];
   $Alabama = @data[4];
   $Alaska = @data[5];
   $Arizona = @data[6];
   $Arkansas = @data[7];
   $California = @data[8];
   $Colorado = @data[9];
   $Connecticut = @data[10];
   $Delaware = @data[11];
   $DC = @data[12];
   $Florida = @data[13];
   $Georgia = @data[14];
   $Hawaii = @data[15];
   $Idaho = @data[16];
   $Illinois = @data[17];
   $Indiana = @data[18];
   $Iowa = @data[19];
   $Kansas = @data[20];
   $Kentucky = @data[21];
   $Louisiana = @data[22];
   $Maine = @data[23];
   $Maryland = @data[24];
   $Massachusetts = @data[25];
   $Michigan = @data[26];
   $Minnesota = @data[27];
   $Mississippi = @data[28];
   $Missouri = @data[29];
   $Montana = @data[30];
   $Nebraska = @data[31];
   $Nevada = @data[32];
   $NewHampshire = @data[33];
   $NewJersey = @data[34];
   $NewMexico = @data[35];
   $NewYork = @data[36];
   $NorthCarolina = @data[37];
   $NorthDakota = @data[38];
   $Ohio = @data[39];
   $Oklahoma = @data[40];
   $Oregon = @data[41];
   $Pennsylvania = @data[42];
   $RhodeIsland = @data[43];
   $SouthCarolina = @data[44];
   $SouthDakota = @data[45];
   $Tennessee = @data[46];
   $Texas = @data[47];
   $Utah = @data[48];
   $Vermont = @data[49];
   $Virginia = @data[50];
   $Washington = @data[51];
   $WestVirginia = @data[52];
   $Wisconsin = @data[53];
   $Wyoming = @data[54];
 }
 $AppSub++;
}
#ED: and later on in the code ...

print HTML "State: <select name=\"Property_State\" size=\"1\">\n";
print HTML "<option value=\"\"> </option> \n";
if ($Alabama eq "1")
{
   print HTML "<option value=\"Alabama\">Alabama</option> \n";
}
if ($Alaska eq "1")
{
  print HTML "<option value=\"Alaska\">Alaska</option> \n";
}
if ($Arizona eq "1")
{
  print HTML "<option value=\"Arizona\">Arizona</option> \n";
}
if ($Arkansas eq "1")
{
  print HTML "<option value=\"Arkansas\">Arkansas</option> \n";
}
if ($California eq "1")
{
  print HTML "<option value=\"California\">California</option> \n";
}
if ($Colorado eq "1")
{
  print HTML "<option value=\"Colorado\">Colorado</option> \n";
}
if ($Connecticut eq "1")
{
  print HTML "<option value=\"Connecticut\">Connecticut</option> \n";
}
if ($Delaware eq "1")
{
  print HTML "<option value=\"Delaware\">Delaware</option> \n";
}
if ($DC eq "1")
{
  print HTML "<option value=\"District of Columbia\">District of Columbia</option> \n";
}
if ($Florida eq "1")
{
  print HTML "<option value=\"Florida\">Florida</option> \n";
}
if ($Georgia eq "1")
{
  print HTML "<option value=\"Georgia\">Georgia</option> \n";
}
if ($Hawaii eq "1")
{
  print HTML "<option value=\"Hawaii\">Hawaii</option> \n";
}
if ($Idaho eq "1")
{
  print HTML "<option value=\"Idaho\">Idaho</option> \n";
}
if ($Illinois eq "1")
{
  print HTML "<option value=\"Illinois\">Illinois</option> \n";
}
if ($Indiana eq "1")
{
  print HTML "<option value=\"Indiana\">Indiana</option> \n";
}
if ($Iowa eq "1")
{
  print HTML "<option value=\"Iowa\">Iowa</option> \n";
}
if ($Kansas eq "1")
{
  print HTML "<option value=\"Kansas\">Kansas</option> \n";
}
if ($Kentucky eq "1")
{
  print HTML "<option value=\"Kentucky\">Kentucky</option> \n";
}
if ($Louisiana eq "1")
{
  print HTML "<option value=\"Louisiana\">Louisiana</option> \n";
}
if ($Maine eq "1")
{
  print HTML "<option value=\"Maine\">Maine</option> \n";
}
if ($Maryland eq "1")
{
  print HTML "<option value=\"Maryland\">Maryland</option> \n";
}
if ($Massachusetts eq "1")
{
  print HTML "<option value=\"Massachusetts\">Massachusetts</option> \n";
}
if ($Michigan eq "1")
{
  print HTML "<option value=\"Michigan\">Michigan</option> \n";
}
if ($Minnesota eq "1")
{
  print HTML "<option value=\"Minnesota\">Minnesota</option> \n";
}
if ($Mississippi eq "1")
{
  print HTML "<option value=\"Mississippi\">Mississippi</option> \n";
}
if ($Missouri eq "1")
{
  print HTML "<option value=\"Missouri\">Missouri</option> \n";
}
if ($Montana eq "1")
{
  print HTML "<option value=\"Montana\">Montana</option> \n";
}
if ($Nebraska eq "1")
{
  print HTML "<option value=\"Nebraska\">Nebraska</option> \n";
}
if ($Nevada eq "1")
{
  print HTML "<option value=\"Nevada\">Nevada</option> \n";
}
if ($NewHampshire eq "1")
{
  print HTML "<option value=\"New Hampshire\">New Hampshire</option> \n";
}
if ($NewJersey eq "1")
{
  print HTML "<option value=\"New Jersey\">New Jersey</option> \n";
}
if ($NewMexico eq "1")
{
  print HTML "<option value=\"New Mexico\">New Mexico</option> \n";
}
if ($NewYork eq "1")
{
  print HTML "<option value=\"New York\">New York</option> \n";
}
if ($NorthCarolina eq "1")
{
  print HTML "<option value=\"North Carolina\">North Carolina</option> \n";
}
if ($NorthDakota eq "1")
{
  print HTML "<option value=\"North Dakota\">North Dakota</option> \n";
}
if ($Ohio eq "1")
{
  print HTML "<option value=\"Ohio\">Ohio</option> \n";
}
if ($Oklahoma eq "1")
{
  print HTML "<option value=\"Oklahoma\">Oklahoma</option> \n";
}
if ($Oregon eq "1")
{
  print HTML "<option value=\"Oregon\">Oregon</option> \n";
}
if ($Pennsylvania eq "1")
{
  print HTML "<option value=\"Pennsylvania\">Pennsylvania</option> \n";
}
if ($RhodeIsland eq "1")
{
  print HTML "<option value=\"Rhode Island\">Rhode Island</option> \n";
}
if ($SouthCarolina eq "1")
{
  print HTML "<option value=\"South Carolina\">South Carolina</option> \n";
}
if ($SouthDakota eq "1")
{
  print HTML "<option value=\"South Dakota\">South Dakota</option> \n";
}
if ($Tennessee eq "1")
{
  print HTML "<option value=\"Tennessee\">Tennessee</option> \n";
}
if ($Texas eq "1")
{
  print HTML "<option value=\"Texas\">Texas</option> \n";
}
if ($Utah eq "1")
{
  print HTML "<option value=\"Utah\">Utah</option> \n";
}
if ($Vermont eq "1")
{
  print HTML "<option value=\"Vermont\">Vermont</option> \n";
}
if ($Virginia eq "1")
{
  print HTML "<option value=\"Virginia\">Virginia</option> \n";
}
if ($Washington eq "1")
{
  print HTML "<option value=\"Washington\">Washington</option> \n";
}
if ($WestVirginia eq "1")
{
  print HTML "<option value=\"West Virginia\">West Virginia</option> \n";
}
if ($Wisconsin eq "1")
{
  print HTML "<option value=\"Wisconsin\">Wisconsin</option> \n";
}
if ($Wyoming eq "1")
{
  print HTML "<option value=\"Wyoming\">Wyoming</option> \n";
}
print HTML "</select> \n";